RealGM Top 100 List #12

[acrossthecourt]

Don't particularly like the arbitrary dRtg of 103 being used as a good defensive team. From 99-04 a dRtg of 103 is generally below league average.

Note sure what value I'd use, but I think a deviation from league average seems more appropriate. I'd take it further and define tiers of defenses as the elite teams are generally significantly better than those hanging around in the bottom half of the top 10. In fairness to the players surveyed, it would also be nice to see the average dRtg of their opponents, particularly in the playoffs.

I used relative DRtg for a few players. It's a coefficient attached to the opposing defense's relative rating. I also included something for the post-season in case some players were significantly different:
Shaq: 0.88, 1994 to 2005
Garnett: 0.92, 1999 to 2008
Ewng: 1.10, 1987 to 1997
Olajuwon: 1.11, 1986 to 1997 (but his Ortg goes up in the playoffs)
Robinson: 1.35, 1990 to 2001 (Ortg drops in the playoffs but there's a lot of variance)

Now I wanna do Kobe.

[therealbig3]

Well, Columbus actually was stupid, tbh.

[ShaqAttack3234]

but what's the argument for Kobe over Karl Malone? There doesn't seem to be one except ring counting, which is silly.

What's the argument? Hmm, how about superior offensive player(and both were more offensive players than defensive players), and vastly superior playoff performer. They're not even in the same ballpark as playoff performers, that's why Kobe not only has more rings, he has 5 and Karl has none. It's not like Malone didn't have his opportunities. Jordan beat him twice out of how many years? And in the first of those 2 playoff runs, Karl shot 43.5% and had a 50.1 TS%! Despite having Stockton who stepped up big that run, which was the biggest reason Utah got to that first finals, especially against Houston.

Look at prime Kobe in the playoffs from '03-'09. He raised his game and averaged 29/5/5 on 45 FG% and 55 TS% in 90 games. I'm not ring counting, hell, that period is what I primarily judge Kobe on, and he only won 1 of his rings in that time. But extend that to '01-'10 and Kobe's numbers are 29/6/5, 45 FG%, 55 TS% in 148 playoff games, and that's a stretch nearly as long as Malone's prime.

Had Malone played as well as Kobe in the playoffs, we probably wouldn't be talking about him as one of the greats to never win a championship.

and he's the guy they named the Ewing Effect after for a reason.

First of all, you're WAY off on Ewing overall, but we can discuss that later, except I'll say now that I think Ewing was a better basketball player than Karl Malone was. My main point of contention is this whole "Ewing theory" nonsense. The way people repeat it, you'd think they got to the finals without him. This was a broken down 36 year old Ewing, but they won 3 games vs Indiana without him, a team they matched up better against because Indiana was a perimeter team. However, what is always forgotten is that the Knicks don't stand a chance of upsetting Miami in the 1st round to get anywhere near that far without Ewing. Especially with Ewing's great game 5 vs prime Zo when I thought it was just a matter of time until Ewing was going to have to come out of the game the way he was limping around. It's forgotten because of Houston's game-winner.

But please, if we're going to have a serious discussion about Ewing, it can only be done without mention of the ridiculous "Ewing theory." Aside from Ewing's advanced age, knee problems, injuries ect. go look up the Knicks record with and without him even during his last season with them in 2000. Now, go look at what Houston and Sprewell had to say about how much they missed Ewing's presence inside when the Knicks went from the ECF the previous year to a 1st round loss.

[Quotatious]

I'll vote for Oscar Robertson.

