#8 Highest Peak of All Time (Magic '87 wins)

[C-izMe]

Yeah, and he was responsible for covering all Magic's 3point shooters and Dwight at the same time... please, be serious.

Those same people who are bashing LeBron for not helping enough on Howard would bash him even more if Alston, Hedo, or Pietrus were shooting open 3's all game because LeBron was helping on Howard. As I said before, theres not much help you can do when the oppponent is 3 feet from the basket

I wouldn't. Easy lay in/dunk >>>> open 3.

[ElGee]

It goes beyond that. The Spurs won their championship similar to the '77 Blazers, expect they didn't have a No.2 All-Star option like Portland had in Maurice Lucas. They filled that weakness with playing their roles nicely, Duncan taking over games late well and him making big impact.

Because Duncan won a title with his supporting offensive cast doing absolutely nothing:

Parker: 14 PPG, .471 TS%
Jackson: 10.3 PPG, .468 TS%
Ginobili: 8.7 PPG, .471 TS%
Bowen: 3.3 PPG, .324 TS%

I've addressed this before -- you are making a logical error in asserting that no *consistent* second option is the same as no second option game-to-game. The Spurs had different players step up in each game, which will bring all their averages down at the end of the playoffs, but game-to-game Duncan was getting players to step up. That's all that matters. Do you guys not see this? I can explain it further if need be...

[colts18]

Yeah, and he was responsible for covering all Magic's 3point shooters and Dwight at the same time... please, be serious.

Those same people who are bashing LeBron for not helping enough on Howard would bash him even more if Alston, Hedo, or Pietrus were shooting open 3's all game because LeBron was helping on Howard. As I said before, theres not much help you can do when the oppponent is 3 feet from the basket

I wouldn't. Easy lay in/dunk >>>> open 3.

3 points>2 points

[colts18]

It goes beyond that. The Spurs won their championship similar to the '77 Blazers, expect they didn't have a No.2 All-Star option like Portland had in Maurice Lucas. They filled that weakness with playing their roles nicely, Duncan taking over games late well and him making big impact.

Because Duncan won a title with his supporting offensive cast doing absolutely nothing:

Parker: 14 PPG, .471 TS%
Jackson: 10.3 PPG, .468 TS%
Ginobili: 8.7 PPG, .471 TS%
Bowen: 3.3 PPG, .324 TS%

I've addressed this before -- you are making a logical error in asserting that no *consistent* second option is the same as no second option game-to-game. The Spurs had different players step up in each game, which will bring all their averages down at the end of the playoffs, but game-to-game Duncan was getting players to step up. That's all that matters. Do you guys not see this? I can explain it further if need be...

Who cares if 1 player stepped up while 2 players sucked in that game. The Spurs cast consistently sucked overall game by game. What part of 1 guy having a good game (15-20 points) but the other guys sucking canceling it out don't you understand. Overall the cast sucked which is what mattered. Go check game by game for Duncan's cast overall contribution and it never was good.

[C-izMe]

If Dwight takes ten easy lay ins I expect 9-10 makes (18-20 points). If I leave Rafer Alston with ten open threes I'll expect 4-5 makes maximum(12-15 points). A automatic three point shooter makes less than half his shots really.

[ardee]

A further few points to note about '87 Magic:

He played 80 games that season, and had a Game Score of 20 or more in an astounding 57 of them. That's 71.3%.

Just to give you an idea of Magic's consistency, here's a look at that same ratio for the other seasons voted in (the post '85 ones, as BBR only has data for those, of course)

Michael Jordan 1991: 82.9% (comfortably number one)
Shaquille O'Neal 2000: 70.9%
Hakeem Olajuwon 1994: 66.3%
Larry Bird 1986: 60.9%

So, among the pantheon of greats, Magic's consistency was exceeded only by Jordan himself.

Now I'm not saying Game Score is a great indicator of anything, but this just goes to show that very few brought it on the offensive side on as consistent a basis as Magic did. And to show you how much his offensive production meant to the Lakers:

Record when Magic has a >20 Game Score: 50-7.
Record when Magic has a <20 Game Score: 13-10.

I have yet to hear an argument that disputes Magic's GOAT level offensive impact that year.

