RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #5 (Tim Duncan)

[AEnigma]

Unibro hates pleonasms.

Wilt’s professionalism is a notable positive compared to someone like Shaq, and in the absence of a truly brilliant basketball mind, I lean toward adhering to coach recommendations. Still, there is a balance between envisioning the ideal form of a player and looking at what they demonstrably contributed. I think Wilt had the ability to go well beyond Shaq, but my understanding of the project revolves more around whether he did.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I have been a fan of Tim Duncan from the very beginning. In fact, early Duncan is still my favorite Duncan. In those days, as a teenager in the late 90s and early 00s, I was what you might've called a Laker Hater. I always rooted for Duncan and the Spurs in those playoff matchups with Shaq/Kobe. With time and maturation, I no longer feel of any of the malice I once did towards those Lakers teams, and I am still a fan of Tim Duncan. All of this is to say that what I am about to argue does not come from a place of heavy personal bias.

It is my opinion that this board overrates Tim Duncan just a little bit. By that I mean, I think he is a lower-half-of-the-top-ten guy, while it seems a number of you think he is a upper-half-of-the-top-ten guy.

I've been looking specifically at the Shaq/Duncan question, because I think we aren't talking about Shaq enough in this thread..

Longevity

I want to first address the longevity issue. Seeing as they both played nineteen years, I think Shaq's longevity hit(i.e. the extent to which he declined towards the end) is, while not inaccurate, overstated, while I also believe there's one key deficiency in Duncan's longevity that is being overlooked.

Look at their respective season-by-season RS rTS numbers.

Shaq:

Code: Select all

93 / +4.9
94 / +7.7
95 / +4.5
96 / +2.8
97 / +2.0
98 / +6.3
99 / +7.3
00 / +5.5
01 / +5.6
02 / +7.0
03 / +8.3
04 / +6.2
05 / +5.4
06 / +5.0
07 / +2.6
08 / +4.9
09 / +7.9
10 / +2.2
11 / +11.8


Duncan:

Code: Select all

98 / +5.2
99 / +3
00 / +3.2
01 / +1.8
02 / +5.4
03 / +4.5
04 / +1.8
05 / +1.1
06 / -1.3
07 / +3.8
08 / +0.6
09 / +0.5
10 / +1.7
11 / -0.4
12 / +0.4
13 / +1.9
14 / -0.6
15 / +2.6
16 / -1.8


I made this point in a previous post, but Duncan's scoring efficiency fell off significantly after his first six years. He was a legitimately top-tier scorer in the first part of his career, but by the mid-00s he wasn't the same scorer. As you can see above, from 2004 onward, he topped +2 rTS only twice, had a <1 rTS seven times, and a negative rTS four times.

His career average TS Add is 53.1. His average TS add during his first six years is 122.5. His average TS Add during the the last thirteen years of his career is 21.3. If we adjust the ranges a bit and look at his first ten years(up through 2006-07) and his last nine years - he has an average TS Add of 87.9 over the first ten years and 14.5 over the last nine.

I realize that some of the decrease in TS Add can be attributed to a decrease in volume as a result of a decrease in minutes, but that doesn't explain the efficiency drops as illustrated above.

Duncan's defense and playmaking ability were effective until the very end, but his longevity as a scorer seems not great.

On Shaq's end, there's no question he declined a lot defensively, and that he was slow and not moving very well for his last few seasons, but his bread and butter was always scoring, and in that respect I'm not sure he was ever ineffective. He kept up healthy rTS numbers right up until the end, and as late as 2008-09, he was putting up 17 points(and 8 boards) on +7.9% rTS over 75 games in Phoenix at the age of 36. You can chalk that up to Steve Nash magic if you'd like, but those are still solid(in volume)/elite(in efficiency) scoring numbers.

People might look at that Miami team falling apart(getting swept by the Bulls in 2007) and put it on him, but that whole team was old - Mourning and Payton were about done, Antoine Walker and Jason Williams had fast declines, etc. There's a reason they pretty much got rid of everyone other than Wade(and Haslem).

I think it was only those last two years with Cleveland and Boston where he really looked done.

Offensive Gap vs Defensive Gap

As mentioned in the previous section, Duncan's career average TS Add over nineteen seasons is 53.1. Shaq's career average TS Add over nineteen seasons is 145.2.

Duncan recorded a 4+ RS rTS three times in his career, all of them in those first six seasons. Shaq recorded a 4+ RS rTS fifteen out of his nineteen seasons.

Shaq never recorded a negative RS rTS, Duncan did it four times.

Shaq's advantage over Duncan as a scorer is not a small one. It is a large one.

On the other side of the court, Duncan is clearly the superior defender; he was elite. But that doesn't mean Shaq wasn't solid. I feel like the numbers would characterize him as good-but-not-great. Just by his sheer size(not just height, but his girth too) and shot-blocking ability he was going to have an effect. It was like a wall in front of the basket.

Shaq had a 2+ D-RAPM eight times in his career(and that is without considering his Orlando tenure, which came before on/off was tracked). This obviously falls well short of Duncan's 15 3+ and 9 4+ D-RAPMs, but it's also far from nothing.

Take the Lakers' DRtgs for the years Shaq, Kobe, and Phil Jackson were together:

Code: Select all

1999-00: 98.2(1st)
2000-01: 104.8(21st)
2001-02: 101.7(7th)
2002-03: 104.7(19th)
2003-04: 101.3(8th)


That's three top ten finishes and two around the border between the middle and bottom third. Now look at Shaq's D-RAPM in those same five seasons:

Code: Select all

1999-00: 2.31
2000-01: 0.7
2001-02: 2.49
2002-03: 1.14
2003-04: 2.74


Shaq's higher D-RAPMs seem to correlate with the team's higher DRtgs. This would seem to suggest he did have some level of actual defensive impact(as well as his inconsistency on that end, to be fair), at least during his peak years. And FWIW, those 2+ D-RAPMs didn't end when he left LA; he posted 2.07 in 04-05, 2.27 in 05-06, and 2.44 in 07-08. After 2008 is where his defense fell off a cliff.

My point with all of this is this: Shaq, while clearly not the defender Duncan was, was still a solid defender, and because of this I believe Duncan's defensive edge over Shaq can be matched by Shaq's sizable scoring edge over Duncan.

There is also the issue of playmaking, where Duncan also has an edge. Looking at bbref's "points generated by assists" stat(by no means the definitive metric for this, just one example) and taking their career averages in the regular season and the playoffs:

Duncan RS: 496.15
Duncan PO: 97.8
Shaq RS: 352.86
Shaq PO: 75.78

This is just one illustration of Duncan's edge in this department. What I will say for Shaq though, is that it seems logical to me that if Shaq is scoring more points than Duncan on average(Shaq averaged 35.2 points per 100 possessions for his career in the regular season and 34.7 points per 100 possessions for his career in the playoffs; Duncan averaged 29.7 in the regular season, and coincidentally, 29.7 in the playoffs), then that means he'd be creating less points for his teammates than Duncan because you only touch the ball so many times. So you can view this playmaking gap as a detriment to Shaq's game, or as the logical result of his dominance as a scorer.

Multiple Contexts

I bring this up because the "multiple contexts" argument was used a whole lot by many of you when arguing for LeBron, so I feel like it ought to apply here too. Shaq and Duncan have similarly glowing resumes. Duncan never had a <50 game winning season, he went to the finals six times, and won five titles. But he was drafted into an ideal situation, a team that had been in the WCF just two years earlier, and played his entire career for one coach.