With KG already voted in, and the fact that him and Robertson were almost even to me, I have to go with Oscar. I admit that I'm focusing a lot on their skillset right now - voting for the players with the least amount of weaknesses, and possibly as great in every aspect as available (in large part, that's why I voted for Garnett in the last thread - he was an ELITE player in a lot of areas - defense, rebounding, playmaking for a big, jumpshooting for a big, and frankly, as I've said before, I see his playoff decline in terms of scoring as not that big of a deal anymore, because of two factors - one, heavily defense oriented era, that the early 2000s were, and two, playing on teams where he was always the main focus of opposing defenses, didn't have anyone else to draw the attention off of him, like Kobe had in Shaq, not to mention playing in a historically stacked conference, with a usually weak roster around him - I just see his "good" far outweighing his "bad" - he's basically a player with just one weakness). Similar with Oscar - elite shooter, scorer (both he and West were statistical outliers in terms of scoring in the 60s), top 5-ish all-time overall offensive player, fantastic playmaker and an elite rebounder for a guard. By all accounts, also a well above average defender (not very active on D, but very solid positionally, big, strong and extremely smart which were all great assets defensively). Very good longevity as well, and I see him as a very portable player, too, because of how versatile his skillset was, not only very portable in terms of adjusting to various team settings, but likely also between different eras, really a transcendent player.

From here on out, I'll probably put more importance in skill-set, as we dont' really have that much data on the pre-2000s stars, guys like Dr. J, West and Oscar vs Kobe, Dirk or Karl is a very difficult debate because of that (and even for Malone, we don't have as complete database as on Kobe and Dirk).

At this point, I think there are so many great arguments for several players (lately I've also been rethinking Karl Malone's career, due to threalbig'3 and ronnymac's posts, in particular), but I still think like I'll depend more on my own perspective to choose a player that I'll vote for - otherwise, I'd get stuck pretty quick.

BTW - why did we have KG vs Kobe run-off, and Oscar eventually didn't have a chance to get selected as #11? The last voting results in that thread, before the run-off looked like - 8 votes for KG, 7 for Oscar and 6 for Kobe, or something like that...Or maybe I hadn't been paying attention?

[ronnymac2]

What's the argument? Hmm, how about superior offensive player(and both were more offensive players than defensive players), and vastly superior playoff performer. They're not even in the same ballpark as playoff performers, that's why Kobe not only has more rings, he has 5 and Karl has none. It's not like Malone didn't have his opportunities. Jordan beat him twice out of how many years? And in the first of those 2 playoff runs, Karl shot 43.5% and had a 50.1 TS%! Despite having Stockton who stepped up big that run, which was the biggest reason Utah got to that first finals, especially against Houston.

Look at prime Kobe in the playoffs from '03-'09. He raised his game and averaged 29/5/5 on 45 FG% and 55 TS% in 90 games. I'm not ring counting, hell, that period is what I primarily judge Kobe on, and he only won 1 of his rings in that time. But extend that to '01-'10 and Kobe's numbers are 29/6/5, 45 FG%, 55 TS% in 148 playoff games, and that's a stretch nearly as long as Malone's prime.

I already broke down Malone's performance series by series from 1994-1998 on Page 1, but let's take a look at the numbers per game for Malone and for Bryant from 2006-2010.

Malone:

26.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.6 turnovers, 1.4 steals, .8 blocks, 9.9 FTAs (70.2%), 46% shooting
51.8% True Shooting, 16.8 TRB% (25.1% defensive rebounds), 9.2 TOV%, 33 USG%, 107 ORTG

Bryant:

29.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 3.3 turnovers, 1.5 steals, .6 blocks, 8.3 FTAs (84.4%), 46.7 percent shooting
57% True Shooting, 8.1 TRB% (13.7% defensive rebounds), 11.3 TOV%, 32.7 USG%, 114 ORTG

Malone's got offensive advantages in foul draw rate, offensive rebounding, and not turning the ball over. Bryant's got offensive advantages in 3-point shooting, ball-handling, and scoring efficiency. I do find it pretty crazy that Malone's USG% is higher than Bryant's by a little bit. He truly had to do an enormous amount of heavy lifting for Utah, and they did face a lot of strong defensive teams during this peak Malone period. Malone does a lot of good things as far as screens, spacing, quick reads, and off-ball movement, but I would give Kobe the edge offensively. As much as I respect Malone's passing, Bryant carried a large load in this period as well because in addition to being the primary scorer, he was the main playmaker, too.

