RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Magic Johnson)

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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#61 » by rk2023 » Sun Jul 30, 2023 2:45 am

ijspeelman wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
ijspeelman wrote:Image

Image

According to Thinking Basketball's box creation metric, Curry is the one that comes out on top (
this data is missing 2021-22 and 2022-23 which are 12.0 and 13.3 respectively with 7.1 and 6.2 passer rating). Without being a better passer, Curry is creating more shots for his teammates. Now this is only an estimation so I am taking it with a grain of salt.

Defensively, I rate Curry higher because of his effort on-ball and in the passing lanes (a lot of this actually improves as he's gotten older imo). Magic should have the advantage solely on size, but I do not like his defense one bit. He was consistantly placed on the weakest offensive player and wasn't much of a guy that used his size and speed to help.

I am not set in stone on this one. I plan on delving into numbers and film to make my final decision. Feel free to sway me with whatever you got.

Uhhhhh, no?

Passer-rating does not measure passing quality, it meassures quality of creation. What that graph is saying is Magic creates at a similar volume, but what he creates is significantly more valuable. In other words, at least by that metric, Magic is the more valuable creative force.


I didn't really bring up passer rating and am not calling Steph a better passer by any means. I also believe passer rating measures quality of passing rather than the quality of creation.

I make that distinction because my point in bringing up box creation is that Curry "creates more opportunities" for his teammates than Magic did (again box creation is an estimation so I am personally taking it with a grain of salt). Not that Curry found his teammates for all those opportunities, but it may have allowed his other teammates to find open teammates. My question was if Curry's spacing + passing was more important than Magic's spacing + passing.


Iirc, Ben’s granular playmaking metrics (while a very cool, intuitive proxy) aren’t era adjusted. The screenshot Ohayo sent is an era adjusted model somebody derived. I believe I have the copy on my laptop (away from it atm, am happy to share later), and from glance I find that as more accurate.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#62 » by ijspeelman » Sun Jul 30, 2023 2:46 am

OhayoKD wrote:From what I understand by design it is supposed to be tracking the quality of what you're making. Hence why all-time raw passers like Bird grade out substantially worse than "Limited" guys like jordan and steph there

That said, even on the volume front, Magic is favored if you use era-adjusted versions:
Image
Image
Magic is clear of steph in both volume and effeciency and leads better offenses and has a more dominant in-era impact portfolio, and is obviously the more successful guy.

Steph is not a comparable creator to Magic.


Is "adjusted creation" still a measure of opportunities created by a player (not necessarily by passing)?
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#63 » by lessthanjake » Sun Jul 30, 2023 2:50 am

Just to be clear, “Box Creation” is not really measuring creation in a meaningful way, rather than just regressing some stuff that seems to generally correlate with hand-tracked count of opportunities created. Basically, “Box Creation” just weights assists, usage rate, and three-point volume/efficiency and spits out a number (see: https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/). It’s not actually some direct measure or count of shot creation, nor is it even attempting to correlate with a measure that weighs shot quality (since it’s weighted to correlate with hand-tracked “opportunities created”). It’s very much a back-of-the-napkin estimate based on some box-score numbers which is informed by what coefficients and variables seemed to fit most with a hand-counted sample. While Steph looks great in Box Creation, if anything, it probably undervalues Steph’s creation, since, while it definitely values three-point shooting proficiency, it has no mechanism to take his elite off-ball movement into account, nor can it take into account quite how uniquely far away from the basket he is dangerous from.

And the idea of the “Adjusted Creation” in the above (which I assume someone here probably put together in a spreadsheet, rather than it being a Thinking Basketball thing) is presumably to correct for the fact that “Box Creation” spits out lower numbers in prior eras because there were fewer three-point shots and three-point volume/efficiency is a huge component of the Box Creation stat. But we should note that Ben Taylor (the creator of “Box Creation”) specifically noted that hand-tracking indicated that creation was actually less frequent in the 1980s (see the above link). So such era “adjustments” seem like they would actually be pretty unfounded. And I think if we thought that that wasn’t the case and that Box Creation was systematically underestimating creation from past eras, the answer would probably be to conclude that Box Creation is not a very good metric, rather than to make some upwards adjustment to crudely account for a systemic issue.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#64 » by jalengreen » Sun Jul 30, 2023 3:11 am

lessthanjake wrote:
ijspeelman wrote:
Spoiler:
I'm between Curry and Magic for this spot.

As others have said, it really is the battle for the of the best offensive PGs (some may have West or Robertson higher).

Image

Here is just a look at Curry and Magic's scoring. Now, obviously Magic was not a total scorer and instead used his passing ability to create offense for his teammates and in transition. However, Curry's scoring is otherworldly, especially for a guard. Magic's relative TS% is insane, but he shot below league average to average volume his entire career. Portions of Curry's seasons exceed Magic rTS% while firing on all cylinders. Curry also is the best off-ball player of all time which adds extreme value in his spaced out era.

Magic didn't use his monstrous height advantage at PG to his advantage as much he probably could have.

Image

As we all know, Magic is one of, if not the greatest passer ever. Steph has a pretty good rAST/75 rate, but Magic's is that of a pure PG.

However, my question is how much does Steph's scoring and movement off-set Magic's passing.

Image

Image

According to Thinking Basketball's box creation metric, Curry is the one that comes out on top (this data is missing 2021-22 and 2022-23 which are 12.0 and 13.3 respectively with 7.1 and 6.2 passer rating). Without being a better passer, Curry is creating more shots for his teammates. Now this is only an estimation so I am taking it with a grain of salt.

