RealGM Top 100 List #9 -- Post Shot Clock Only (No Mikan)

[ronnymac2]

Wait, Dwyane Wade hasn't been nominated yet?! ****, I forgot about him. haha

I'm not going to change my nomination here, but he's definitely next for me. Definitely over Robinson.

I'll hear arguments for Ewing over Robinson, too. I've been tinkering with that idea, and I thought I'd wholly flesh it out during this project.

Moses Malone appears to be polarizing right now...

[Gongxi]

I don't have time for deep analysis here, as I'm in Iraq doing other analysis for 12 hours a day, but I do enjoy reading the arguments presented.

That said, this looks like a pretty open-and-shut case for #9, and I'll just vote now: Hakeem.

I nominated Robinson last thread, but I'm open to hearing Ewing's argument here (or Wade's, or Baylor's I guess- not Isiah **** Thomas', though), so I'll wait on that.

[lorak]

I'm not sure why this is brought up, other than to overstate value. Yes, it was an historic scoring season. So was Wilt's 1962. So was Barkley's 1988 or Dantley's 1982. None of them were GOAT offensive level seasons,

I'm not so sure: http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ranking06
So that year Kobe offensively was even better than Nash!

1. RAPM is a tool, it is not a definitive measurement. Doug Christie for nomination!

Be serious ElGee and compare players with similar roles: leaders to leaders, role player to role players. For example when discussion will be about the best perimeter defenders Christie definitely should be in the discussion.

2. Even RAPM doesn't know that it's easier to lift -10 to 0 than 0 to +10. You can see this in Kobe's huge on/off that year and the team's impressive ORtg. It's an good thing to point at to suggest that volume year IS really good, but I'm more impressed with what he did in other seasons. (What's the difference between 06 and 07, for instance?)

You may be more impressed, but objective data (offensive RAPM, on/off, ortg, OWS) suggest that this Bryant's season was special from offensive standpoint. I know you don't value volume scorers as much as you should ;], but the fact is they are very valuable and that Kobe's year is the best example of that.

[Doctor MJ]

You may be more impressed, but objective data (offensive RAPM, on/off, ortg, OWS) suggest that this Bryant's season was special from offensive standpoint. I know you don't value volume scorers as much as you should ;], but the fact is they are very valuable and that Kobe's year is the best example of that.

You should look at more of the data. While his offensive RAPM peaks in '05-06 at +5.8, his '08-09 is +5.6 and '09-10 is +5.1, and those latter two years are his best overall by RAPM.

Also it should be noted that Nash has had offensive RAPM's north of +6 4 times, while James & Wade have both done it twice. These numbers Kobe put up are great, but by no means are they outliers.

[Doctor MJ]

Garnett didn't get screwed. Kobe took a team of Kwame Brown, Luke Walton, Smush Parker, Chris Mimh, Brian Cook to the playoffs. KG had scrubs and he missed the playoffs for 3 straight years.

Absolutely mind boggling how this gets spun. Let me take a minute to remind everyone, here were the Lakers & Wolves win totals those 3 years:

Lakers: 34, 45, 42
Wolves: 44, 33, 32

I mean literally, we're just talking about 2 crappy years for the Wolves and 1 similarly crappy year for the Lakers, with the other seasons being mediocre for both. Yet, people believe the narrative "Kobe led the Lakers to be fiesty wall Garnett couldn't even make the Wolves decent". Truly amazing.

[Jay30]

Hakeem, Garnett, Moses and Dr. J all belong ahead of Kobe.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Garnett didn't get screwed. Kobe took a team of Kwame Brown, Luke Walton, Smush Parker, Chris Mimh, Brian Cook to the playoffs. KG had scrubs and he missed the playoffs for 3 straight years.

Absolutely mind boggling how this gets spun. Let me take a minute to remind everyone, here were the Lakers & Wolves win totals those 3 years:

Lakers: 34, 45, 42
Wolves: 44, 33, 32

I mean literally, we're just talking about 2 crappy years for the Wolves and 1 similarly crappy year for the Lakers, with the other seasons being mediocre for both. Yet, people believe the narrative "Kobe led the Lakers to be fiesty wall Garnett couldn't even make the Wolves decent". Truly amazing.

Kobe was hurt in 2005, and LA was in the playoffs until their coach left mid-season and the injury bug hit. That's a far cry from KG missing the playoff 3 straight years in his prime. I don't know how you can spin this.

If KG didn't go to Boston in 08', there's a good chance that he never even sees the playoffs again.

[Gongxi]

But we know that they didn't play on identical teams with identical coaches in identical situations, so let's focus on the players themselves and not worry about comparing the small variations in mediocrity between two teams that they played on for a short time in their careers.