Defensively, they both did well. Bryant had his fair share of strong defensive series, notably against Rajon Rondo and Russell Westbrook. I would take Malone defensively in these years, however. His defensive rebounding was superb in these years, and his man defense and physical presence really disrupted peak David Robinson, older Charles Barkley, and even prime Shaq at times.

If peak is very important to you, I see a great argument for taking Kobe. His dynamic offense is very valuable, and honestly, Kobe is portable in a way because he can shift where he operates on the floor and not lose his effectiveness.

Malone is a bit more balanced with offense/defense. I do think if Malone had a more dynamic wing player next to him that would allow him to not have such a heavy USG%, his efficiency would go up.

It's very close for me right now. Outside of these years, Kobe's got 99-05 (3-peat, super 2003), while Malone's got 87-93 (Super 92 playoff run, 88 vs. LA, amazing scoring/rebounding/efficiency in between). 7 years each. Maybe slight edge Kobe? Then Malone's got 1999-2001, which I think is slightly better than Bryant's 2011-2013. They suck as rookies. Kobe has 1998, Malone's still got an all-star level season in 2002 and good seasons in 2003 and 2004 where he in my opinion showed how great a role player he could still have been for a good team.

Damn, this is tough. Totally see an argument for either.

[trex_8063]

My question is, it seems maybe Karl peaked defensively a few years according to (admittingly flawed) All Def. accolades. Is this correct or just bad media voting perception?

How was Karl's defense in younger years, how good was 80's and early 90's Malone's defense? How was his horizontal defense, like perimeter and on PnR?

If he only peaked defensively for a few years I wouldn't want to overrate him there, or underrate him if longer.

I liked this video that was posted toward the end of the #11 thread for KG, but actually features some pretty nice D (including some good perimeter D) by old Karl Malone.

3:36--->Note Malone pressuring the pass on the perimeter, then still recovering when KG puts it on the floor.
3:45---->Malone shuts him down the baseline (they end up resetting, and on the 2nd try Garnett does beat him---barely---baseline and Shaq's just a little slow on the help D). Couple other decent plays shortly thereafter (Garnett hitting the shots that are shown in this video, as it's purpose was to highlight him; but Malone's playing him pretty well....tough baseline fade-aways and such).
5:00--->Excellent mid-range D on Garnett during an iso. He forces a really tough shot. Garnett keeps hitting 'em because this was peak Garnett who also happened to be on fire. But I'm really impressed with the defense Malone is playing (and don't forget this is 40-year-old Malone).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZdXQIezguo[/youtube]

[therealbig3]

Well, when we compare them production-wise in the playoffs, using 01-10 for Kobe (9 years) and 88-98 for Malone (11 years), and we pace-adjust to per 100, we get the following:

01-10 Kobe PS (148 games): 36/7/7, 54.8% TS, 111 ORating

88-98 Malone PS (128 games): 35/15/4, 53.4% TS, 109 ORating

For a better look at the efficiency, relative TS% and relative ORating should be looked at, but for right now, a 1.4% difference in TS and a 2 point difference in ORating is not really a big deal.

However, I agree that Kobe is a better player, and he certainly peaked higher. Malone was a very good defensive player, but he wasn't Garnett-like, in terms of covering space and being all over the place, and he wasn't Duncan-like, in terms of being a traditional rim protector. For that reason, I don't really give him the nod for being capable of anchoring a defense. He's a guy that can be a positive contributor on defense, but not THE guy the defense is built around...I see him a lot like I see Dirk defensively, but with better post defense, better mobility, but worse defensive rebounding (at least compared to pre-2010 Dirk)...I've got him as a better defender than Dirk, and I've got Dirk as a better defender than Kobe. However, I think the difference offensively is quite clear when comparing Malone to Kobe, while I see Kobe and Dirk as roughly equal on offense.