[colts18]

If Dwight takes ten easy lay ins I expect 9-10 makes (18-20 points). If I leave Rafer Alston with ten open threes I'll expect 4-5 makes maximum(12-15 points). A automatic three point shooter makes less than half his shots really.

If Howard has an easy lay in attempt, nothing LeBron can do is going to stop that. Thats why you need your post defenders to not physically overwhelmed if you are going to use help defense. Theres not much help you can do you if Dwight/Shaq already blew by the defender. Wide open 3 point shots in the NBA are at least 50%. So that means you need to help down on Howard when you believe his expected scoring output is at 75%. But no big man is at 75% ever so the only time it makes sense is if you think you can turn an easy shot to a semi difficult shot.

[ElGee]

It goes beyond that. The Spurs won their championship similar to the '77 Blazers, expect they didn't have a No.2 All-Star option like Portland had in Maurice Lucas. They filled that weakness with playing their roles nicely, Duncan taking over games late well and him making big impact.

Because Duncan won a title with his supporting offensive cast doing absolutely nothing:

Parker: 14 PPG, .471 TS%
Jackson: 10.3 PPG, .468 TS%
Ginobili: 8.7 PPG, .471 TS%
Bowen: 3.3 PPG, .324 TS%

I've addressed this before -- you are making a logical error in asserting that no *consistent* second option is the same as no second option game-to-game. The Spurs had different players step up in each game, which will bring all their averages down at the end of the playoffs, but game-to-game Duncan was getting players to step up. That's all that matters. Do you guys not see this? I can explain it further if need be...

Who cares if 1 player stepped up while 2 players sucked in that game. The Spurs cast consistently sucked overall game by game. What part of 1 guy having a good game (15-20 points) but the other guys sucking canceling it out don't you understand. Overall the cast sucked which is what mattered. Go check game by game for Duncan's cast overall contribution and it never was good.

Hmm - you're just having a math failure here. Not sure what else to say. Just as a simple illustration, look at this:

Average GmSc of supporting cast (so we exclude Duncan and Garnett)
08 Celtics PS 55.6 (18.0 std) -- 106.1 opp D
00 Lakers PS 51.3 (13.9 std) -- 101.4 opp D
03 Spurs PS 50.1 (12.3 std) -- 101.9 opp D
06 Heat PS 47.2 (13.5 std) -- 103.5 opp D
04 Wolves PS 46.5 (10.6 std) -- 103.1 opp D

These numbers aren't opponent adjusted, but note the opp DRtgs. Just from the stats YOU are using (ppg, TS%, gmsc/PER, etc.) the Spurs weren't the worst supporting cast recently seen. And that doesn't even get into how good they were on defense, which isn't measured by the box.

You need 4 good games in a series. If high variance players give that you to from different places, that's all that matters. Do I need to go through game by game to demonstrate this?

[therealbig3]

Which I pointed out, and the T'Wolves supporting cast was still more efficient offensively than the Spurs supporting cast.

And Cassell played 16 out of 18 playoff games, so it's not like he was gone for the whole playoffs.

Cassell was hobbling during the entire WCFs and got injured like midway through WCSFs. Cassell was basically the only good offensive player alongside KG that year so that had a huge impact. merely "pointing it out" is not enough. consider this:
05 Wolves w/out Cassell were -1.5 SRS (33g) +2.8 w/Cassell

the fact that Olowokandi/Hassell/Szczerbiak/Spree/Darrick Martin were more efficient than Parker/Manu/S-Jax/D-Rob/Malik Rose/Bowen speaks volumes about KG's abilities as a playmaker. as a matter of fact Garnett was actually playing point for long stretches of 04 WCFs. Duncan's supporting cast is getting underrated here.

I'm not really going to break it down any further than box score stats, but per 36:

why per36 ? we're not trying to measure their efficiency but overall production. nice try though. Garnett played better vs the Lakers both times. the difference was Duncan often had his guards to bail him out as it seemed someone would always step up and score 20+ on great efficiency. Garnett didn't get that kind of help in 04, particularly with Cassell hobbling or being out.

And yet for the playoffs, through 16 games, Cassell was at 17/4 on 58% TS. His production was fine.

And maybe those players for the Spurs were less efficient because they weren't that great at that point in time? And maybe because Sczerbiak and Hoiberg were pretty efficient players in general (since they were 3pt shooters).