Shaq won 50+ 16 out of 19 years.

Shaq came into the league with Orlando, who were an expansion team going into its fourth year of existence having never won more than 31 games, and spearheaded a 20-game(21 to 41), nearly 8-point SRS swing(-6.52 to 1.35) in his rookie year. By his third year(yes, with some crazy 1993 lottery luck), they were in the Finals.

He went to LA at a time when they were just starting to get good again after Showtime and anchored an era that saw four finals appearances, a threepeat, and eight straight 50+ win seasons.

He went to Miami, where the Heat had been a 42-win, -0.13 SRS team that sort of surprised in how hard they pushed the Pacers in their six-game second round series, and, along with Wade, was at the center of a 17-win, nearly 6 SRS point swing(and that's with them losing Lamar Odom and Caron Butler in the trade) that saw them get one game away from the Finals(and a lot of people still think they would've gotten there and possibly won it all if Wade hadn't gotten hurt in that series).

Shaq had a stretch of his career where he won at least 50 games twelve times(they were at a 50-win pace in the 99 lockout season) and went at least to the Conference Finals nine times(including six trips to the Finals and four championships) in twelve seasons across three different organizations with three different second options, at least three distinct supporting casts(maybe more than that considering how the lineup around him and Kobe kept changing from Eddie Jones/Nick Van Exel/Cedric Ceballos to Glen Rice/AC Green/Ron Harper to Robert Horry/Rick Fox/Derek Fisher/Horace Grant to Karl Malone/Gary Payton/Devean George), and five different head coaches(Brian Hill, Del Harris, Phil Jackson, Stan Van Gundy, Pat Riley).

Shaquille O'Neal strikes me as one of the safest bets to build a contender around in the history of the NBA.

As the final thing I'll say about Shaq/Duncan, going purely by on/off(note again that Shaq's numbers don't include his Orlando years because the data wasn't tracked):

Shaq's career average RS on/off: +8.5
Duncan's career average RS on/off: +8.0
Shaq's career average PO on/off: +11.7
Duncan's career average PO on/off: +8.5

A 3+ point on/off advantage in the playoffs is something worth considering.

I also lean towards Wilt over Duncan for a similar set of reasons. Wilt and Shaq were very similar, except that Wilt was a better defender and had less team success(at least in part due to some bad luck - poor roster with the Warriors, no Billy Cunningham in 1968, Breda Kolff wouldn't put him back in + improbable Don Nelson shot in 1969, no Jerry West in 1971, no Happy Hairston in 1973). I may have more to say about Wilt later, but I probably can't make a better case for him than ZeppelinPage just did.

Right now, I think I've got Wilt/Shaq, and then Duncan/Hakeem(exact order not determined yet). And I may put Magic before Duncan/Hakeem too.

[70sFan]

I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive that Hakeem improved a lot as a passer and that he still struggled to make reads. Passing was a really major issue for him early in his career, such that he had room to improve and still have issues. If he’d been an elite passer, then maybe we’d have been so good we’d have voted him in already!

Right, but it's not a case of being elite passer - it's a case of minor improvement and abusing illegal defense rule to generate easy reads for Hakeem.

Your explanation about Rudy T’s system makes sense to me, and I think we’re in agreement that that’d be part of it, as would Hakeem’s improvement as a passer. To a large degree, though, this goes back to something I posted about earlier in relation to Wilt. I’m not of the view that we should be judging players based on how they might’ve done if they were coached in a way that maximized their talent better. If Hakeem had played under Rudy Tomjanovich as his head coach from the beginning of his career, would he have reached his peak level earlier by essentially being able to be more effective as a passer at an earlier time? It’s possible. But that’s not what happened in reality. And it’s impossible to know what would’ve happened in that scenario—it’s just a complete butterfly-effect different reality, which could’ve gone completely differently (including in ways that might’ve been worse for Hakeem). Ultimately, I’m not comfortable giving someone credit for hypothetical things they might’ve done if people had used them better. I think we can only give players credit for what they actually did, not for potential we think they might’ve met if they had hypothetically been used better. If Hakeem was an ineffective passer earlier in his career, then that’s part of the story of how good he was in those years. And I’m pretty consistent in this approach: For instance, I’m not suggesting that Steph Curry would’ve been dynasty Curry a year or two earlier if he’d had Kerr—it’s probably true that he could’ve, but that’s not what happened, and I don’t think it makes sense to increase our view of what he’s done in his career by positing a a reality where he did.

OK, I understand that approach. The only problem I have with that is that Curry analogy isn't a good one. Curry was the best shooter in the league well before Kerr and even though it was underutilized, it still generated a massive impact. Then there is also another thing - Curry gradually improved with age, like most players do.

In Hakeem's case, we have a mediocre passer who improved his assist numbers massively within a few months when he was already near 30. I don't think you can find many examples of 30 years old player making a quantum leap in such a basic skill like passing. So, I don't suggest you to scale up younger Hakeem, but to scale down his peak.

I’m not convinced he was a lesser defender in those peak years than he was a bit earlier (though I’d definitely agree once we get out to 1996). As players lose athleticism, they also gain better court awareness and positioning, and learn opponents’ tendencies and how to exploit them, etc. So it’s not inherently true that they get worse defensively when they slow down a bit. And for what it’s worth, the team’s best rDRTG was in 1993-1994. A player’s defensive impact is extremely hard to gauge just from watching, since there’s so much subtle stuff that goes into it. So I’d want to see impact data to really say whether he was better, worse, or similar defensively (particularly in the 1993 and 1994 seasons), but of course we don’t have that.

Well, this is why I watched a lot of games to get a good understanding of Hakeem's path as a defender.

Hakeem wasn't the kind of defender who relied heavily on sound positioning. He was mostly a reactive defender and as his reaction time and motor declined, his defensive ability also went noticeably down. I can't present you any statistical evidences right now unfortunately, so you may ignore this point of course, but I think that if you watched many 1990-93 Rockets games and then jump into 1995 Rockets games, it will be very evident for you that Hakeem moved less, contested less shots, was less mobile, made more mistakes (because he had lesser margins of error) etc. To be clear - I don't say that Hakeem became a bad defender in 1995, he was a good defender for his whole career, but as there is a difference between great and all-time great offensive anchor, a difference between a great and all-time great defender can be significant.

I think that looking at Hakeem as the same defender for 1986-95 period that only improved on offensive end is a false simplification. People in general don't make much effort to understand the defensive career path for the remained players (same applies to Duncan, who wasn't the same defender for his whole career).

Yeah, there were some offsetting tradeoffs. Overall, though, his box-score numbers can generally be seen to have improved, with the four seasons from 1992-1993 to 1995-1996 being his four highest seasons in terms of PER for instance.

Right, but PER is basically a fancy formula for ranking the best volume scorers.

And I think improving dramatically in the area that was easily his biggest weakness as a player is a significantly bigger impact on his team than these other things.

Well, again I would question if the improvement was "dramatical". Regressing in the most valuable skill is also important in my opinion.

The offensive rebounding thing is also probably mostly about the system being more geared towards spacing the floor—a style that yields fewer offensive rebounds.

It could be, but so the passing should be about the system - right?