However, Kobe has that 10-year prime, and then a couple of years as a great role player, playing the role of a lesser Scottie Pippen (99 and 00)...and then he has 3 post-prime years that seem to really vary in terms of how much people value them. Personally, I don't really think he was playing at that high of a level in those years, despite the impressive numbers. So really, I give a lot of value to his 01-10 years, and a little bit of value to his 99, 00, and 11-13 years. Good longevity, but not really super-elite.

Malone on the other hand gives you 88-98 (11 years, one more year than Kobe's prime), and then he gives you 3 more years out of his prime where he's still a high volume, high efficiency scorer (99-01)...he even wins MVP in 99 (despite that not even being part of his prime imo)!

That's 14 superstar years from Malone...and then you have his other seasons where he has his flaws, but he's still a very good player. The guy was basically a productive, valuable player every single year of his career. Even as a 40-year old role player that missed a ton of time in 04, he really showed how valuable he could be as a defensive PF that really stifled a lot of good opposing big men that year (Yao, Duncan, and Garnett). And he was still a capable offensive player, fitting in nicely as a 3rd/4th option on offense. The Lakers really missed him when he sat out games as well. Many people believe that his injury was the reason why the Lakers lost to the Pistons, moreso than the Kobe/Shaq stuff.

I see his longevity as quite a bit better than Kobe's, and even if he wasn't being used optimally as a volume scorer as he aged...the Jazz didn't really have a choice, and if he was on the Lakers from 02-04, you probably would have seen him transition into more of a rich man's Horace Grant type (and Horace Grant was a fantastic role player).

[HeartBreakKid]

I was going to make a post similar to Shaqs where I really more or less imply that comparing Malone to Bryant is pretty crazy. But objectively speaking, people who are pro Karl Malone make pretty good points. I'm actually not sure what to think of Bryant right now because of that.


How does one compare K Malone to the other perimeter players currently available? To those who want to vote for K Malone, would you guys put Malone over Bird and Magic as well - why/why not?

[Basketballefan]

I'm quite surprised to see no one mention Dirk yet.

Not that i would make a case for him at this spot, but i thought a majority of realgm posters considered him better than Malone so it's surprising to see Malone mentioned before him.

[therealbig3]

I was going to make a post similar to Shaqs where I really more or less imply that comparing Malone to Bryant is pretty crazy. But objectively speaking, people who are pro Karl Malone make pretty good points. I'm actually not sure what to think of Bryant right now because of that.


How does one compare K Malone to the other perimeter players currently available? To those who want to vote for K Malone, would you guys put Malone over Bird and Magic as well - why/why not?

I thought about it, and was actually leaning towards voting Malone over Bird and Magic...but now I've changed my stance. I just think they were that much better that I'd rather have them over Malone.

TBH, I'm thinking about Dirk and Kobe more and more. I could change my mind, depending on what the arguments are against Malone...tbh, the Stockton factor has always been something I've thought about...having the perfect, all-time great PG to run the PnR with, whose prime and durability directly coincided with your own, is definitely a great way to maintain volume and efficiency for a long time. Dirk and Kobe have always been guys that could be relied on more for self-creation...and unlike a guy like Garnett, Malone doesn't bring the defense or the passing or the monster rebounding to that extent. His game is very scoring-dependent, and it's true, those guys were just better scorers.

However, Malone only played 2 years without Stockton as the starting PG...his first 2 years. So it's impossible to know just how much Stockton improved Malone, and how much of that was Malone's personal improvement as a player. We do know that by the time Stockton became the starting PG, Malone's 3rd year, Malone was already a 20+ ppg scorer.

Malone's main argument here is longevity as a star player, and it's a very strong argument. But yeah, I am wondering whether or not I should just go with who I feel are just better players in Dirk and Kobe, or side with Malone's longevity.

[ronnymac2]

I was going to make a post similar to Shaqs where I really more or less imply that comparing Malone to Bryant is pretty crazy. But objectively speaking, people who are pro Karl Malone make pretty good points. I'm actually not sure what to think of Bryant right now because of that.


How does one compare K Malone to the other perimeter players currently available? To those who want to vote for K Malone, would you guys put Malone over Bird and Magic as well - why/why not?