Why use per 36? What kind of question is that? It's a standard adjustment...if one guy is playing more minutes, he'll have more opportunity to rack up stats. Per 36, Duncan was better than KG.

@ElGee

That seems a weird point to make, since nobody ever wins on their own, and someone has to step up and help for a team to win. I think having a consistent 2nd option is better than having a bunch of high variance players stepping up at random times, which is why what Duncan did was considered so impressive.

[ElGee]

Oh, it's better to have a consistent second option because you are more likely to win. But that doesn't mean that if the role players put it together in a "different night, different guy" fashion, that you CAN'T win. They DID that -- that's actually what happened -- and a large part of why SAS won.

I've written about this extensively before. I guess it needs a re-post:

You -- and others -- want to say that Tim Duncan played better basketball because he won 4 series with different players playing these roles each time. If LeBron wins a title next to Wade, everyone's instinct is to say "well, he had a guy who could shoulder scoring, creation, defend, and rebound amazingly from the guard spot." This is the exact same thing if you can get 4 different players to produce the same results.

Dirk Nowitzki's legend, like Hakeem's and Duncan's, will grow because of this silly breakdown in memory and logic.

Peja Stojakovic shot the crap out of the ball in the 4 games versus LA because that was a favorable matchup for Peja as a specialist. Tony Parker had huge efforts in the wins against LA (18.3 ppg, 55% TS, 1.3 TOV), especially the last 2 games. Just because it's a different player in the next series doesn't mean the team around a star is any lesser than if it was the same sidekick filling the role every time. Peja basically didn't see the court in the Finals because of matchups, but Stevenson shot the crap out of the ball.

To really enumerate this with an example, let's pretend there's a stat like Game Score that comes close to approximating value, and I'll call it God Points.

From G1 to G25 of the PS, Duncan averages 20 God Points. His team averages 75.

The team totals might look something like this:
Duncan 20
Parker 7
Ginobili 6
Robinson 6
Rose 4

And so on.

What you want to do is look at those averages over 25 games, say "no one other than Duncan looks really good," and conclude they were winning games because Duncan was 3x better than the next best player." That's really poor analysis and a breakdown in mathematics. Because...the averages could be derived from something like this:

G1
Duncan 20
Parker 18
Robinson 17

G2
Duncan 20
Manu 18
Rose 14

G3
Duncan 20
Bowen 15
Jackson 15

G4
Duncan 20
Parker 19
Rose 12

And so on. This is something I keep harping on when you (and others, but especially you) try to analyze statistics by using a raw mean. You have to consider what you are describing and saying. When you say KG's TS% is low in 2004 and then compare it to a year like 1995, you need to consider the playing environments. When you try and conclude "Duncan must be amazing because he didn't have a consistent second star and they won," you need to look at his value on a per-game basis relative to the team, not the final averages relative to the team.

And this is exactly why it makes no sense to demean that Spurs team. Parker's contribution to SAS winning was breaking down LA. His overall individual performance might not be great. Stephen Jackson had a big WCF, but his overall performance might not be great. Etc.

These are two very different scoring ensembles even though they have the same averages:

Team A
Duncan 23 ppg
Parker 12 ppg
Robinson 11 ppg
Manu 10 ppg
Rose 8 ppg

Team B
Garnett 23 ppg
Hudson 12 ppg
Wally 11 ppg
Johnson 10 ppg
Hassell 8 ppg

Because the scoring distribution is going to look AWFULLY different on a per-game basis if the games look like this:

Team A
G1
Parker 30
Duncan 23
Rose 10

G2
Manu 30
Duncan 23
Robinson 10

G3
Jackson 30
Duncan 23
Bowen 10

versus Team B

G1
Garnett 23
Hudson 14
Wally 11

G2
Garnett 23
Hudson 13
Johnson 10

G3
Garnett 23
Wally 14
Hudson 10

This concept applies to all the pillars of team strength: Rebounding, defending, outside shooting, etc. It's the ability to generate these in some form, game by game, that will produce wins. Sometimes teams get this consistently (eg Chicago 96), others the roles and performances fluctuate just enough that a team can still win its different matchups (SAS 03, Dallas 11).