Defensively, I rate Curry higher because of his effort on-ball and in the passing lanes (a lot of this actually improves as he's gotten older imo). Magic should have the advantage solely on size, but I do not like his defense one bit. He was consistantly placed on the weakest offensive player and wasn't much of a guy that used his size and speed to help.

I am not set in stone on this one. I plan on delving into numbers and film to make my final decision. Feel free to sway me with whatever you got.


On this question of creation, I just want to point you to a couple posts I made a while back that get to this question:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107624238#p107624238

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107628798#p107628798

Basically, as per the first link, when we look at the average increase in “shot quality” of teammates when a player is on the floor, we find that Steph looks the best in the play-by-play era, even as compared to guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron. And we can see where that largely comes from in the second link, which goes over the average increase in rim shot frequency of teammates when a player is on the floor. Steph is a total outlier in that regard, indicating that his presence on the court (both his playmaking and his gravity) creates shots at the rim (the best shots in basketball) for teammates more than anyone else. “Creation” is ultimately about creating high quality shots for teammates, and Steph’s presence on the floor seems to create those more than even the greatest passers of the last couple decades, so I don't think it's at all a stretch to think that his playmaking overall is at the level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher)—it's just a different type of playmaking.


On this topic specifically, I hesitate to use these metrics to put Steph on the same level as some other playmakers given how optimal his situation has been. He has a large offensive impact statistically through his gravity off-ball, but it's not clear how well this would hold up in different environments. Draymond is a perfect player to take advantage of Steph's gravity and capitalize on it to actually playmake for the team, and I don't think there are many players that could replicate what Draymond does for the Warriors system. The Trail Blazers have been looking for a guy like that for years to pair with Lillard and will end up having never done it. I find it necessary to consider the ease with which a team/front office can actually bring out a player's peak offensive impact.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#65 » by ijspeelman » Sun Jul 30, 2023 3:20 am

jalengreen wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
ijspeelman wrote:
Spoiler:
I'm between Curry and Magic for this spot.

As others have said, it really is the battle for the of the best offensive PGs (some may have West or Robertson higher).

Image

Here is just a look at Curry and Magic's scoring. Now, obviously Magic was not a total scorer and instead used his passing ability to create offense for his teammates and in transition. However, Curry's scoring is otherworldly, especially for a guard. Magic's relative TS% is insane, but he shot below league average to average volume his entire career. Portions of Curry's seasons exceed Magic rTS% while firing on all cylinders. Curry also is the best off-ball player of all time which adds extreme value in his spaced out era.

Magic didn't use his monstrous height advantage at PG to his advantage as much he probably could have.

Image

As we all know, Magic is one of, if not the greatest passer ever. Steph has a pretty good rAST/75 rate, but Magic's is that of a pure PG.

However, my question is how much does Steph's scoring and movement off-set Magic's passing.

Image

Image

According to Thinking Basketball's box creation metric, Curry is the one that comes out on top (this data is missing 2021-22 and 2022-23 which are 12.0 and 13.3 respectively with 7.1 and 6.2 passer rating). Without being a better passer, Curry is creating more shots for his teammates. Now this is only an estimation so I am taking it with a grain of salt.

Defensively, I rate Curry higher because of his effort on-ball and in the passing lanes (a lot of this actually improves as he's gotten older imo). Magic should have the advantage solely on size, but I do not like his defense one bit. He was consistantly placed on the weakest offensive player and wasn't much of a guy that used his size and speed to help.

I am not set in stone on this one. I plan on delving into numbers and film to make my final decision. Feel free to sway me with whatever you got.


On this question of creation, I just want to point you to a couple posts I made a while back that get to this question:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107624238#p107624238

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107628798#p107628798

Basically, as per the first link, when we look at the average increase in “shot quality” of teammates when a player is on the floor, we find that Steph looks the best in the play-by-play era, even as compared to guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron. And we can see where that largely comes from in the second link, which goes over the average increase in rim shot frequency of teammates when a player is on the floor. Steph is a total outlier in that regard, indicating that his presence on the court (both his playmaking and his gravity) creates shots at the rim (the best shots in basketball) for teammates more than anyone else. “Creation” is ultimately about creating high quality shots for teammates, and Steph’s presence on the floor seems to create those more than even the greatest passers of the last couple decades, so I don't think it's at all a stretch to think that his playmaking overall is at the level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher)—it's just a different type of playmaking.


On this topic specifically, I hesitate to use these metrics to put Steph on the same level as some other playmakers given how optimal his situation has been. He has a large offensive impact statistically through his gravity off-ball, but it's not clear how well this would hold up in different environments. Draymond is a perfect player to take advantage of Steph's gravity and capitalize on it to actually playmake for the team, and I don't think there are many players that could replicate what Draymond does for the Warriors system. The Trail Blazers have been looking for a guy like that for years to pair with Lillard and will end up having never done it. I find it necessary to consider the ease with which a team/front office can actually bring out a player's peak offensive impact.


I don't necessarily think Dame's and Steph's spacing is comparable regardless of teammates despite Lillard's proficiency.

While three point shooting alone has an effect on spacing, Steph's enormous gravity comes from his movement. I could see an argument that Lillard didn't have a playmaker like Draymond to run the show when he was off-ball, but I don't think he's taken advantage with playmakers he has had to create gravity with his movement.