Indeed, the defensive rebounding rate in those peak four years was indistinguishable from the overall defensive rebounding rate in his first eight seasons (24.1% vs. 24.3%).

Right, but that's because you included Hakeem's early years and I already stated that 1985-87 Hakeem wasn't as good as later. You also include 1993 which is on the edge between 1989-92 (athleticism and motor) vs 1994-96 (improved offensive skills). If you look at 1989-92 vs 1994-96:

1989-92: 11.1 ORB%, 27.1 DRB%, 19.2 TRB%
1994-96: 7.6 ORB%, 23.5 DRB%, 15.6 TRB%

[70sFan]

Longevity

I want to first address the longevity issue. Seeing as they both played nineteen years, I think Shaq's longevity hit(i.e. the extent to which he declined towards the end) is, while not inaccurate, overstated, while I also believe there's one key deficiency in Duncan's longevity that is being overlooked.

Look at their respective season-by-season RS rTS numbers.

Shaq:

Code: Select all

93 / +4.9
94 / +7.7
95 / +4.5
96 / +2.8
97 / +2.0
98 / +6.3
99 / +7.3
00 / +5.5
01 / +5.6
02 / +7.0
03 / +8.3
04 / +6.2
05 / +5.4
06 / +5.0
07 / +2.6
08 / +4.9
09 / +7.9
10 / +2.2
11 / +11.8


Duncan:

Code: Select all

98 / +5.2
99 / +3
00 / +3.2
01 / +1.8
02 / +5.4
03 / +4.5
04 / +1.8
05 / +1.1
06 / -1.3
07 / +3.8
08 / +0.6
09 / +0.5
10 / +1.7
11 / -0.4
12 / +0.4
13 / +1.9
14 / -0.6
15 / +2.6
16 / -1.8


I made this point in a previous post, but Duncan's scoring efficiency fell off significantly after his first six years. He was a legitimately top-tier scorer in the first part of his career, but by the mid-00s he wasn't the same scorer. As you can see above, from 2004 onward, he topped +2 rTS only twice, had a <1 rTS seven times, and a negative rTS four times.

His career average TS Add is 53.1. His average TS add during his first six years is 122.5. His average TS Add during the the last thirteen years of his career is 21.3. If we adjust the ranges a bit and look at his first ten years(up through 2006-07) and his last nine years - he has an average TS Add of 87.9 over the first ten years and 14.5 over the last nine.

I realize that some of the decrease in TS Add can be attributed to a decrease in volume as a result of a decrease in minutes, but that doesn't explain the efficiency drops as illustrated above.

Duncan's defense and playmaking ability were effective until the very end, but his longevity as a scorer seems not great.

On Shaq's end, there's no question he declined a lot defensively, and that he was slow and not moving very well for his last few seasons, but his bread and butter was always scoring, and in that respect I'm not sure he was ever ineffective. He kept up healthy rTS numbers right up until the end, and as late as 2008-09, he was putting up 17 points(and 8 boards) on +7.9% rTS over 75 games in Phoenix at the age of 36. You can chalk that up to Steve Nash magic if you'd like, but those are still solid(in volume)/elite(in efficiency) scoring numbers.

People might look at that Miami team falling apart(getting swept by the Bulls in 2007) and put it on him, but that whole team was old - Mourning and Payton were about done, Antoine Walker and Jason Williams had fast declines, etc. There's a reason they pretty much got rid of everyone other than Wade(and Haslem).

I think it was only those last two years with Cleveland and Boston where he really looked done.

Offensive Gap vs Defensive Gap

As mentioned in the previous section, Duncan's career average TS Add over nineteen seasons is 53.1. Shaq's career average TS Add over nineteen seasons is 145.2.

Duncan recorded a 4+ RS rTS three times in his career, all of them in those first six seasons. Shaq recorded a 4+ RS rTS fifteen out of his nineteen seasons.

Shaq never recorded a negative RS rTS, Duncan did it four times.

Shaq's advantage over Duncan as a scorer is not a small one. It is a large one.

On the other side of the court, Duncan is clearly the superior defender; he was elite. But that doesn't mean Shaq wasn't solid. I feel like the numbers would characterize him as good-but-not-great. Just by his sheer size(not just height, but his girth too) and shot-blocking ability he was going to have an effect. It was like a wall in front of the basket.

Shaq had a 2+ D-RAPM eight times in his career(and that is without considering his Orlando tenure, which came before on/off was tracked). This obviously falls well short of Duncan's 15 3+ and 9 4+ D-RAPMs, but it's also far from nothing.

Take the Lakers' DRtgs for the years Shaq, Kobe, and Phil Jackson were together:

Code: Select all

1999-00: 98.2(1st)
2000-01: 104.8(21st)
2001-02: 101.7(7th)
2002-03: 104.7(19th)
2003-04: 101.3(8th)


That's three top ten finishes and two around the border between the middle and bottom third. Now look at Shaq's D-RAPM in those same five seasons:

Code: Select all

1999-00: 2.31
2000-01: 0.7
2001-02: 2.49
2002-03: 1.14
2003-04: 2.74


Shaq's higher D-RAPMs seem to correlate with the team's higher DRtgs. This would seem to suggest he did have some level of actual defensive impact(as well as his inconsistency on that end, to be fair), at least during his peak years. And FWIW, those 2+ D-RAPMs didn't end when he left LA; he posted 2.07 in 04-05, 2.27 in 05-06, and 2.44 in 07-08. After 2008 is where his defense fell off a cliff.

My point with all of this is this: Shaq, while clearly not the defender Duncan was, was still a solid defender, and because of this I believe Duncan's defensive edge over Shaq can be matched by Shaq's sizable scoring edge over Duncan.

There is also the issue of playmaking, where Duncan also has an edge. Looking at bbref's "points generated by assists" stat(by no means the definitive metric for this, just one example) and taking their career averages in the regular season and the playoffs:

Duncan RS: 496.15
Duncan PO: 97.8
Shaq RS: 352.86
Shaq PO: 75.78

This is just one illustration of Duncan's edge in this department. What I will say for Shaq though, is that it seems logical to me that if Shaq is scoring more points than Duncan on average(Shaq averaged 35.2 points per 100 possessions for his career in the regular season and 34.7 points per 100 possessions for his career in the playoffs; Duncan averaged 29.7 in the regular season, and coincidentally, 29.7 in the playoffs), then that means he'd be creating less points for his teammates than Duncan because you only touch the ball so many times. So you can view this playmaking gap as a detriment to Shaq's game, or as the logical result of his dominance as a scorer.

Multiple Contexts

I bring this up because the "multiple contexts" argument was used a whole lot by many of you when arguing for LeBron, so I feel like it ought to apply here too. Shaq and Duncan have similarly glowing resumes. Duncan never had a <50 game winning season, he went to the finals six times, and won five titles. But he was drafted into an ideal situation, a team that had been in the WCF just two years earlier, and played his entire career for one coach.

Shaq won 50+ 16 out of 19 years.

Shaq came into the league with Orlando, who were an expansion team going into its fourth year of existence having never won more than 31 games, and spearheaded a 20-game(21 to 41), nearly 8-point SRS swing(-6.52 to 1.35) in his rookie year. By his third year(yes, with some crazy 1993 lottery luck), they were in the Finals.

He went to LA at a time when they were just starting to get good again after Showtime and anchored an era that saw four finals appearances, a threepeat, and eight straight 50+ win seasons.