[ElGee]

Just to add some more context so people can understand what was happening with 2003 SAS (again, aside from their schedule quality and more importantly, aside from their team defense), look at the 5 teams I compared above by Supporting Cast GmSc:

% of games over 40 GmSc by supporting cast
03 Spurs 88% (21/24)
08 Celtics 85% (22/26)
00 Lakers 78% (18/23)
04 Wolves 67% (12/18)
06 Heat 48% (11/23)

Then ask yourself (a) who was playing against the best defenses (answer -- 00 Lakers and 04 Spurs) and ask yourself who had the best defense (08 Celtics and 03 Spurs).

[therealbig3]

@ElGee

So was the "2nd option by committee" something that was there throughout the season, and continued in the playoffs, or do you think the supporting cast played better in the playoffs than in the regular season? What about the lower overall TS% of the supporting cast? Is that because of the variance you're talking about, or were they really playing a little worse than they did in the regular season?

Not trying to grill you or anything, I'm trying to figure out where Duncan ranks too. Still have him a bit higher than KG though.

[colts18]

I've addressed this before -- you are making a logical error in asserting that no *consistent* second option is the same as no second option game-to-game. The Spurs had different players step up in each game, which will bring all their averages down at the end of the playoffs, but game-to-game Duncan was getting players to step up. That's all that matters. Do you guys not see this? I can explain it further if need be...

Hmm - you're just having a math failure here. Not sure what else to say. Just as a simple illustration, look at this:

Average GmSc of supporting cast (so we exclude Duncan and Garnett)
08 Celtics PS 55.6 (18.0 std) -- 106.1 opp D
00 Lakers PS 51.3 (13.9 std) -- 101.4 opp D
03 Spurs PS 50.1 (12.3 std) -- 101.9 opp D
06 Heat PS 47.2 (13.5 std) -- 103.5 opp D
04 Wolves PS 46.5 (10.6 std) -- 103.1 opp D

These numbers aren't opponent adjusted, but note the opp DRtgs. Just from the stats YOU are using (ppg, TS%, gmsc/PER, etc.) the Spurs weren't the worst supporting cast recently seen. And that doesn't even get into how good they were on defense, which isn't measured by the box.

You need 4 good games in a series. If high variance players give that you to from different places, that's all that matters. Do I need to go through game by game to demonstrate this?

Duncan's cast vs. Nets:

Game 1: 69 points, .506 TS%, 18 Assists

Game 2: 66 points, .593 TS%, 14 Assists

Game 3: 63 points, .491 TS%, 12 Assists

Game 4: 53 points, .348 TS%, 12 assists (yet they still only lost by 1 because of Duncan)

Game 5: 64 points, .539 TS%, 11 Assists

Game 6: 67 points, .525 TS%, 10 Assists


KG's cast vs. Lakers:

Game 1: 72 points, .602 TS%, 16 Assist (they lost)

Game 2: 65 points, .540 TS%, 22 Assists

Game 3: 67 points, .564 TS%, 12 Assists

Game 4: 57 points, .422 TS%, 10 Assists

Game 5: 68 points, .513 TS%, 10 Assists

Game 6: 68 points, .541 TS%, 15 Assists

So based on that, they should have won Games 1 and 3 and Game 6 was very winnable.

Overall:
Duncan's cast: 63.7 PPG, .493 TS%, 12.8 APG
KG's cast: 66.2 PPG, .528 TS%, , 14.2 APG

This doesn't include Duncan drawing 22 more foul shots than KG which is big in the playoffs. Duncan was much better at drawing fouls which is important in the playoffs which features a lot of half-court offense. KG's style wasn't conducive to drawing fouls.

[C-izMe]

If Dwight takes ten easy lay ins I expect 9-10 makes (18-20 points). If I leave Rafer Alston with ten open threes I'll expect 4-5 makes maximum(12-15 points). A automatic three point shooter makes less than half his shots really.

If Howard has an easy lay in attempt, nothing LeBron can do is going to stop that. Thats why you need your post defenders to not physically overwhelmed if you are going to use help defense. Theres not much help you can do you if Dwight/Shaq already blew by the defender. Wide open 3 point shots in the NBA are at least 50%. So that means you need to help down on Howard when you believe his expected scoring output is at 75%. But no big man is at 75% ever so the only time it makes sense is if you think you can turn an easy shot to a semi difficult shot.