However, this is probably outside the scope of our Top 100: #10 conversation.

We have seen a highly optimized system around Steph Curry for almost a decade now so I can see where we may be over crediting him without considering context. However, I think a player like Curry replacing almost all PGs in the league could be seen to have similar impact with his 3p proficiency and movement.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#66 » by lessthanjake » Sun Jul 30, 2023 3:37 am

jalengreen wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
ijspeelman wrote:
Spoiler:
I'm between Curry and Magic for this spot.

As others have said, it really is the battle for the of the best offensive PGs (some may have West or Robertson higher).

Image

Here is just a look at Curry and Magic's scoring. Now, obviously Magic was not a total scorer and instead used his passing ability to create offense for his teammates and in transition. However, Curry's scoring is otherworldly, especially for a guard. Magic's relative TS% is insane, but he shot below league average to average volume his entire career. Portions of Curry's seasons exceed Magic rTS% while firing on all cylinders. Curry also is the best off-ball player of all time which adds extreme value in his spaced out era.

Magic didn't use his monstrous height advantage at PG to his advantage as much he probably could have.

Image

As we all know, Magic is one of, if not the greatest passer ever. Steph has a pretty good rAST/75 rate, but Magic's is that of a pure PG.

However, my question is how much does Steph's scoring and movement off-set Magic's passing.

Image

Image

According to Thinking Basketball's box creation metric, Curry is the one that comes out on top (this data is missing 2021-22 and 2022-23 which are 12.0 and 13.3 respectively with 7.1 and 6.2 passer rating). Without being a better passer, Curry is creating more shots for his teammates. Now this is only an estimation so I am taking it with a grain of salt.

Defensively, I rate Curry higher because of his effort on-ball and in the passing lanes (a lot of this actually improves as he's gotten older imo). Magic should have the advantage solely on size, but I do not like his defense one bit. He was consistantly placed on the weakest offensive player and wasn't much of a guy that used his size and speed to help.

I am not set in stone on this one. I plan on delving into numbers and film to make my final decision. Feel free to sway me with whatever you got.


On this question of creation, I just want to point you to a couple posts I made a while back that get to this question:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107624238#p107624238

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107628798#p107628798

Basically, as per the first link, when we look at the average increase in “shot quality” of teammates when a player is on the floor, we find that Steph looks the best in the play-by-play era, even as compared to guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron. And we can see where that largely comes from in the second link, which goes over the average increase in rim shot frequency of teammates when a player is on the floor. Steph is a total outlier in that regard, indicating that his presence on the court (both his playmaking and his gravity) creates shots at the rim (the best shots in basketball) for teammates more than anyone else. “Creation” is ultimately about creating high quality shots for teammates, and Steph’s presence on the floor seems to create those more than even the greatest passers of the last couple decades, so I don't think it's at all a stretch to think that his playmaking overall is at the level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher)—it's just a different type of playmaking.


On this topic specifically, I hesitate to use these metrics to put Steph on the same level as some other playmakers given how optimal his situation has been. He has a large offensive impact statistically through his gravity off-ball, but it's not clear how well this would hold up in different environments. Draymond is a perfect player to take advantage of Steph's gravity and capitalize on it to actually playmake for the team, and I don't think there are many players that could replicate what Draymond does for the Warriors system. The Trail Blazers have been looking for a guy like that for years to pair with Lillard and will end up having never done it. I find it necessary to consider the ease with which a team/front office can actually bring out a player's peak offensive impact.


This notion is part of why I included Draymond’s numbers in the linked posts as well. Draymond’s numbers look good too, but Steph’s are much higher, which strongly suggests that Steph is the one driving these numbers and that he has a large effect on teammates’ shot quality and rim shot frequency when Draymond is off the court as well.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#67 » by jalengreen » Sun Jul 30, 2023 3:40 am

ijspeelman wrote:
jalengreen wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
On this question of creation, I just want to point you to a couple posts I made a while back that get to this question:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107624238#p107624238

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107628798#p107628798

Basically, as per the first link, when we look at the average increase in “shot quality” of teammates when a player is on the floor, we find that Steph looks the best in the play-by-play era, even as compared to guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron. And we can see where that largely comes from in the second link, which goes over the average increase in rim shot frequency of teammates when a player is on the floor. Steph is a total outlier in that regard, indicating that his presence on the court (both his playmaking and his gravity) creates shots at the rim (the best shots in basketball) for teammates more than anyone else. “Creation” is ultimately about creating high quality shots for teammates, and Steph’s presence on the floor seems to create those more than even the greatest passers of the last couple decades, so I don't think it's at all a stretch to think that his playmaking overall is at the level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher)—it's just a different type of playmaking.


On this topic specifically, I hesitate to use these metrics to put Steph on the same level as some other playmakers given how optimal his situation has been. He has a large offensive impact statistically through his gravity off-ball, but it's not clear how well this would hold up in different environments. Draymond is a perfect player to take advantage of Steph's gravity and capitalize on it to actually playmake for the team, and I don't think there are many players that could replicate what Draymond does for the Warriors system. The Trail Blazers have been looking for a guy like that for years to pair with Lillard and will end up having never done it. I find it necessary to consider the ease with which a team/front office can actually bring out a player's peak offensive impact.


I don't necessarily think Dame's and Steph's spacing is comparable regardless of teammates despite Lillard's proficiency.