I was so close to putting Malone/KG over Magic/Bird. In the end, I was impressed enough with the longevity of Magic and Bird that I took those guys (well, I never got a chance to vote for Magic, but I voted for Bird at #10). Magic and Bird were clearly superior prime players in my opinion.

Bryant's got the greatest longevity for a wing in history, but Malone is basically longevity god. Their primes are extremely close for me. Bryant's prime wasn't on the Magic/Bird level either in my opinion.

Bryant is the best of the remaining wings left, however. He's got a peak to match anybody else's, and a longevity edge over all. I can be talked down, but the only guys I see going over Bryant at this point are Malone and Nowitzki. Again, just my opinion for now.

[ShaqAttack3234]

I already broke down Malone's performance series by series from 1994-1998 on Page 1, but let's take a look at the numbers per game for Malone and for Bryant from 2006-2010.

Malone:

26.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.6 turnovers, 1.4 steals, .8 blocks, 9.9 FTAs (70.2%), 46% shooting
51.8% True Shooting, 16.8 TRB% (25.1% defensive rebounds), 9.2 TOV%, 33 USG%, 107 ORTG

Bryant:

29.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 3.3 turnovers, 1.5 steals, .6 blocks, 8.3 FTAs (84.4%), 46.7 percent shooting
57% True Shooting, 8.1 TRB% (13.7% defensive rebounds), 11.3 TOV%, 32.7 USG%, 114 ORTG

Malone's got offensive advantages in foul draw rate, offensive rebounding, and not turning the ball over. Bryant's got offensive advantages in 3-point shooting, ball-handling, and scoring efficiency. I do find it pretty crazy that Malone's USG% is higher than Bryant's by a little bit. He truly had to do an enormous amount of heavy lifting for Utah, and they did face a lot of strong defensive teams during this peak Malone period. Malone does a lot of good things as far as screens, spacing, quick reads, and off-ball movement, but I would give Kobe the edge offensively. As much as I respect Malone's passing, Bryant carried a large load in this period as well because in addition to being the primary scorer, he was the main playmaker, too.

Defensively, they both did well. Bryant had his fair share of strong defensive series, notably against Rajon Rondo and Russell Westbrook. I would take Malone defensively in these years, however. His defensive rebounding was superb in these years, and his man defense and physical presence really disrupted peak David Robinson, older Charles Barkley, and even prime Shaq at times.

If peak is very important to you, I see a great argument for taking Kobe. His dynamic offense is very valuable, and honestly, Kobe is portable in a way because he can shift where he operates on the floor and not lose his effectiveness.

Malone is a bit more balanced with offense/defense. I do think if Malone had a more dynamic wing player next to him that would allow him to not have such a heavy USG%, his efficiency would go up.

It's very close for me right now. Outside of these years, Kobe's got 99-05 (3-peat, super 2003), while Malone's got 87-93 (Super 92 playoff run, 88 vs. LA, amazing scoring/rebounding/efficiency in between). 7 years each. Maybe slight edge Kobe? Then Malone's got 1999-2001, which I think is slightly better than Bryant's 2011-2013. They suck as rookies. Kobe has 1998, Malone's still got an all-star level season in 2002 and good seasons in 2003 and 2004 where he in my opinion showed how great a role player he could still have been for a good team.

Damn, this is tough. Totally see an argument for either.

Kobe looks overwhelmingly better in that postseason comparison to me. I know it's not all about efficiency, for example, I've always viewed Malone's '94 run as a positive despite the mediocre 46.7% shooting and 53.1%, and I do think his defense vs Robinson was impressive, but with all that said, 51.8 TS% is really subpar for an offensive big man, and I don't think the numbers are too deceptive in this case. Malone always seemed like a weaker playoff performer to me compared to other greats, and I always thought it was important because it showed you couldn't read too much into his regular season stats. Though to his credit, a 9.2 TO% is excellent.