If he's forced to kick it out or doubled (Dwight handled hard doubles terribly back then) its not an easy attempt. Wide open threes aren't 50% shots (especially not from Hedo/Alston combined). And Dwight (actually most power bigmen) are usually over 65% inside the paint (75 in the restricted area) and that's counting contests shots. 80% on open looks is at least a good enough guess.

[ElGee]

I think this points to Duncan outperforming KG in the playoffs in their respective peak seasons, at least offensively. I think Duncan was better defensively too, which is why I would take peak Duncan over peak KG.

Yeah the Wolves offense consistently disappointed during KG's tenure:

99: +0.2
00: +2.6
01: -4.5
02: -2.2
03: -0.5
04: -1.2

That's an average of -0.9 come playoff time. Well below their above average marks in the regular season during that span

These are two compelling arguments, especially the second one. To colts18 point, I was wondering if because the sample was so small that matchups were a major issue there. Let's look at 02 to 04 for simplicity and because Garnett's a player who grew quite a bit after 98 so I'm not sure 99-01 is helpful here.

2002 opp
Dal 120.4

2003 opp
LAL 110.2

2004 opp
Den 104.5
Sac 110.3
LAL 100.8

So 02 was a major crash. Of course, Dallas changed from lineups of Evan Eschmeyer and Juwan Howard to LaFrentz/Najera for the PS series.

In 2003, the ORtg was 105.0. This also looks like a disappointment, unless we consider that in the first 4 games of the series the Wolves oRtg was 110.0 on the dot. The team TS% dropped to 43.6% in the last two games -- how much of that is Garnett's fault in this short-sampled context? Hudson, Wally and Peeler went 9-30 in G5. (KG was 11-23) In G6 the same players went 12-31 (KG was 9-21). Those games used to be up on Youtube -- hard to watch them and think KG wasn't able to be successful on offense when some of these players were just missing open shots.

In 2004 Shaq missed the Wolves best RS game against Min. With Shaq the ORtg was 96.4. Considering there was no Cassell, this series doesn't seem like any kind of offensive failure since the ORtg in the series was 104.8. Against Den they were 104.2, which is right in line with the RS. The only series in question in 04 is the Sac series...in which Sprewell shot 49.6% TS and KG just 51.2% TS.

Then of course in general you have to ask yourself how much the makeup of the team matters here (eg how many other Minny players could create offense)

[colts18]

I think this points to Duncan outperforming KG in the playoffs in their respective peak seasons, at least offensively. I think Duncan was better defensively too, which is why I would take peak Duncan over peak KG.

These are two compelling arguments, especially the second one. To colts18 point, I was wondering if because the sample was so small that matchups were a major issue there. Let's look at 02 to 04 for simplicity and because Garnett's a player who grew quite a bit after 98 so I'm not sure 99-01 is helpful here.

2002 opp
Dal 120.4

2003 opp
LAL 110.2

2004 opp
Den 104.5
Sac 110.3
LAL 100.8

So 02 was a major crash. Of course, Dallas changed from lineups of Evan Eschmeyer and Juwan Howard to LaFrentz/Najera for the PS series.

In 2003, the ORtg was 105.0. This also looks like a disappointment, unless we consider that in the first 4 games of the series the Wolves oRtg was 110.0 on the dot. The team TS% dropped to 43.6% in the last two games -- how much of that is Garnett's fault in this short-sampled context? Hudson, Wally and Peeler went 9-30 in G5. (KG was 11-23) In G6 the same players went 12-31 (KG was 9-21). Those games used to be up on Youtube -- hard to watch them and think KG wasn't able to be successful on offense when some of these players were just missing open shots.

In 2004 Shaq missed the Wolves best RS game against Min. With Shaq the ORtg was 96.4. Considering there was no Cassell, this series doesn't seem like any kind of offensive failure since the ORtg in the series was 104.8. Against Den they were 104.2, which is right in line with the RS. The only series in question in 04 is the Sac series...in which Sprewell shot 49.6% TS and KG just 51.2% TS.

Then of course in general you have to ask yourself how much the makeup of the team matters here (eg how many other Minny players could create offense)

While the O rating's look decent, you also have to mention that 2002-2004 also coincided with the stretch of the easiest postseason defenses KG had to face:

02 Mavs: 25th
03: Lakers 19th
04: Nuggets 13th
04: Kings 21st

Only the 04 Lakers were somewhat decent (8th). Thats why the adjusted Offensive ratings don't look good.