While three point shooting alone has an effect on spacing, Steph's enormous gravity comes from his movement. I could see an argument that Lillard didn't have a playmaker like Draymond to run the show when he was off-ball, but I don't think he's taken advantage with playmakers he has had to create gravity with his movement.


My point was less so that Lillard could replicate Steph's offensive impact to the same extent and moreso that Draymond (a player that helps maximize Steph's offensive impact) is a difficult type of player to acquire - clearly, the Blazers haven't been able to find anyone to play his role for Lillard.

But to your point of not taking advantage of the playmakers he has had to create gravity with his movement ... well, that raises the question: if you don't have a certain quality of playmakers around you, is the best course of action *really* to put the ball in someone else's hands? Because I certainly don't look at Lillard and say "Wow, he should've let Evan Turner or CJ McCollum playmake more!" (seeing ET try to run 4v3s like Draymond off of PNR was sad). I don't believe he ever had that level of cast and I think playing more on-ball was always the best course of action for him.

Again, this isn't a "Lillard's actually better than Steph" or "we should consider nominating Lillard here". It's "Steph's peak offensive impact comes from a playstyle/system that might not be super portable to different team environments."
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#68 » by jalengreen » Sun Jul 30, 2023 3:46 am

lessthanjake wrote:
jalengreen wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
On this question of creation, I just want to point you to a couple posts I made a while back that get to this question:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107624238#p107624238

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107628798#p107628798

Basically, as per the first link, when we look at the average increase in “shot quality” of teammates when a player is on the floor, we find that Steph looks the best in the play-by-play era, even as compared to guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron. And we can see where that largely comes from in the second link, which goes over the average increase in rim shot frequency of teammates when a player is on the floor. Steph is a total outlier in that regard, indicating that his presence on the court (both his playmaking and his gravity) creates shots at the rim (the best shots in basketball) for teammates more than anyone else. “Creation” is ultimately about creating high quality shots for teammates, and Steph’s presence on the floor seems to create those more than even the greatest passers of the last couple decades, so I don't think it's at all a stretch to think that his playmaking overall is at the level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher)—it's just a different type of playmaking.


On this topic specifically, I hesitate to use these metrics to put Steph on the same level as some other playmakers given how optimal his situation has been. He has a large offensive impact statistically through his gravity off-ball, but it's not clear how well this would hold up in different environments. Draymond is a perfect player to take advantage of Steph's gravity and capitalize on it to actually playmake for the team, and I don't think there are many players that could replicate what Draymond does for the Warriors system. The Trail Blazers have been looking for a guy like that for years to pair with Lillard and will end up having never done it. I find it necessary to consider the ease with which a team/front office can actually bring out a player's peak offensive impact.


This notion is part of why I included Draymond’s numbers in the linked posts as well. Draymond’s numbers look good too, but Steph’s are much higher, which strongly suggests that Steph is the one driving these numbers and that he has a large effect on teammates’ shot quality and rim shot frequency when Draymond is off the court as well.


Sure, I do not doubt that Steph is a bigger part of that impact than Draymond. And I don't doubt that he positively impacts his teammates' shot quality when Draymond is not on the court. But does he positively impact it at the same level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher), and better than guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron? That's where there's skepticism. The comparison here is with the greatest playmakers to ever play, I think we all know Steph is a very impactful offensive player. Just having Draymond in that list doesn't really address the concern that Draymond is benefiting Steph's numbers disproportionately.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#69 » by lessthanjake » Sun Jul 30, 2023 4:00 am

jalengreen wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
jalengreen wrote:
On this topic specifically, I hesitate to use these metrics to put Steph on the same level as some other playmakers given how optimal his situation has been. He has a large offensive impact statistically through his gravity off-ball, but it's not clear how well this would hold up in different environments. Draymond is a perfect player to take advantage of Steph's gravity and capitalize on it to actually playmake for the team, and I don't think there are many players that could replicate what Draymond does for the Warriors system. The Trail Blazers have been looking for a guy like that for years to pair with Lillard and will end up having never done it. I find it necessary to consider the ease with which a team/front office can actually bring out a player's peak offensive impact.


This notion is part of why I included Draymond’s numbers in the linked posts as well. Draymond’s numbers look good too, but Steph’s are much higher, which strongly suggests that Steph is the one driving these numbers and that he has a large effect on teammates’ shot quality and rim shot frequency when Draymond is off the court as well.


Sure, I do not doubt that Steph is a bigger part of that impact than Draymond. And I don't doubt that he positively impacts his teammates' shot quality when Draymond is not on the court. But does he positively impact it at the same level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher), and better than guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron? That's where there's skepticism. The comparison here is with the greatest playmakers to ever play, I think we all know Steph is a very impactful offensive player. Just having Draymond in that list doesn't really address the concern that Draymond is benefiting Steph's numbers disproportionately.


I’d say the answer is yes, he does. Let’s remember that Magic Johnson played with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, etc. These are guys that helped unlock the best in Magic too. Steph isn’t alone in having teammates that he fit well with.