He went to Miami, where the Heat had been a 42-win, -0.13 SRS team that sort of surprised in how hard they pushed the Pacers in their six-game second round series, and, along with Wade, was at the center of a 17-win, nearly 6 SRS point swing(and that's with them losing Lamar Odom and Caron Butler in the trade) that saw them get one game away from the Finals(and a lot of people still think they would've gotten there and possibly won it all if Wade hadn't gotten hurt in that series).

Shaq had a stretch of his career where he won at least 50 games twelve times(they were at a 50-win pace in the 99 lockout season) and went at least to the Conference Finals nine times(including six trips to the Finals and four championships) in twelve seasons across three different organizations with three different second options, at least three distinct supporting casts(maybe more than that considering how the lineup around him and Kobe kept changing from Eddie Jones/Nick Van Exel/Cedric Ceballos to Glen Rice/AC Green/Ron Harper to Robert Horry/Rick Fox/Derek Fisher/Horace Grant to Karl Malone/Gary Payton/Devean George), and five different head coaches(Brian Hill, Del Harris, Phil Jackson, Stan Van Gundy, Pat Riley).

Shaquille O'Neal strikes me as one of the safest bets to build a contender around in the history of the NBA.

As the final thing I'll say about Shaq/Duncan, going purely by on/off(note again that Shaq's numbers don't include his Orlando years because the data wasn't tracked):

Shaq's career average RS on/off: +8.5
Duncan's career average RS on/off: +8.0
Shaq's career average PO on/off: +11.7
Duncan's career average PO on/off: +8.5

A 3+ point on/off advantage in the playoffs is something worth considering.

I also lean towards Wilt over Duncan for a similar set of reasons. Wilt and Shaq were very similar, except that Wilt was a better defender and had less team success(at least in part due to some bad luck - poor roster with the Warriors, no Billy Cunningham in 1968, Breda Kolff wouldn't put him back in + improbable Don Nelson shot in 1969, no Jerry West in 1971, no Happy Hairston in 1973). I may have more to say about Wilt later, but I probably can't make a better case for him than ZeppelinPage just did.

Right now, I think I've got Wilt/Shaq, and then Duncan/Hakeem(exact order not determined yet). And I may put Magic before Duncan/Hakeem too.

I mean, you are arguing for Duncan's longevity being overstated by looking at Shaq's (not Duncan's) biggest strength that is scoring, but even though you noted that Duncan's defensive longevity absolutely crushes Shaq's, you say that is caused by Duncan being a better defender... Sorry but I find it inconsistent.

Duncan has much worse scoring longevity, because he's much worse scorer. It's that simple. Even at his peak, Duncan never touched Shaq's scoring production. It's easy to understand why Duncan's scoring aged worse than Shaq when you take that into account.

In comparison, Shaq's defensive "longevity" (above average defensive seasons) are probably less than q quarter of Duncan's (which is his whole career basically).

By this logic, you could argue that Bill Russell was done in 1968 because he became a below average scorer at this point, when in reality he was still in conversation for the best player in the league.

[Moonbeam]

Hopefully will vote tomorrow. For now, here are plots of the correlations between change in teammate OWS/48 or DWS/48 with a change in the player's minutes played with those teammates. This may shed some light on who tends to be overcredited or undercredited by Win Shares. See this post for more details. Note: I've changed the graphs slightly to include only teammates with >500 MP as the scaling got quite wonky if I didn't.

Wilt:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.206
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.236

There's a suggestion here that he is overcredited by OWS but undercredited by DWS. Yearly trends

Duncan:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.155
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.704

Duncan really shows out with the D correlation here, nearly matching Russell! There's a suggestion he might be somewhat overcredited by OWS here.

Shaq:





Correlation for OWS/48: 0.120
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.200

Shaq looks to be moderately undercredited on both O and D here.

Hakeem:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.005
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.458

As expected, a big lift for Hakeem on D, but not as much as Duncan. Pretty neutral correlation with teammate OWS/48.

Magic:





Correlation for OWS/48: 0.078
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.423

This surprised me! Magic appears to be marginally undercredited by OWS but perhaps quite undercredited by DWS. The correlations are particularly high from 1987-1991. I've checked the correlations for other players on D, and surprisingly, Kareem and Michael Cooper aren't as high in those years, though Byron Scott and James Worthy are up there with Magic. Not sure what to make of it, but felt it was worth sharing all the same.

Here are snapshots of these correlations in centered 3-year intervals. For example, Magic's 1987 points will take into account the correlation between teammate changes in OWS/48 and DWS/48 with changes in MP with Magic as a teammate for the 1986, 1987, and 1988 seasons.

[DQuinn1575]

Thanks - I like the line graphs a lot better.
Interesting on the offensive side in that for most of these guys we don't see that much of a plus or minus , and I think some is attributed to the aging of Arizin (negative for Wilt) and Kobe (positive for Shaq).

Is it saying that there isn't THAT much of an offensive increase in teammates based on these guys? Wondering how other elite playmakers or gravity guys - like Nash/Harden and Curry - compare?

[ShaqAttac]

I

whats ts add. i see you mention it a bunch but i got no idea what that means

[rk2023]

I

whats ts add. i see you mention it a bunch but i got no idea what that means

https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/hqnic1/using_ts_added_to_evaluate_all_time_best_scorers/

[ty 4191]

There's a suggestion here that Wilt is overcredited by OWS but undercredited by DWS.

Great post, Moonbeam.

I wonder, what would Wilt's DWS look like with blocks and steals recorded? How much of a difference would that make?

[ShaqAttac]

Okay so russ was finally voted in so I guess I dont have to c and p that.


1. HAKEEM OLAJUWON

I didnt know whether to go with him or duncan but according to fp, eni, and kds stuff he was actually the best playoff monster of his league and comp to mj and magic in the reg season. MJ was definitely luckier so if Hakeem's "impact" is the same and then > in the playoffs I dont see how i can go with jordan. Maaaybe duncan is better but...idk. Apparently he has higher rs impact and he a playoff monster too.. i guess if yall make good args yall could switch me.


2. Duncan
He might be better than Hakeem tbh. Won a bunch, great rs impact and went crazy in 03. People are saying shaq but his impact looks worse from what i've seen and he didnt win as much despite havin awesome teammates like kobe and wade. I also don't know much about wilt so maybe someone can arg for him? Does the whole wins are worth more in 60's apply to him too? TS ADD just seems to be scoring so i don't think that does anything for me.

Gonna nominate:
MIKAN

I wanna vote MIKAN for 2 but imma keep my vote in case i need to use it for bron.

This is also p simple. He was waay better than everyone else in a waay no one else was, was the best on o and d, and won 7 rings.

George Mikan (1924) "Mr. Basketball", 6'10" center, the first true big man, 7 total pro titles with Chicago Gears & Lakers

Image
Origin: Illinois
College: DePaul
Series Wins: 23
All-League 1st Team: 8 times
Star-Prime: 8 seasons
POY wins: 8, POY shares: 8.0
OPOY wins: 3, OPOY shares: 3.8
DPOY wins: 6, DPOY shares: 6.2


The obvious top player from the era so maybe not a ton to be gleaned from going into further detail, but some observations:

- Mikan appears to have been the best offensive player in pro basketball basically from the time he turned pro. Eventually others arrive in the league to top him, but he remains elite until the rule change of 1951 that widened the key from 6 to 12 feet specifically to stop him. From that point onward, while Mikan likely remained the best rebounder in the world, it seems that the rule change did have the desired effect.