But what is 04 KG's argument vs. 11 Dirk? Based on plus/minus stats, Dirk made a bigger impact in the regular season. And obviously Dirk was on another level in the postseason.

[drza]

Which I pointed out, and the T'Wolves supporting cast was still more efficient offensively than the Spurs supporting cast.

And Cassell played 16 out of 18 playoff games, so it's not like he was gone for the whole playoffs.

Cassell was hobbling during the entire WCFs and got injured like midway through WCSFs. Cassell was basically the only good offensive player alongside KG that year so that had a huge impact. merely "pointing it out" is not enough. consider this:
05 Wolves w/out Cassell were -1.5 SRS (33g) +2.8 w/Cassell

the fact that Olowokandi/Hassell/Szczerbiak/Spree/Darrick Martin were more efficient than Parker/Manu/S-Jax/D-Rob/Malik Rose/Bowen speaks volumes about KG's abilities as a playmaker. as a matter of fact Garnett was actually playing point for long stretches of 04 WCFs. Duncan's supporting cast is getting underrated here.

And yet for the playoffs, through 16 games, Cassell was at 17/4 on 58% TS. His production was fine.

Cassell and the Wolves' offensive support in the 2004 playoffs

One of the frustrating aspects of this part of the project coming up right when the baby was born is that I just don't have much opportunity to post right now. I had been working on a long one over night during the baby's awake sessions that responded to your first post about Duncan's scoring efficiency, but I hadn't finished and when I got up this morning the computer had re-started so I lost it. Go figure.

Anyway, to this specific point, neither Cassell nor his production were "fine" for the 2004 playoffs...at least, for once it mattered. His hip issue wasn't acute, it was chronic, which means that he was trying to battle through it long before it got so bad that he had to start missing games. There were rumors of his being hurt at the time during the Kings series, but it wasn't really paid attention to until he just couldn't go in the Lakers series. But if you look at his production on a game-by-game basis in the postseason, it's easy to see that he was battling to start the playoffs and rapidly declined as they went along.

Cassell had a huge game 1 in round 1 (extra rest), then scuffled for a few games, had a big game 5 round 1 and a huge game 1 of round 2 (again, extra rest). Then he went off a cliff afterwards. To put numbers to it, let's isolate his three big games (which all occurred in the first 6 games of the 18-game postseason) to really get a feel for the Cassell that played in more than 80% of that postseason:

Sam Cassell in 2004 playoffs
Games 1, 5 and 6: 33 ppg, 71.5% TS, 23.9 avg game score
11 other games played: 14.2 ppg, 50.3% TS, 8.6 avg game score
4 other games where he couldn't play/played less than 5 minutes

So if you look in any kind of realistic context, Cassell was NOT a 17 point/58% TS player in the 2004 postseason. In more than 83% of the game action, Cassell was either a 14 point/50% TS player or not on the court at all.

Now let's bring it to the rest of the Wolves' '04 Cast: Sprewell, Hassell, Erv Johnson starting, with Wally (playing 12/18 games through three fractured vertebrae), Hoiberg, Darrick Martin (picked up late season on 10-day contract), Mark Madsen, and Michael Olowokandi off the bench. The only person that could even pretend to get their own shot was Sprewell, and when he tried to create for himself it was very low efficiency (average 49% TS for final 5 years of his career, of which this was year 4). Wally (when he played) and Hoiberg could knock down a shot when they had been set-up, and Sprewell was more reasonable off the set-up as well. Hassell, Erv, Martin, Madsen and Olowokandi (HEMMO) were just bad offensive players.

So in summary, for 15 of the 18 playoffs games injuries reduced the '04 Wolves supporting cast to a below average point guard (Cassell's average game score was 8.6 when he played), Sprewell, 2 spot-up shooters and whatever you could get from HEMMO.

As much as Parker and Ginobili weren't ready, Stephen Jackson and Speedy Claxton were inconsistent, David Robinson was Methuzala old, Malik Rose was just a good bench scorer, and Bruce Bowen was a defensive specialist...their offensive cast was still much more ready to produce (outside of Duncan) than the '04 Wolves were outside of Garnett with Cassell hobbling. All four of Parker, Ginobili, Jackson and Speedy could get their own shot. Rose was offensively crafty and solid for a 3rd big, and Robinson as a shadow of himself was still much better offensively than Erv/Madsen.