Also, to be clear, the evidence that Draymond is a huge overall component in the Warriors’ *offensive* success with Steph is not really there. In the last decade in regular season + playoffs, the Warriors have a 118.58 offensive rating with Steph + Draymond on the court, 115.44 offensive rating with Steph and no Draymond, and 106.12 offensive rating with neither on the court (and FWIW it’s 106.60 with Draymond and no Steph). Draymond has a positive effect, but the vast majority of the offensive lift is from Steph. The fact that Draymond is an actually positive offensive player on the court with Steph is itself a testament to their synergy together, since Draymond has really severe offensive limitations (i.e. he’s terrible for floor spacing). So, without their synergy, we’d expect that Draymond would in many ways make it harder for the team to create good looks, but with their synergy he’s a moderate positive. I don’t think this is suggestive of Steph benefiting more from great offensive teammates and synergy than a player like Magic Johnson—who benefited a lot from the immense post presence of Kareem (who Magic was uniquely good at making great entry passes to and who obviously created space for the rest of the team) and the transition finishing ability of guys like Worthy, Cooper, etc. And to the extent that Steph has great offensive synergy with Draymond (despite Draymond’s pretty severe offensive limitations), I’d also say that that reflects well on Steph, rather than being something we should discount him for!
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#70 » by OhayoKD » Sun Jul 30, 2023 5:23 am

ijspeelman wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:From what I understand by design it is supposed to be tracking the quality of what you're making. Hence why all-time raw passers like Bird grade out substantially worse than "Limited" guys like jordan and steph there

That said, even on the volume front, Magic is favored if you use era-adjusted versions:
Image
Image
Magic is clear of steph in both volume and effeciency and leads better offenses and has a more dominant in-era impact portfolio, and is obviously the more successful guy.

Steph is not a comparable creator to Magic.


Is "adjusted creation" still a measure of opportunities created by a player (not necessarily by passing)?

it's supposed to be anyway. IIRC, O-load(# of shots partially) and relative 3pa/3-point efficiency are put in specifically to credit players for what they are generating indirectly iirc. You can think of adjusted creation as a volume estimate, and passer-rating as a ts equivalent
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#71 » by lessthanjake » Sun Jul 30, 2023 6:06 am

OhayoKD wrote:
ijspeelman wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:From what I understand by design it is supposed to be tracking the quality of what you're making. Hence why all-time raw passers like Bird grade out substantially worse than "Limited" guys like jordan and steph there

That said, even on the volume front, Magic is favored if you use era-adjusted versions:
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Magic is clear of steph in both volume and effeciency and leads better offenses and has a more dominant in-era impact portfolio, and is obviously the more successful guy.

Steph is not a comparable creator to Magic.


Is "adjusted creation" still a measure of opportunities created by a player (not necessarily by passing)?

it's supposed to be anyway. IIRC, O-load(# of shots partially) and relative 3pa/3-point efficiency are put in specifically to credit players for what they are generating indirectly iirc. You can think of adjusted creation as a volume estimate, and passer-rating as a ts equivalent


“Passer rating” is *not* like a TS equivalent to box creation’s volume estimate. Passer Rating is not attempting to measure the quality or efficiency of the “creation” that box creation is measuring. It is only attempting to measure the quality of *passes,* not the quality of overall opportunities created. So these are only really tangentially related metrics.

It is also worth noting that, like Box Creation, it’s basically just a regression that takes some box-score stats and chooses some coefficients for them that fit with some hand-counted stuff. So it’s not directly measuring anything about anyone, but basically just spitting out a number based on box score stuff that’s weighted in a way that fits fairly well with an underlying sample of data. Notably, with Passer Rating, there’s a few extra reasons to be skeptical of it. One is that the underlying hand-counted stuff isn’t actually anything objective. The underlying data that the model is supposed to fit with is Ben Taylor’s personal assessment from 1-10 of how good a pass was. So what Passer Rating is is basically just a set of coefficients on some box-score stats designed to fit fairly well with what Ben Taylor’s personal assessment of passes was in a sample of games he watched. This should already feel pretty dubious, since it’s not really tethered to anything objective. But then we also have to get to what the variables actually used include. One such variable is…height. In other words, Steph Curry being short dings him a bunch in this stat, and Magic Johnson being pretty tall does the opposite. Otherwise, besides looking at height, it’s basically just looking at assist numbers, turnover numbers, “Offensive Load” (which is basically Usage but with Box Creation added into it), and what percent of a player’s “Offensive Load” is encompassed by assists. So, the bottom line is that the stat is basically just putting some coefficients on height, assists, turnovers, a quasi-usage stat, and assists-to-quasi-usage ratio and spitting out a number that is supposed to say how good someone’s passes were. And those coefficients and variables were chosen simply in order to fit fairly well with Ben Taylor’s own personal subjective assessment of how good each pass was in a sample of games he watched. It’s not exactly something we should take all that seriously about any individual player, since it’s legitimately not actually directly measuring anything about that player’s passing, not to mention that the underlying data it’s meant to fit onto is completely subjective. And, again, it’s not even *attempting* to measure the quality of anything but passing, so it’s certainly not trying to measure what the quality of the chances that Box Creation is supposed to be estimating was (since Box Creation is supposed to be estimating chances created with passing *and* off-ball creation).