- Mikan almost certainly would have been an even more impactful defender from the jump if not for the banning of goaltending. As it was, it seems like it took Mikan some time to re-optimize his defensive play. He had a recurring issue of foul trouble that was often the Achilles heel for his teams win the lost.

- So far as I can tell, Mikan's defensive dominance in the NBA was less about shotblocking and more about rebounding. Certainly the shotblocking threat was there to a degree, but in a league with such weak shooting percentage, rebounding was arguably king.

ik we dont got data, but he won the 2nd most and he was way better than every1 else. Seems like a simple 2 to me.

Hope that was good!

People are nominating KG but Mikan was probably better. I don't know KG's argument that well though.

Think KD gettin banned is dumb but whatever

[homecourtloss]

Hopefully will vote tomorrow. For now, here are plots of the correlations between change in teammate OWS/48 or DWS/48 with a change in the player's minutes played with those teammates. This may shed some light on who tends to be overcredited or undercredited by Win Shares. See this post for more details. Note: I've changed the graphs slightly to include only teammates with >500 MP as the scaling got quite wonky if I didn't.

Wilt:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.206
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.236

There's a suggestion here that he is overcredited by OWS but undercredited by DWS. Yearly trends

Duncan:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.155
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.704

Duncan really shows out with the D correlation here, nearly matching Russell! There's a suggestion he might be somewhat overcredited by OWS here.

Shaq:





Correlation for OWS/48: 0.120
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.200

Shaq looks to be moderately undercredited on both O and D here.

Hakeem:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.005
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.458

As expected, a big lift for Hakeem on D, but not as much as Duncan. Pretty neutral correlation with teammate OWS/48.

Magic:





Correlation for OWS/48: 0.078
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.423

This surprised me! Magic appears to be marginally undercredited by OWS but perhaps quite undercredited by DWS. The correlations are particularly high from 1987-1991. I've checked the correlations for other players on D, and surprisingly, Kareem and Michael Cooper aren't as high in those years, though Byron Scott and James Worthy are up there with Magic. Not sure what to make of it, but felt it was worth sharing all the same.

Here are snapshots of these correlations in centered 3-year intervals. For example, Magic's 1987 points will take into account the correlation between teammate changes in OWS/48 and DWS/48 with changes in MP with Magic as a teammate for the 1986, 1987, and 1988 seasons.

Very interesting, especially Magic’s. There’s a distinct possibility that he has been underrated on defense, given that his offense was so good thereby limiting transition opportunities in an era in which transition defense was nowhere near as good given how many players used to crash the offensive boards.

His defense itself doesn’t really stand out when you watch him play as he doesn’t have a particularly high motor, doesn’t aggressively contest shots, doesn’t disrupt many actions, though he does defend the post decently well, which of course was important in his day. Part of his defensive reputation also comes from the comparison to his contemporary, Larry Bird, who had a nonstop motor, was making weakside steals, weakside blocks, using those quick hands, crashing the defensive boards for contested rebounds after being out on the perimeter.

Magic seems highly aware of the offensive actions that are being run—in just about any clip you’ll see him defending at the top of the key, arms out, looking left and right to see what actions are being run, but not necessarily ball watching since in the 1980s you’re not going to have somebody pull up from 30 feet or run a high screen roll out there.

He looks great in Squared’s partial RAPM, a big plus defender in 1985, the a lot of that could be the Kareem still had great defensive impact all the way up until 1985. that team had heavy minutes played by poor/bad defenders in James worthy and Byron Scott, so not sure how much of it was Magic helping them be the 7th ranked defense, -.9 rDRtg.

Have you run any type of regressions to see indications of correlations between MP and delta win shares being correlated with known RAPM data?

[homecourtloss]

Okay so russ was finally voted in so I guess I dont have to c and p that.


1. HAKEEM OLAJUWON

I didnt know whether to go with him or duncan but according to fp, eni, and kds stuff he was actually the best playoff monster of his league and comp to mj and magic in the reg season. MJ was definitely luckier so if Hakeem's "impact" is the same and then > in the playoffs I dont see how i can go with jordan. Maaaybe duncan is better but...idk. Apparently he has higher rs impact and he a playoff monster too.. i guess if yall make good args yall could switch me.


2. Duncan
He might be better than Hakeem tbh. Won a bunch, great rs impact and went crazy in 03. People are saying shaq but his impact looks worse from what i've seen and he didnt win as much despite havin awesome teammates like kobe and wade. I also don't know much about wilt so maybe someone can arg for him? Does the whole wins are worth more in 60's apply to him too? TS ADD just seems to be scoring so i don't think that does anything for me.

Gonna nominate:
MIKAN

I wanna vote MIKAN for 2 but imma keep my vote in case i need to use it for bron.

This is also p simple. He was waay better than everyone else in a waay no one else was, was the best on o and d, and won 7 rings.

George Mikan (1924) "Mr. Basketball", 6'10" center, the first true big man, 7 total pro titles with Chicago Gears & Lakers

Image
Origin: Illinois
College: DePaul
Series Wins: 23
All-League 1st Team: 8 times
Star-Prime: 8 seasons
POY wins: 8, POY shares: 8.0
OPOY wins: 3, OPOY shares: 3.8
DPOY wins: 6, DPOY shares: 6.2


The obvious top player from the era so maybe not a ton to be gleaned from going into further detail, but some observations:

- Mikan appears to have been the best offensive player in pro basketball basically from the time he turned pro. Eventually others arrive in the league to top him, but he remains elite until the rule change of 1951 that widened the key from 6 to 12 feet specifically to stop him. From that point onward, while Mikan likely remained the best rebounder in the world, it seems that the rule change did have the desired effect.

- Mikan almost certainly would have been an even more impactful defender from the jump if not for the banning of goaltending. As it was, it seems like it took Mikan some time to re-optimize his defensive play. He had a recurring issue of foul trouble that was often the Achilles heel for his teams win the lost.

- So far as I can tell, Mikan's defensive dominance in the NBA was less about shotblocking and more about rebounding. Certainly the shotblocking threat was there to a degree, but in a league with such weak shooting percentage, rebounding was arguably king.

ik we dont got data, but he won the 2nd most and he was way better than every1 else. Seems like a simple 2 to me.

Hope that was good!

People are nominating KG but Mikan was probably better. I don't know KG's argument that well though.

Think KD gettin banned is dumb but whatever

What? Why was KD banned?

[Samurai]

Vote for #5: Wilt Chamberlain
I think Wilt's offense tends to get overrated due to his crazy scoring numbers early in his career and his defense tends to get underrated, largely because he was playing at the same time as (and thus often compared to) Bill Russell. His case is clearly supported by the numbers: 7 scoring titles, 11 rebounding titles, 8 Win Share titles, and he thus far remains the only center to lead the league in assists. While everyone knows about his 100 point game and averaging over 50 ppg in a season, I think I'm actually impressed by his averaging over 48 minutes/game in a season. Heck, some fans get restless just sitting and watching a game for the full 48 minutes! And since Wilt was attempting over 39 shots and grabbing 25+ rebounds per game, he was doing a lot more than just sitting and watching the game for the full 48 minutes. I don't believe in time machines so I won't even speculate on how he would do if he jumped in a magic DeLorean in his prime and showed up in the NBA today. But based on what he accomplished in his own time, he gets my vote.