[JordansBulls]

Garnett didn't get screwed. Kobe took a team of Kwame Brown, Luke Walton, Smush Parker, Chris Mimh, Brian Cook to the playoffs. KG had scrubs and he missed the playoffs for 3 straight years.

Absolutely mind boggling how this gets spun. Let me take a minute to remind everyone, here were the Lakers & Wolves win totals those 3 years:

Lakers: 34, 45, 42
Wolves: 44, 33, 32

I mean literally, we're just talking about 2 crappy years for the Wolves and 1 similarly crappy year for the Lakers, with the other seasons being mediocre for both. Yet, people believe the narrative "Kobe led the Lakers to be fiesty wall Garnett couldn't even make the Wolves decent". Truly amazing.

Kobe was hurt in 2005, and LA was in the playoffs until their coach left mid-season and the injury bug hit. That's a far cry from KG missing the playoff 3 straight years in his prime. I don't know how you can spin this.

If KG didn't go to Boston in 08', there's a good chance that he never even sees the playoffs again.

This is true, however you must consider the franchise as well. Lakers are not only expected to make the playoffs but to be contenders. Now if KG were on Boston on the time in place of Pierce this would be more legit debate as both franchises are winning organizations and franchises. Minnesota was never that. Garnett put that team on the map.

[lorak]

You may be more impressed, but objective data (offensive RAPM, on/off, ortg, OWS) suggest that this Bryant's season was special from offensive standpoint. I know you don't value volume scorers as much as you should ;], but the fact is they are very valuable and that Kobe's year is the best example of that.

You should look at more of the data. While his offensive RAPM peaks in '05-06 at +5.8, his '08-09 is +5.6 and '09-10 is +5.1, and those latter two years are his best overall by RAPM.

And?
That doesn't change the point - in terms of OFFENSE '06 season was special for Kobe and as volume scorer he played on great level, had great offensive impact, as great, as the best offensive players of this generation - Nash or LeBron.

[Gongxi]

This is true, however you must consider the franchise as well. Lakers are not only expected to make the playoffs but to be contenders. Now if KG were on Boston on the time in place of Pierce this would be more legit debate as both franchises are winning organizations and franchises. Minnesota was never that. Garnett put that team on the map.

I'm sorry, but what in the **** does that have to do with how good of a basketball player he was or wasn't? What a player "does for a franchise" should be NOWHERE NEAR this project, but making it so that playing for a "greater" franchise actually gives a player a handicap? That's patently absurd. If the next great thing is drafted in 2015 by the Clippers instead of the Sixers, that doesn't mean he should have an easier time climbing up the hypothetical lists of greats, simply because the Clippers are clearly a worse franchise than the Sixers, historically.

"Put a team on a map"? Did I badly misinterpret what this project is supposed to be about or what? Can someone fill me in? I thought it was bad enough that you and UAF started openly talking about your voting being swayed by resumes and accolades, but this is nucking futs.

[Doctor MJ]

Kobe was hurt in 2005, and LA was in the playoffs until their coach left mid-season and the injury bug hit. That's a far cry from KG missing the playoff 3 straight years in his prime. I don't know how you can spin this.

If KG didn't go to Boston in 08', there's a good chance that he never even sees the playoffs again.

I find it pretty irritating that you're saying I'm spinning things when you're still talking about "3 straight years" after I've just shown the numbers. It makes ZERO sense to knock Garnett dramatically for the team results of '04-05 relative to Kobe when they are right in the same level.

We're talking about 2 bad teams seasons relative to 1. That's the clear no-spin truth, and people have somehow used that 1 season difference to extrapolate some drastic difference between the two players. In terms of actual team achievement, this makes no sense.

Now, clearly you feel that the Lakers '04-05 was just a total fluke, where as the Wolves doing it twice in a row means that that's simply what they were. That's not an indefensible position.

Where I think people haven't really thought this through is in going back and re-analyzing what happened back when Minny was good. Clearly, people see the win totals in the low 30s and they think "Okay, that's what Garnett looks like with poor help." When they think this, and use that to knock Garnett, that clearly implies that when Garnett was actually leading strong Minny teams, he must have had some special supporting casts.

And that's the trouble. Garnett led a team to 55+ wins with really only one other strong player on his team. That would be a 34-year old Sam Cassell, a player who isn't exactly light years beyond Lamar Odom. There's simply no defensible argument that explains the success that year as one of a team loaded with talent. Garnett was doing amazing things with really a modest supporting cast.

If you assume that Garnett was not a totally different player over the next few years, then this should really tell you quite a bit about how basketball teams work in general. Basketball is not additive. Each player isn't adding X wins to the team, it's far more complicated than that. And so you can have a player with a seemingly not too different supporting casts have drastically different team results.

Of course, if you're actually arguing that Garnett WAS great, and then played not nearly as well, that's something different. There's a little something to that, but Garnett was still putting up huge box score numbers and huge +/- numbers. The idea that he had become a tiny fraction of his old self is really without any kind of basis.