Also, “adjusted creation” is not really a measure of anything. It’s taking Box Creation—a measure of opportunities created by a player—and adjusting it upwards for era because Box Creation numbers are lower in the 1980s. But it is doing that even though the creator of Box Creation specifically said that the hand-tracked data actually indicated that there really was less creation in the 1980s. So “adjusted creation” is basically adjusting upwards to give credit for a bunch of extra creation that probably didn’t even happen.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#72 » by f4p » Sun Jul 30, 2023 7:09 am

ijspeelman wrote:
jalengreen wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
On this question of creation, I just want to point you to a couple posts I made a while back that get to this question:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107624238#p107624238

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107628798#p107628798

Basically, as per the first link, when we look at the average increase in “shot quality” of teammates when a player is on the floor, we find that Steph looks the best in the play-by-play era, even as compared to guys like Nash, Jokic, and LeBron. And we can see where that largely comes from in the second link, which goes over the average increase in rim shot frequency of teammates when a player is on the floor. Steph is a total outlier in that regard, indicating that his presence on the court (both his playmaking and his gravity) creates shots at the rim (the best shots in basketball) for teammates more than anyone else. “Creation” is ultimately about creating high quality shots for teammates, and Steph’s presence on the floor seems to create those more than even the greatest passers of the last couple decades, so I don't think it's at all a stretch to think that his playmaking overall is at the level of Magic Johnson (or perhaps even higher)—it's just a different type of playmaking.


On this topic specifically, I hesitate to use these metrics to put Steph on the same level as some other playmakers given how optimal his situation has been. He has a large offensive impact statistically through his gravity off-ball, but it's not clear how well this would hold up in different environments. Draymond is a perfect player to take advantage of Steph's gravity and capitalize on it to actually playmake for the team, and I don't think there are many players that could replicate what Draymond does for the Warriors system. The Trail Blazers have been looking for a guy like that for years to pair with Lillard and will end up having never done it. I find it necessary to consider the ease with which a team/front office can actually bring out a player's peak offensive impact.


I don't necessarily think Dame's and Steph's spacing is comparable regardless of teammates despite Lillard's proficiency.

While three point shooting alone has an effect on spacing, Steph's enormous gravity comes from his movement. I could see an argument that Lillard didn't have a playmaker like Draymond to run the show when he was off-ball, but I don't think he's taken advantage with playmakers he has had to create gravity with his movement.

However, this is probably outside the scope of our Top 100: #10 conversation.

We have seen a highly optimized system around Steph Curry for almost a decade now so I can see where we may be over crediting him without considering context. However, I think a player like Curry replacing almost all PGs in the league could be seen to have similar impact with his 3p proficiency and movement.


and yet last year's #8 finish on offense for the warriors was the only time outside of 2015-2019 that steph has ever had a top 10 offense (and again, it was #8). outside the time with his most optimized coaching and teammate situation, not only is he not creating league-leading offenses, he's not even getting them to the top 10.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#73 » by OhayoKD » Sun Jul 30, 2023 10:22 am

lessthanjake wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
ijspeelman wrote:
Is "adjusted creation" still a measure of opportunities created by a player (not necessarily by passing)?

it's supposed to be anyway. IIRC, O-load(# of shots partially) and relative 3pa/3-point efficiency are put in specifically to credit players for what they are generating indirectly iirc. You can think of adjusted creation as a volume estimate, and passer-rating as a ts equivalent


“Passer rating” is *not* like a TS equivalent to box creation’s volume estimate. Passer Rating is not attempting to measure the quality or efficiency of the “creation” that box creation is measuring. It is only attempting to measure the quality of *passes,* not the quality of overall opportunities created. So these are only really tangentially related metrics.

Uh...no:
Image
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Just like Cheema's RAPM, this is not a black box, if you actually bothered to look things up, you wouldn't be saying outright falsehoods:
Notably, with Passer Rating, there’s a few extra reasons to be skeptical of it. One is that the underlying hand-counted stuff isn’t actually anything objective.

No. It is box-derived. And is thus as objective as any other box-prior. However it(and box-creation) has several advantages that make it more predictive/accurate when we test it against something like "ast:tov" for o-rating:

-> 3-point volume and efficiency curve your creation up allowing players like Steph to be credited for what they offer indirectly
-> The quality of what you're creating plays a factor(layup assist percentage is incorperated in passer-rating's formula_
-> Height plays a factor as taller players can hit a wider variety of angles
-> Offensive-load replaces less accurate usage-rate and is baked into both(players who are creating and shooting more generate more "gravity")

None of that is aimed at "hey who has the coolest passes!" It's aimed at "who is generating higher quality looks" and whether you dislike those priors or not, they test better than the alternatives. Moreover, even if you want to say that is all bunk because it isn't directly extrapolated from winning, winning does not favor Steph because

Magic leads better playoff offenses

You confused this(very similar to the jordan 27-3 rabbit hole) by taking a longer stretch of time for Magic and comparing it to a shorter stretch for Steph, but with opponent adjustment, good or bad, Magic is generating better offenses than Steph even with KD joining. You argue this is worthwhile because you're filtering out "weak defenses", but even "weak defenses" like the 2016 thunder have made Steph's offenses suffer. In fact, that series is a great example of why you don't just chuck out what you don't like. The Thunder were not especially talented on that end, but they were physical, so the Warriors motion was getting **** up. You know how they adjusted? They slowed down and started playing more methodically and letting iggy take some of Steph's on-ball load. It's also a great example of why using scoring and gamescore and per to pretend help that doesn't actually play at the level you're eyeballing them at leads to dumb conclusions. Steph's cast was exceptionally talented in terms of passing, ball-handling, decision-making, and iq. Hell even the pre-kerr Warriors were strong in all those departments.

Doc likes to toss how the warriors had a high MOV over the last 3 games after kerr's adjusted. Well, the Cavs were decisively better after Lue made his own adjustment in 2016:
Heej wrote:Cavs came into this match up with a bad game plan and trying to replicate what they did last year. Lue fixed that up after game 2, said he wanted them to run more and play faster basketball, pretty much what they had been doing through out these playoffs prior to the Finals.