Nominate: Larry Bird

[ShaqAttac]

Okay so russ was finally voted in so I guess I dont have to c and p that.


1. HAKEEM OLAJUWON

I didnt know whether to go with him or duncan but according to fp, eni, and kds stuff he was actually the best playoff monster of his league and comp to mj and magic in the reg season. MJ was definitely luckier so if Hakeem's "impact" is the same and then > in the playoffs I dont see how i can go with jordan. Maaaybe duncan is better but...idk. Apparently he has higher rs impact and he a playoff monster too.. i guess if yall make good args yall could switch me.


2. Duncan
He might be better than Hakeem tbh. Won a bunch, great rs impact and went crazy in 03. People are saying shaq but his impact looks worse from what i've seen and he didnt win as much despite havin awesome teammates like kobe and wade. I also don't know much about wilt so maybe someone can arg for him? Does the whole wins are worth more in 60's apply to him too? TS ADD just seems to be scoring so i don't think that does anything for me.

Gonna nominate:
MIKAN

I wanna vote MIKAN for 2 but imma keep my vote in case i need to use it for bron.

This is also p simple. He was waay better than everyone else in a waay no one else was, was the best on o and d, and won 7 rings.

ik we dont got data, but he won the 2nd most and he was way better than every1 else. Seems like a simple 2 to me.

Hope that was good!

People are nominating KG but Mikan was probably better. I don't know KG's argument that well though.

Think KD gettin banned is dumb but whatever

What? Why was KD banned?

idk. but unibro said she was. probably the gb thread

[lessthanjake]

Spoiler:

Hopefully will vote tomorrow. For now, here are plots of the correlations between change in teammate OWS/48 or DWS/48 with a change in the player's minutes played with those teammates. This may shed some light on who tends to be overcredited or undercredited by Win Shares. See this post for more details. Note: I've changed the graphs slightly to include only teammates with >500 MP as the scaling got quite wonky if I didn't.

Wilt:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.206
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.236

There's a suggestion here that he is overcredited by OWS but undercredited by DWS. Yearly trends

Duncan:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.155
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.704

Duncan really shows out with the D correlation here, nearly matching Russell! There's a suggestion he might be somewhat overcredited by OWS here.

Shaq:





Correlation for OWS/48: 0.120
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.200

Shaq looks to be moderately undercredited on both O and D here.

Hakeem:





Correlation for OWS/48: -0.005
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.458

As expected, a big lift for Hakeem on D, but not as much as Duncan. Pretty neutral correlation with teammate OWS/48.

Magic:





Correlation for OWS/48: 0.078
Correlation for DWS/48: 0.423

This surprised me! Magic appears to be marginally undercredited by OWS but perhaps quite undercredited by DWS. The correlations are particularly high from 1987-1991. I've checked the correlations for other players on D, and surprisingly, Kareem and Michael Cooper aren't as high in those years, though Byron Scott and James Worthy are up there with Magic. Not sure what to make of it, but felt it was worth sharing all the same.

Here are snapshots of these correlations in centered 3-year intervals. For example, Magic's 1987 points will take into account the correlation between teammate changes in OWS/48 and DWS/48 with changes in MP with Magic as a teammate for the 1986, 1987, and 1988 seasons.

Just so I make sure I understand what’s going on here, and what it means, I have a foundational question:

Isn’t this essentially ultimately just getting at a question of how these players’ teams’ changes in win totals year-to-year changed depending on how their minutes-played changed?

Like, ultimately, a team’s total number of win shares definitionally equals the team’s number of wins. So, if your team tends to win a lot more games when you play more minutes, then that extra winning will definitionally manifest itself through some combination of your own win shares going up and/or your teammates’ win shares going up. This measure feels like it is getting at the question of where that balance is for certain players—i.e. whether the amount you increase your team’s wins by is more or less captured by increases in your own win share totals than it is for other players. That’s interesting info. But it feels to me like the way we’d ultimately use that info would just be to layer on that teammates’-increased-win-shares effect on top of the player’s actual win shares, to try to more accurately measure the player’s effect on the team. However, if we’re doing that, given that team win shares definitionally equal team wins, couldn’t we just get to the exact same place by running a regression that charts out the effect of changes in a player’s minutes with changes in the team’s wins? It feels to me like this is a more complicated way of getting to that.

[Dr Positivity]

Vote

1. Tim Duncan
2. Shaq

Same vote as last time - excellent longevity, consistent career, one of the best leadership impacts of all time, and good enough peak with runs like 03 playoffs.

Wilt was shakiest in playoffs compared to regular season of these players I believe, and was a difficult personality behind the scenes. I like pre-93 Hakeem less than the secondary Duncan years and he has less longevity. Magic is a slight era downgrade for me and less longevity. Shaq is hardest since he has strengths and weaknesses compared to Duncan but I think the latter's value is more consistent.

Nominate: Stephen Curry

[eminence]

Voting Post

Vote #1: Tim Duncan

Nominate: Kevin Garnett

Why I'm pretty clearly Team Duncan here, in a word - longevity.

Prime value, I think one could reasonably go any direction with this group of 5 (though I still slightly prefer Duncan).

Wilt has 14 seasons with 1 mostly missed due to injury. One could reasonably bump him up a bit on that front due to era.
Magic has 11 full seasons and two halfish seasons. One could reasonably bump him up due to unique retirement circumstances.
Hakeem has 18 seasons.
Shaq has 19 seasons.
Duncan has 19 seasons.

Cheema's RAPM for seasons 14-18 for the last 3.
Hakeem '98-'02: 30200 possessions, +0.28, 232nd in the league
Shaq '06-'10: 40399 possessions, +1.15, 112th in the league (+0.74, 148th for '07-'11)
Duncan '11-'15: 57308 possessions, +3.23, 9th in the league (+3.5, 11th for '12-'16)

Duncan was still a real star in those later seasons, in a way the others don't begin to measure up to.

I have yet to make up my mind among the next group, but am currently leaning KG if he gets onto the ballot, we'll see what I'll do if he doesn't.

[f4p]

Meanwhile, Tim Duncan has 8 losses as a favorite. Now he's 31-8, which sounds pretty good. And Hakeem is only 6-2, so hey, isn't 31/39 better than 6/8? Well, not all favorites are created equally. Hakeem has only 3 series as a +2 favorite, and won them all. Duncan lives in the world of the other guys with a huge amount of favorite series. How do those guys fare (Top 40 players, give or take), ranked by winning percentage (minimum 18 series)?

Jordan 25-0
Russell 24-1
Kobe 25-2
Lebron 31-3
Havlicek 20-2
Wade 18-2
Wilt 16-2
Durant 16-2
West 16-2
Magic 28-4
Curry 19-3
Kareem 33-7
Shaq 24-6
Duncan 31-8
Erving 15-4
Bird 22-6
David Robinson 14-5
Chris Paul 9-9

Erving, Bird, Robinson? Not the people you want to be next to in playoff stats.

Duncan is closer to Shaq and Kareem than to Robinson by this stat. If you say instead: "Kareem, Shaq, Erving, Bird...", then suddenly your criticism collapses.

Well it's still 14th out of 18. That's still much nearer the bottom than the top. Curry to Kareem is also a sizable jump in win percentage.