Conclusion: I'm going to close this post here without even getting into the defensive side of the ball, for reasons of length and complexity. I want it easily digestible what the '04 Wolves cast actually was on offense in the 2004 playoffs, because I think that's often obscured by the names of Cassell and Sprewell and the success of the regular season. In the 2004 playoffs, what KG actually had to work with offensively may well have been the weakest offensive cast that he ever had in a postseason in his career. Ironically.

[JordansBulls]

1. ardee - Magic 87
2. Doctor MJ - Lebron 09
3. C-izeMe - Duncan 03
4. colts18 - Lebron 09
5. DavidStern - Lebron 09
6. DrMufasa - Duncan 03
7. drza - ???
8. ElGee - ???
9. JordansBulls - Duncan 03
10. Vinsanity420 - ???
11. therealbig3 - Lebron 09
12. Josephpaul - Magic 87
13. ThaRegul8r - ???
14. PTB Fan - Duncan 03
15. bastillon - ???
16. SDChargers#1 -

Lebron 09 - 4 votes
Duncan 03 - 3 votes
Magic 87 - 2 votes

Did Vinsanity change to Woodsanity?

[ElGee]

@ElGee

So was the "2nd option by committee" something that was there throughout the season, and continued in the playoffs, or do you think the supporting cast played better in the playoffs than in the regular season? What about the lower overall TS% of the supporting cast? Is that because of the variance you're talking about, or were they really playing a little worse than they did in the regular season?

Not trying to grill you or anything, I'm trying to figure out where Duncan ranks too. Still have him a bit higher than KG though.

The whole narrative around that Spurs team was that they were young and needed to come together. They did.

They had a guy in Stephen Jackson who they basically brought along behind the scenes for the 2002 season -- no one had heard of him. He played big minutes off the bench until around xmas when he became a starter, you know, because he was a pretty good player.

Tony Parker by the playoffs looks like peak Tony Parker just when his shot was on, only he was all over the place in the PS. Manu looks like an unpolished version of Manu. etc. What happened as the year progressed?

First 32 games: 3.2 SRS
Last 50 games: 7.2 SRS

Keep in mind they lost David Robinson for 16 of those final 50 games and didn't miss a beat (~9 SRS without him). What changed?? The offense! The final 50 games of the year, the Spurs were a +5.4 oRtg team BECAUSE of the development of the "cast by committee." Averaging GmSc of the cast was 49.3 in those first 32...then up to 56.3 in the last 50g. It was exactly what would happen in the PS, although I think Parker was more inconsistent in the PS, and maybe Jackson.

10% of Jackson's RS games were 20pt games
25% of Jackson's PS games were 20pt games

His PS and RS averages were nearly identical.

17% of Parker's RS games were under 10pt games
38% of Parker's PS games were under 10pt games

His PS and RS scoring was almost identical, with a big drop in TS%

30% of Ginobili's RS games were 10pt games
54% of Ginobili's PS games were 10pt games

And the team won, of course, because of defense. Which meant in one series Bowen's value stopping a wing was huge or Rose's minutes (and Rose was playing very well off the bench for them during this period) would be huge.

Interesting, is it not, that people criticize James for the predictable, one-dimensional strengths of his teams (that's easy to take away!) but don't think the flexibility or versatility of the Spurs supporting cast is a good thing, they actually view it as a negative.

[Doctor MJ]

He was. After game 3 he said he wished he could clone himself so he could guard everyone and always have the ball. He wanted that kind of responsibility, so all the failure falls on him. Had he been a team player the Cavs would have won, but instead he played hero ball and wanted to look like he could play defense, but at that stage of his career he was still a liability

That makes no sense. You've got LeBron talking about not what happened, but what he wishes could happen - but he knows is impossible - and you're taking that fantasy as if it's reality and blaming LeBron accordingly.

You are so far removed from the actual game of basketball here your statements are meaningless, and while I know not everyone is thinking like you are, I can't help but think how drastically differently people would view LeBron if he'd simply gotten a bit luckier in '09.