You know how the Cavs, an offense that had performed better against a better and more talented defense in the conference finals than the Warriors had(and had been doing much better outside of those first 3 games all playoffs?): do it like Magic would.

You know what other adjustment they made?
Following the game Sam Amico tweeted that all game Lebron was yelling to get the ball to whoever [Curry's] guarding. I'm sure Kerr didn't expect the Cavs gameplan was to actively seek out Curry but they did and that's why Kyrie got the ball so much before Thompson switched on to him in the second and third quarters (and that lead to JR making some plays on him).

I just watched the Dawkins clips for JR and Kyrie on youtube and JR scored 8 on Curry all after the first quarter when he switched onto JR (only one shot really contested and the 2 threes he made should be embarrassing for Steph) and the 9-0 run to open the game was a screen Curry ran under, Curry losing Kyrie on a backdoor cut, and Curry not rotating to the corner off a PNR leading to 7 of those 9 (the other 2 came off a fast break from a Curry turnover). Kerr probably did see it was likely his worst defender would be picked on but that doesn't make it better. I don't expect much from Jose Calderon either.

They took advantage of Steph being small and tired him out by forcing him to man-up again and again.

To be clear, this did not yield great results offensively. Curry did much better against Kyrie than Kyrie did against Steph. But It did wear him down, so much so, that what was hyped as the greatest offense in the history of basketball put an o-rating of 65 at the end of the last 3 games:
Re: 4th Quarter

That's what happened in games 5 and 6 as well. According to NBA.com, their (GSW) 4th quarter offense in games 5-7 was an 85.9 ORTG (so probably 88-89 by BBR's possessions) and that's WITH their garbage time points in Game 6 after James left the floor. So they must have functioned right around 80.0 with Lebron on the floor for 3 straight games in the 4th, and this was occurring at the same time I observed James playing his best defense (all over the floor, near-perfect execution, secondary rim coverage, blowing up any attempt to move towards the basket, transition hustle obviously, covering Dray + switching onto Curry, the works basically).

That is remarkable, considering most of the praise we will observe for his play will come from the big box-score lines. He out Draymonded Draymond.

...

Over the last 3 games, the Warriors had an ORtG of 67.6 in the 4th quarter with James on the floor according to stats.nba.com

You might recall that up until the going got tough the 2016 Warriors were one of the clutchest teams in basketball. And then Steph's "higher-cieling offense" came crashing down. As kobe puts it "the kingdom toppled democracy". Just because democracy is more "fun" does not make it better. And when we just look at the two in an apples to apples comparison, it's very clear who was achieving better results.

Can't put it to help either, because selective contextualization aside(apparently 2022 draymond was going very hard in those regular season games without steph and the warriors being far more affected by injury/missed games isn't relevant), Magic won with a team that was worse without him than any of Steph's contenders have been. And on that note...
draymondgold wrote:For someone who says “The main advantage of WOWY is that you can see what truly happens when a player is removed from a team.”, for someone who characterizes WOWY as the true measure of wholistic global impact

My characterization actually lines up rather well with the bit this was apparently intended as a response to:
I think real-world stuff is especially useful to compare outliers(2016, 2004, 2009 ect), or to examine why something is happening in the artifical-stuff(Duncan staggering minutes with Drob's bad replacements, Spurs not really affected by Manu's absence, ect), but on the flip-side, lineup-adjustment makes things less noisy and is useful for establishing a baseline over longer time-frames. FWIW, I do rank RS Steph's highs pretty highly, above the best years for players like Hakeem and Jordan. But the same is true for KG. So unless you are willing to make the case years like 2016 were on another level compared to KG's 2004 or 2003, we get into how they generally look(KG carries an overwhelming advantage in both of the extended rapm sets we have), how much of their value can be tied to situation(very strongly favors Garnett), and what they and their casts do in the playoffs(2004 beats out 2016 pretty handily on that both fronts imo).

Not sure how you read that(or what I have been posting and have directly linked you to) and came away with the impression I'm some WOWY junkie who only cares about net-rating/srs splits. My issue with WOWYR is sample size and the approach being extremely noisy. With internal box-scaling(edit: that's not true) and outlier curving...
Image

We have two approaches for rapm approximations for Magic's time. Personally I think the above might be more useful, but WOWYR also sees Magic mostly clearing the field(david robinson is competitive). You can also go by WOWY(concentrated or extended) and you can also go by partial RAPM. Regardless of approach, Magic is "top" or pushing for "tops" for an era.

That is an impact king. This is not:
Image


And then there are the resumes, the winning percentage, and the ring count. The king of the 80's "topples" Steph, democracy be damned.

PS:
ijspeelman wrote:

Passer-rating:
Formula incorporates i) Layup assist percentage (since 2002), ii) Offensive Load, iii) Assist-to-Load ratio (per 100), iv) Non-3 Creation-to-Load ratio, v) Height, and vi) Turnovers

Box-Creation:
Image

I do not know what the process for "era-adjustment" is but it's not film-tracking passes. Ben has done that too, but that simply informs the metric which is centered around the creation of scoring opportunities.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#74 » by eminence » Sun Jul 30, 2023 12:02 pm

As of last check, Bens Opportunities Created film tracking was the regression target of Box Creation. Saying it 'informs' the metric is a bit of an understatement.

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opportunities-created-oc/

https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#75 » by OhayoKD » Sun Jul 30, 2023 12:05 pm

eminence wrote:As of last check, Bens opportunities created film tracking was the regression target of Box Creation. Saying it 'informs' the metric is a bit of an understatement.