2002 Lakers in the 2nd Round (not actually a favorite, but within 1 SRS)
- Spurs and Lakers near SRS parity. Duncan puts up fantastic series numbers, but the Spurs are outscored in every 4th quarter and Duncan goes 11-29 with 9 turnovers in the five 4th quarters of the series. Losing a series they led after 3 quarters in 3 of 5 games. Could easily have gone the other way if Duncan has not been so limited by Shaq guarding him in the 4th and Lakers certainly were not unbeatable as the next round showed.

Still don't understand why you use this as an example of a failure. Duncan played against the best team in the league with his best teammate injured and he made his team competitive in all games. He was clearly the best player in the whole series and the only reaosn why they were leading in the three 4th quarters is because of him. I also think I already rejected this myth of Shaq shutting down Duncan in isolation - Shaq didn't guard Duncan much.

Perhaps I'm being overly harsh. His numbers are fantastic against 2 very good players. This might be more of a 1997 WCF series for him. But it just seemed to follow that pattern we had for 2001 and 2002. And when I go back and watch games (do you have a source better than youtube because the selection is limited?), the pattern always seems to be what I remember. Duncan eats early, then Shaq gets put on him in the 4th, then we don't hear from Duncan (and I wanted the Lakers to lose). Game 5 I had Duncan at something like 2/9 in the 2nd half when Shaq was his primary defender (you seemingly have different numbers). I just watched Game 4 for Duncan/Robinson guarding Shaq so I didn't track Shaq guarding Duncan, but Shaq blocked him I believe 3 times straight up because Duncan kept trying to turn right and shoot with his right and was practically just throwing it into Shaq's arm. You say you don't have Shaq guarding him much but do you have a breakdown by quarter? Because I certainly don't think Shaq did much in the 1st half or early 3rd.

And I think it's why the narrative from those years was that Shaq was better than Duncan. Because Duncan didn't seem to take it to Shaq directly. And while Duncan might have played very well in 2002, getting just straight up annihilated in 2001 stuck in people's minds (and should have) and 2004 was a straight up poor series from Duncan.

Hakeem has now massively outplayed, in the WCF or later, a 1st team center, a top 50 player at center, the league MVP at center, and the league MVP at power forward. And won 3 of the 4 series as an average -3.7 SRS underdog. That's how you win 2 titles when you were supposed to win 0. Well...

These are very impressive series indeed... but by mentioning only bad series from Duncan and Hakeem's best series you create a false picture that one of them is an all-timer postseason performer, while the other one is an underperformer. I think the list of 4 Duncan's best series would stack up quite well to this list.

They have very similar stats (at least by box score) over their playoff careers. I'm voting Duncan 6th. He obviously has performed well. But my central thesis is that Hakeem didn't just perform well, but seemingly always performed well in his biggest moments, the ones where a championship might at least be reasonable (even if still quite unlikely), and these were moments where success was not a foregone conclusion, either because his team was an underdog or his counterpart on the other team was often viewed as an equal or even a superior until Hakeem ended that conversation decisively.

My list wasn't just 4 series where Hakeem played well, but all came from the conference finals or later, and all with all-time players on the other side (i.e. not his matchup with Joe Kleine). Hakeem did not get 9 or 10 conference finals or 5 or 6 finals to have great moments, with a few chances to slip up here or there and still win some championships. He got 4 conference finals and 3 finals. From my list, in 4 of those he massively outplayed a great, 3 of whom of were centers. And it's not like the other 3 were bad. He was easily the best player in the 1994 WCF and outplayed Shaq at least a little in the 1995 Finals. Only in the 1986 Finals, where he got bested by peak Larry Bird while still putting up 25/12/3 could you say he wasn't the best player. And the Rockets still took 2 games off a Celtics team that had just monkey-hammered a +8.7 Milwaukee team by sweeping them with an MOV of 15 ppg.

That's 7 Series featuring:
4 Top 10 Players (Magic, Kareem, Shaq, Bird)
3 Top 20 Players (Malone, Robinson, Malone)
3 Top 30 Players (Stockton, Ewing, Stockton)

Each series had at least 1 of those players and 3 had 2. 9 of those guys were in prime seasons, probably half at peak (or very near) seasons, and Kareem was good enough that he was 1st team All-NBA.

And he outplayed 9 of 10 players and won 5 of the 7 series while usually being a significant SRS underdog (except 1994 Utah).

I think the narrative from the 1994 Finals was that Hakeem and Ewing were both solo stars and Hakeem outplayed Ewing so he won. But I would say the Knicks had the better supporting cast. They were actually a 60 win team by SRS compared to Houston at 53 wins. Only luck/randomness (clutchness?) got the Rockets homecourt in the first place at 58 wins to 57 wins. This is a series where the Knicks actually outscored the Rockest by 0.7 points per game. Where every game was decided by single digits. Hakeem can't have a 2005 Finals where he just can't score against a great frontline and all-time defense. He can't even just outplay Ewing. He has to destroy him to just eke out a game 6 and game 7 victory. And he does.

I think the narrative from the 1995 WCF was Hakeem destroyed Robinson and the Rockets cruised to the Finals and beat the Magic. But the Rockets didn't cruise. They outscored the Spurs by less than 2 ppg. They didn't win while Hakeem destroyed Robinson. They only won because he did. Game 1 is a 1 point game where Robinson shoots 5-17. Game 6 is a 5 point game where Hakeem puts up 39/17 while Robinson shoots 6 for 17. Hakeem can't just outplay Robinson if he wants to advance, he needs one of the greatest playoff series of all time. And he delivers it on cue.

There's no 2004 series loss vs the Lakers where victory just required a typical Tim Duncan series, not some all-time great series. There's no 2005 Finals or 2007 Finals offensive struggles where you survive anyway. There's no next year for Hakeem.

I bring up expected titles, because Duncan's 5 titles against 4 expected basically just make him look like a guy who got 19 chances to play with good teammates and great coaching and converted them about like you would expect. Overperform some times, underperform some times. It all averages out so you'll still get your 5 titles. Lose as a #1 SRS? Well, just come back next year and be #1 SRS again. Have a bad 2004 series, it's not the end of the world. Your team will still be great in 2005 and Ginobili will go crazy in the playoffs. Lose a heartbreaker in 2006, there's always 2007. Have a down 4 years, don't worry the front office will reload. Hakeem didn't have next year. He didn't have the chance to just play OK and win. He didn't get a breather here and there where the other team didn't have a top 30 player he had to outdo. If he wanted a championship (or two), it all practically came down to 2 years and 8 playoff series against good teams with great players. And he even had to best the other 3 best centers of his era. And he played them 17 times without ever getting outscored. And, in just one series, forever ended the debate with 2 of them. It's capitalizing on opportunities in what I would say is an unprecedented way in NBA history.

And I invited people to come up with similar series for Duncan. I had those other series on my fingertips from years of looking at stuff. I don't have the time (probably) to look through all of Duncan's series. Obviously, there must be some great ones.

But if you think I'm still cheating, let's try records against good teams, which we'll call +6 SRS teams. Duncan had a way better team situation and beating good teams is an absolute performance thing (i.e. not relative like winning as an underdog), so he should be beating +6 teams way better than Hakeem.

Hakeem played 11 teams that were +6. He went 5-6.

Duncan played 10 teams that were +6. He went 4-6!