I really don't think it's close enough for me to even consider it a legitimate question, and really, I think it's been a long time since most were asking whether Kobe was a better player than Karl Malone. By 2003, I'd feel comfortable saying Kobe was a better player than Malone ever was, maybe even by 2001.

I'm not really going by peak so much. I do look at that, but if that was it, then Ewing would already be right in the mix, Walton might be in already and T-Mac would even be entering discussions. However, I judge players by primes. With Malone, it's a bit trickier because his prime was around a decade, maybe a year or two longer, which is roughly twice as long as most players primes, but I still like to look at who the better player was. Malone hanging around a lot longer just doesn't change the fact to me that when both were in their prime, Kobe was conclusively better to me, same thing with Barkley. And it isn't like either was a flash in the pan. Both had normal length primes, and their longevity was fine, especially Kobe whose longevity is/was excellent.

[90sAllDecade]

I am researching these guys and more data helps, here's Karl Malone vs Charles Barkley career RS and Playoffs:





http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... =malonka01

I don't know if I hold Karl's playoff edge against Charles, since Charles was with the Rockets sharing the ball with Hakeem and Clyde. During the playoffs Hakeem's game translated better imo and he he had the ball more. While Karl was still the main option on offense with Utah.

But what I do take away from this is that during the regular season, Charles was a monster in Philadelphia (click the game by game link to see their early match-ups), Karls work ethic and improving his game started turning the tables as Charles and him got older. Karl always relentlessly evolved and maxed out his potential, his longevity is greater and Chuck likely peaked higher.

But since they are both PFs defense is a good factor here imo. I'm still hashing it out, but I'll do a team comparison and others for them later.

In comparing him with Kobe, defense for a SG is less important than a PF. And Karl wasn't a defensive anchor like Garnett was. So I'm on the fence about them (remembering that also made me reconsider Dirk).

Kobe succeeded at roughly the same amount with or without Shaq from what I've seen (I could be wrong), and without Stockton Karl got a little worse offensively. Kobe also stayed the same in the playoffs and Karl got a little worse.

[G35]

Regular Season correlation; Game Score and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.06
K Malone 88-98 0.13
Robinson 90-98 0.14
Kobe 01-10 0.16
Miller 90-00 0.19

Some of that could be the defensive component of the box score that Game Score includes that was not removed for this study. What happens looking at the same regular season data from the vantage point of OBEV?

Regular Season correlation; OBEV and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.03
Miller 90-00 0.12
K Malone 88-98 0.14
Robinson 90-98 0.18
Kobe 01-10 0.23

Post Season correlation; Game Score and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.09
Miller 90-00 0.14
K Malone 88-98 0.16
Robinson 90-98 0.24
Kobe 01-10 0.27

Post Season correlation; OBEV and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.09
Miller 90-00 0.16
K Malone 88-98 0.17
Robinson 90-98 0.24
Kobe 01-10 0.30

So ... no one's discussed how terrible Kobe's numbers are.

David Robinson gets a lot of flak for his offense against good teams and it's dropped him in almost every ranking I've seen. What about Kobe?

I've done similar number crunching and can corroborate the numbers for Robinson, Shaq, Garnett, etc. I haven't done Kobe yet, but his elimination game numbers are pretty weak from what I remember.

People will use the rings argument, but Robinson won a couple too.

Well let's discuss it.

I think the biggest factor is how many games did each of these greats play against top defenses.

Kobe 173
Dirk 195
Shaq 201
Duncan 231
KG 231
Jordan 52
Lebron 74
DRob 46
KMalone 67
Hakeem 32

Notice anything? Kobe is the only guard in a group of big men with a significant amount of games played against top defenses. I would also hazard a guess that Kobe is even more exclusive playing against the even more elite defenses as semi-sentient alluded to. What other guard has had to against defenses in the finals on the level of the 2004 Pistons and 2008 Celtics? What about all the battles vs the Spurs? I think it's amazing how well Kobe's efficiency held up against those elite defenses, not to mention KG's Wolves in 2004, 2001 Sixers, the NJ Nets who were #1 in Defense in 2002, Orlando Magic who were #1 in defense in 2009, Houston Rockets who were #4 in 2009. There isn't any other perimeter players that have had to play that many elite defenses in the playoff's........