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opportunities-created-oc/

https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/

Sure. Why would that make it "Less objective" than anything else that is based on granular-data?

I'd say it being informed by film-tracking is actually an advantage.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#76 » by eminence » Sun Jul 30, 2023 12:27 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
eminence wrote:As of last check, Bens opportunities created film tracking was the regression target of Box Creation. Saying it 'informs' the metric is a bit of an understatement.

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opportunities-created-oc/

https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/

Sure. Why would that make it "Less objective" than anything else that is based on granular-data?

I'd say it being informed by film-tracking is actually an advantage.


Box Creation is significantly more open to bias than others due to it being based on one persons tracking instead of a balance of the leagues scorekeepers.

There will always be a degree of subjectivity in stat recording no matter the simplicity (remember Harden 'missing' a dunk he clearly made?). Something relatively complex like 'opportunities created' is significantly more subjective than whether the ball went through the hoop.

Ben has a good eye, so it works out decently, but it's not a rigorous method with real depth to it.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#77 » by OhayoKD » Sun Jul 30, 2023 12:34 pm

eminence wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
eminence wrote:As of last check, Bens opportunities created film tracking was the regression target of Box Creation. Saying it 'informs' the metric is a bit of an understatement.

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/opportunities-created-oc/

https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/

Sure. Why would that make it "Less objective" than anything else that is based on granular-data?

I'd say it being informed by film-tracking is actually an advantage.


Box Creation is significantly more open to bias than others due to it being based on one persons tracking instead of a balance of the leagues scorekeepers.

There will always be a degree of subjectivity in stat recording no matter the simplicity (remember Harden 'missing' a dunk he clearly made?). Something relatively complex like 'opportunities created' is pretty clearly more subjective than whether the ball went through the hoop.

Ben has a good eye, so it works out decently, but it's not a rigorous method with real depth to it.

I am confused. Isn't it literally a formula spit out with widely available data? Was my screencap not accurate? I am aware what goes into it is based on Ben's film-tracking/what he thinks leads to good offense, but I don't see why that is less "subjective" than exclusively valuing chronology(final pass -> shot goes in -> you assisted the point!).

An assist is subjectively defined. Even "scored" is.

As is, IIRC, Box-creation was literally tested against assists in terms of predicting o-rating and it was more predictive
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#78 » by Gibson22 » Sun Jul 30, 2023 12:37 pm

I struggle to see curry as better than bird. Like, their prime are about the same length and I just feel like bird's was slightly superior especially because his defense was significantly better. I don't know, I just feel like bird is slightly better and still has slightly better longevity, I think curry needs another couple all nba level seasons or an mvp level season to get him or surpass him.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#79 » by eminence » Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:02 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
eminence wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:Sure. Why would that make it "Less objective" than anything else that is based on granular-data?

I'd say it being informed by film-tracking is actually an advantage.


Box Creation is significantly more open to bias than others due to it being based on one persons tracking instead of a balance of the leagues scorekeepers.

There will always be a degree of subjectivity in stat recording no matter the simplicity (remember Harden 'missing' a dunk he clearly made?). Something relatively complex like 'opportunities created' is pretty clearly more subjective than whether the ball went through the hoop.

Ben has a good eye, so it works out decently, but it's not a rigorous method with real depth to it.

I am confused. Isn't it literally a formula spit out with widely available data? Was my screencap not accurate? I am aware what goes into it is based on Ben's film-tracking/what he thinks leads to good offense, but I don't see why that is less "subjective" than exclusively valuing chronology(final pass -> shot goes in -> you assisted the point!).

An assist is subjectively defined. Even "scored" is.

As is, IIRC, Box-creation was literally tested against assists in terms of predicting o-rating and it was more predictive


Box Creation is to Opportunities Created (Ben's hand-tracked stuff) as BPM is to RAPM.

What goes into it is not Ben's choice per se, it's a regression using a bunch of box-score stuff (only a few things make the cut through PCA or whatever method he used, I haven't checked that) to best match his Opportunities Created.

The formula is widely available, how to determine the formula is widely available in the case of BPM (some parameter choices when finding an RAPM, but I'm sure if one asked Daniel he'd share his own and then you could exactly duplicate from step 1) but not in the case of Box Creation. You can't re-derive Box Creation except by being Ben Taylor and watching the same couple hundred games again and hand-tracking Opportunities Created. Realistically, he wouldn't wind up with the same formula again either, nobody is that consistent on something so subjective, though I imagine it'd be quite similar. If someone else watched those games and valued screen setting a lot more than Ben maybe Rudy Gobert is the all-time leader in Box Creation. An extreme example, but the point is, if it was based off someone else watching and recording 'Opportunities Created' then the formula for Box Creation would be different (perhaps drastically so).
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/31/23) 

Post#80 » by eminence » Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:17 pm

On my personal opinion of opportunities created for Magic/Steph, I slightly prefer Magic across longer primes ('82-'91 vs '13-'23), and both are in my top 4 ever (with Nash/LeBron). An order for 'average prime season opportunities created' would probably be 1. Magic, 2. Nash (highest peak, but not as consistent), 3. Steph, 4. LeBron. 5 I haven't thought on a lot, but I'd be looking at Harden at first glance.

I don't do an era adjustment here (sorry Oscar as the clearest era leader not listed above), in the same way I don't scale Gobert upwards due to higher rim protection impact in earlier eras.
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