[JordansBulls]

This is true, however you must consider the franchise as well. Lakers are not only expected to make the playoffs but to be contenders. Now if KG were on Boston on the time in place of Pierce this would be more legit debate as both franchises are winning organizations and franchises. Minnesota was never that. Garnett put that team on the map.

I'm sorry, but what in the **** does that have to do with how good of a basketball player he was or wasn't? What a player "does for a franchise" should be NOWHERE NEAR this project, but making it so that playing for a "greater" franchise actually gives a player a handicap? That's patently absurd. If the next great thing is drafted in 2015 by the Clippers instead of the Sixers, that doesn't mean he should have an easier time climbing up the hypothetical lists of greats, simply because the Clippers are clearly a worse franchise than the Sixers, historically.

"Put a team on a map"? Did I badly misinterpret what this project is supposed to be about or what? Can someone fill me in? I thought it was bad enough that you and UAF started openly talking about your voting being swayed by resumes and accolades, but this is nucking futs.

To the contrary, it means a hell of a lot to do this. A guy like Dirk Nowitzki is going to jump the scales in ranking because he won with an organization that never won before. Just like Wade jumped the scales in 2006 winning with the Heat a team that never won before. When you can take Franchises that never won before and that were not winning before you came to the title, that means a hell of a lot.

[Gongxi]

That's insane. It means absolutely nothing. Nothing.

[Vinsanity420]

To the contrary, it means a hell of a lot to do this. A guy like Dirk Nowitzki is going to jump the scales in ranking because he won with an organization that never won before. Just like Wade jumped the scales in 2006 winning with the Heat a team that never won before. When you can take Franchises that never won before and that were not winning before you came to the title, that means a hell of a lot.

... This is worse than using HCA. You're ranking players here, not GM's.

[Doctor MJ]

And?
That doesn't change the point - in terms of OFFENSE '06 season was special for Kobe and as volume scorer he played on great level, had great offensive impact, as great, as the best offensive players of this generation - Nash or LeBron.

Well, okay, I guess I'm not so much interesting in your exact point as in painting a more precise picture. That being:

-One year RAPM have a good deal of noise.
-Kobe doesn't have 1 year that really stands out from his others.
-Kobe's cluster of top offensive RAPM seasons are below those of Nash and James and Wade.

Put all that together, and by no means does it make sense to say that Kobe in '05-06 was the equal on offense to what peak Nash/James/Wade did based on RAPM numbers.

[NoRoleModel]

But we know that they didn't play on identical teams with identical coaches in identical situations, so let's focus on the players themselves and not worry about comparing the small variations in mediocrity between two teams that they played on for a short time in their careers.

Would you agree that two players, of identical ability, would perform much differently on a team depending on who is surrounded around them and who is sitting on the sideline?

[Laimbeer]

I'm sorry, but what in the **** does that have to do with how good of a basketball player he was or wasn't? What a player "does for a franchise" should be NOWHERE NEAR this project, but making it so that playing for a "greater" franchise actually gives a player a handicap? That's patently absurd. If the next great thing is drafted in 2015 by the Clippers instead of the Sixers, that doesn't mean he should have an easier time climbing up the hypothetical lists of greats, simply because the Clippers are clearly a worse franchise than the Sixers, historically.

"Put a team on a map"? Did I badly misinterpret what this project is supposed to be about or what? Can someone fill me in? I thought it was bad enough that you and UAF started openly talking about your voting being swayed by resumes and accolades, but this is nucking futs.

To the contrary, it means a hell of a lot to do this. A guy like Dirk Nowitzki is going to jump the scales in ranking because he won with an organization that never won before. Just like Wade jumped the scales in 2006 winning with the Heat a team that never won before. When you can take Franchises that never won before and that were not winning before you came to the title, that means a hell of a lot.

Sure does. How many guys have come into a losing situation and won titles with that same franchise? It's huge.

[lorak]

[
-Kobe doesn't have 1 year that really stands out from his others.

Because he was (maybe still is) great player and have several such years! But during every season he was doing it as volume scorer, he had great impact on offense as a volume scorer.

-Kobe's cluster of top offensive RAPM seasons are below those of Nash and James and Wade.

Not really. If in "advanced" metrics difference between players is small we can't say that one is better than another. Numbers like APM show us they are on similar level and we have to look at other things, context, to evaluate better. And Kobe is definitely in the discussion "the best perimeter offensive player of XXI century".

[pancakes3]

But we know that they didn't play on identical teams with identical coaches in identical situations, so let's focus on the players themselves and not worry about comparing the small variations in mediocrity between two teams that they played on for a short time in their careers.

where was this mentality when Wilt was being ranked?