[Clyde Frazier]

BTW - why did we have KG vs Kobe run-off, and Oscar eventually didn't have a chance to get selected as #11? The last voting results in that thread, before the run-off looked like - 8 votes for KG, 7 for Oscar and 6 for Kobe, or something like that...Or maybe I hadn't been paying attention?

It was actually 11 votes for garnett, 8 for kobe, and 7 for oscar. penbeast called it about 2 hours early, and I was in the middle of typing up my vote for oscar, which would've made it 8-8. He says he would've voted for kobe just to "get the ball rolling", but at the very least, i'm still curious how the runoff would've gone if it was garnett vs. oscar as opposed to garnett vs. kobe.

viewtopic.php?p=40795214#p40795214

[acrossthecourt]

Regular Season correlation; Game Score and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.06
K Malone 88-98 0.13
Robinson 90-98 0.14
Kobe 01-10 0.16
Miller 90-00 0.19

Some of that could be the defensive component of the box score that Game Score includes that was not removed for this study. What happens looking at the same regular season data from the vantage point of OBEV?

Regular Season correlation; OBEV and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.03
Miller 90-00 0.12
K Malone 88-98 0.14
Robinson 90-98 0.18
Kobe 01-10 0.23

Post Season correlation; Game Score and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.09
Miller 90-00 0.14
K Malone 88-98 0.16
Robinson 90-98 0.24
Kobe 01-10 0.27

Post Season correlation; OBEV and Opposing Defenses
Dirk 01-11 0.09
Miller 90-00 0.16
K Malone 88-98 0.17
Robinson 90-98 0.24
Kobe 01-10 0.30

So ... no one's discussed how terrible Kobe's numbers are.

David Robinson gets a lot of flak for his offense against good teams and it's dropped him in almost every ranking I've seen. What about Kobe?

I've done similar number crunching and can corroborate the numbers for Robinson, Shaq, Garnett, etc. I haven't done Kobe yet, but his elimination game numbers are pretty weak from what I remember.

People will use the rings argument, but Robinson won a couple too.

Well let's discuss it.

I think the biggest factor is how many games did each of these greats play against top defenses.

Kobe 173
Dirk 195
Shaq 201
Duncan 231
KG 231
Jordan 52
Lebron 74
DRob 46
KMalone 67
Hakeem 32

Notice anything? Kobe is the only guard in a group of big men with a significant amount of games played against top defenses. I would also hazard a guess that Kobe is even more exclusive playing against the even more elite defenses as semi-sentient alluded to. What other guard has had to against defenses in the finals on the level of the 2004 Pistons and 2008 Celtics? What about all the battles vs the Spurs? I think it's amazing how well Kobe's efficiency held up against those elite defenses, not to mention KG's Wolves in 2004, 2001 Sixers, the NJ Nets who were #1 in Defense in 2002, Orlando Magic who were #1 in defense in 2009, Houston Rockets who were #4 in 2009. There isn't any other perimeter players that have had to play that many elite defenses in the playoff's........

Yes I notice something unrelated to his correlation values. I'll put this to rest tomorrow when I get all his gamelogs collected. The number of defenses doesn't matter when you break it down like that. Maybe ElGee can explain his method more.

edit: "Well, not quite bottom-feeders per se, but the first thing I looked at was the correlation between Game Score (simple linear weighting of box score inputs) and Offensive Box Score Expected Value (OBEV) which uses the expected value of all box offensive box score values."

It's a correlation between defenses and an output, so the number of games would not matter.

(LeBron went up against the 2011 Bulls and 2011 Celtics, by the way, two of the greatest defenses ever.)

[Clyde Frazier]

I'm really leaning towards Steve Nash in this spot. He might just be the greatest offensive player in history. If so, he has to be discussed in this spot.