And I'm being a merciful judge. If the cut-off were 5.9, it would be:

Hakeem played 12 teams that were +5.9. He went 6-6.

Duncan played 11 teams that were +5.9. He went 4-7!

But I didn't even mention it. And the next 2 best teams, Duncan goes 1-1 so I'm not just cutting it off at some perfect place. And to bring it back to my theory of relativity, Duncan was a favorite in 6 of 11 such series. Hakeem was an underdog in every single one! And not just barely. At least a -3 underdog in 10 of the 11 (and -2.3 in the other). So he's not just winning series as an underdog, and not just as a huge underdog, but doing it against very good teams. The kind of teams that aren't as likely to slip up as some middling 50 win 4th seed or something. And Hakeem's wins come across 4 playoffs, so this isn't just 1995 juicing the numbers. We've got all the greatest hits. 1986, 1994, 1995, and 1997.

Could you provide the numbers only for their primes 1986-97 for Hakeem and 1998-09 for Duncan)?

Hakeem's numbers won't change because that's when all those series are from.

Duncan didn't play a ton in that time frame and goes to 3-3 (including 2006 Dallas).

So 6-6 vs 3-3. Maybe that's not what you were doing, but I always get a little squeamish when longevity guys start not getting later career things counted like Kareem getting outplayed by Moses in 1981 and 1983 or Hakeem in 1986.

In 1999, after a regular season where David Robinson bested Duncan by box composites, they played pretty evenly in the playoffs. Duncan slightly ahead in PER (25.1/23.3), tied exactly in WS48 (0.243), Robinson ahead in BPM (7.1/6.6). Now Duncan played more minutes, so he should get the edge, but then there's the matter of net plus/minus. Duncan was a negative! At -3.6. Robinson had a seemingly absurd +35.0. With enough off minutes to not just be about a few possessions here or there.

Do you have Robinson numbers without Duncan and vice versa?

No. Is there a way to get that? Robinson had a good split between off and on minutes (35 to 13 per game) and also was +20 on and -15 off, so this wasn't just a +3 on, -32 off situation due to an ill-timed 12-0 run by the other team.

And then finally 2014. Any one of 5 spurs were basically equal in the box score in the playoffs, but Tim Duncan once against posts a negative plus/minus. At -0.8. A third negative plus/minus in 5 championship runs. Kawhi is at +7.0 and Manu once against shines at +12.1.

It would be important to mention that the Spurs were almost +10 with Duncan on the floor...

Sure, they were obviously good. But also good without duncan. I'm pretty sure the adjusted stuff still shows Duncan as good, but it's still quite an odd thing for someone to be a straight up on/off negative guy as the leader of a title team. Only 7 of the 49 guys I looked at were negative, and other than 2001 Shaq, you have Duncan a whopping 3 times and the other 3 were all secondary players (1998 Pippen, 2006 Shaq, 2013 Wade) and almost all of those guys are viewed as struggling in those playoffs. when your case is built on being invaluable, winning 3 championships where your team was doing even better without you on the floor should at least be something to discuss.

Hakeem lost in the 1st round a lot. I don't think this is fair. He literally lost a first round where he set the all-time playoff PER, WS48, and BPM records, averaging 37.5 ppg on 64 TS% and 16.8 rpg, 2.8 bpg and had more steals (11) than turnovers (7).

I certainly wouldn't criticize Hakeem for his first round losses, but keep in mind that it wasn't the only time he lost that early and he didn't always have these amazing performances.

Sure, the larger point being that even when Hakeem is having record-breaking performances, he couldn't win in the 1st round in the late-80's. Therefore, there doesn't appear to be a reasonable way to say he was just missing out on deep playoff runs if only he would have played well.

Overall, a brilliant post and I wish I could go into more details. Much appreciated content.

Thanks, look forward to more back and forth.

[One_and_Done]

Okay so russ was finally voted in so I guess I dont have to c and p that.


1. HAKEEM OLAJUWON

I didnt know whether to go with him or duncan but according to fp, eni, and kds stuff he was actually the best playoff monster of his league and comp to mj and magic in the reg season.

Just FYI, the only one of f4p, eminence and KD who is voting for Hakeem is f4p.

[lessthanjake]

It has been pointed out (I think correctly) that we cannot truly compare RAPM or other impact or impact/box composite metrics across different time intervals, because of different corrections and whatnot. These numbers are best used comparing players in the same time intervals. Luckily, with Stephen Curry, we have a great comparator: Steph’s prime overlapped with a substantial portion of LeBron James’ prime (as well as these later LeBron years). So how has prime Steph stacked up in the various metrics we have, against this board’s overwhelming #1 player of all time in his prime?

Well, as it turns out, he’s fared extremely well. Below are a list of a ton of different measures with different years and time intervals, listing which of Steph or LeBron was ahead of the other, starting at 2013-2014:

NBAshotcharts 5-Year RAPM

2013-2018: Curry
2014-2019: Curry
2015-2020: Curry
2016-2021: Curry
2017-2022: Curry
2018-2023: Curry

GitHub Regular Season RAPM

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: Curry
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: Curry

GitHub Playoff RAPM

2013-2014: LeBron
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: LeBron
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: N/A

Cheema 5-Year RAPM

2014-2018: Curry
2015-2019: Curry
2016-2020: LeBron
2017-2021: LeBron

Engelmann PI RAPM

2013-2014: LeBron
2014-2015: LeBron
2015-2016: LeBron
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: Curry

Real Plus Minus

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: Curry
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: Curry
2019-2020: N/A
2020-2021: Curry
2021-2022: Curry
2022-2023: LeBron

Estimated Plus Minus

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: Curry
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: Curry
2019-2020: N/A
2020-2021: Curry
2021-2022: Curry
2022-2023: Curry

Regular Season RAPTOR

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: Curry
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: Curry
2019-2020: N/A
2020-2021: Curry
2021-2022: Curry
2022-2023: Curry

Playoff RAPTOR

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: LeBron
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: N/A
2019-2020: N/A
2020-2021: N/A
2021-2022: N/A
2022-2023: Curry

Regular Season AuPM/g

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: Curry
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: Curry
2019-2020: N/A
2020-2021: LeBron
2021-2022: Curry
2022-2023: LeBron

Playoff AuPM/g

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: LeBron
2016-2017: LeBron
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: N/A
2019-2020: N/A
2020-2021: N/A
2021-2022: N/A
2022-2023: Curry

LEBRON

2013-2014: Curry
2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: LeBron
2016-2017: Curry
2017-2018: Curry
2018-2019: Curry
2019-2020: N/A
2020-2021: LeBron
2021-2022: Curry
2022-2023: LeBron

Goldstein PIPM

I’m not aware of publicly-available PIPM data anymore, but we can see which one was ahead in PIPM in three years of Steph’s prime, using the chart near the bottom of this 2018 article by Goldstein, which lists the top all-time PIPM values: https://fansided.com/2018/01/11/nylon-calculus-introducing-player-impact-plus-minus/

2014-2015: Curry
2015-2016: Curry
2016-2017: Curry

________________________

As we can see, there’s tons of data, and the overall weight of this data in Steph’s prime goes strongly in Steph’s favor over LeBron, even in LeBron’s prime. A player whose prime overlapped with the #1 player of all time and who outdid that #1 player in impact and impact-box-composite measures when they were both in their prime needs to be getting chosen in this project very soon.