Spoiler:

Team impact:

2004 Suns- 29 wins, 101.4 O rating, 21st (No nash)
2005 Suns- 62 wins, 114.5 O rating, 1st (with Nash)

Thats a huge transformation with just Nash being the main piece added. In 2004, Marion/Amare/Johnson had a 104.8 O rating when they were on the court together. In 2005, those 3+Nash equaled a 122.2 O rating. Thats how much impact Nash had on the offense.


2012 Suns- 0.29 SRS, 106.2 O rating, 9th (with Nash)
2013 Suns- -5.75 SRS, 101.2 O rating, 29th (no Nash)

The Suns went from a top 10 offense with Nash to almost the worst offense without Nash.

According to NBA.com, From 02-10, Steve Nash's offensive teams were ranked #1 every single year in offensive rating. 9 straight years of #1 offenses


Missed games from 2005-2012:
11-26 record (.297, 24 win pace)
-5.87 SRS (Equivalent to the 2013 Suns SRS)
105.2 O rating vs 106.1 Opp D rating (-0.87 offense )

So the Suns offense was actually below average in the games Nash missed. For all the talk about Nash's crap defense, the Suns had an astonishing 113.5 D rating in these games. That would be by far the worst in the NBA this year.

Here are the missed game numbers from 2005-2007, Nash's Peak:
4-12 record
-6.45 SRS
104.7 O rating vs 105.7 opp D rating (-0.99 offense)

The Suns allowed a 112.6 D rating in these games. This is peak Nash where the team played like a 60 win team when he was on the court, yet acted like one of the worst teams when he is off.


Best offenses:

Here are the top offenses in NBA history by O rating, includes playoffs

Rank Year Team eORtg Offense
1 2007 Phoenix Suns 116 3.25
2 2005 Phoenix Suns 116.1 2.92
3 1971 Milwaukee Bucks 108.2 2.72
4 2010 Phoenix Suns 116.4 2.59
5 1982 Denver Nuggets 113.4 2.56
6 2004 Dallas Mavericks 110.8 2.49
7 1975 Houston Rockets 104.1 2.4
8 1987 Los Angeles Lakers 115.9 2.34
9 2004 Sacramento Kings 110.3 2.33
10 2006 Phoenix Suns 113.1 2.31
11 2009 Phoenix Suns 114.4 2.13
12 1988 Boston Celtics 114.7 2.12
13 1998 Seattle Supersonics 113.2 2.07
14 1996 Chicago Bulls 116.3 2.02
15 1985 Los Angeles Lakers 114.6 2.01
16 1978 San Antonio Spurs 106.8 2
17 1995 Seattle Supersonics 116 2
18 2004 Seattle Supersonics 109.3 1.99
19 2002 Dallas Mavericks 110.4 1.98
20 1997 Seattle Supersonics 114.4 1.94


7 out the top 20 offenses of all-time belong to a Steve Nash team. No one in history has done anything like that.

The most common criticism of Nash is his playoff offenses, yet his teams played amazing offense in the playoffs.

Best playoff offensive ratings relative to opponents D rating:
1. Suns 2005 16.2
2. Suns 2010 12.6
3. Lakers 2001 12.2
4. Suns 1992 11.8
5. Suns 1995 11.5
6. Bulls 1991 10.9
7. Lakers 1987 10.5
8. Nuggets 2009 10.2
9. Mavericks 2003 10.0
10. Lakers 1985 9.8
11. Lakers 1998 9.5
12. Kings 2003 9.5
13. Magic 1996 9.3
14. Rockets 1997 9.3
15. Lakers 1989 9.1
16. Mavericks 2002 9.0
17. Spurs 2006 9.0
18. Suns 2006 9.0
19. Bulls 1993 8.9
20. Mavericks 2005 8.7

Here are Nash's playoff on court Offensive rating

05: 118.7
06: 116.5
07: 112.5
10: 120.6

05 vs Grizzlies: 124.1 Ortg vs 102.9 Drtg (+21.2)
05 vs Mavs: 118.1 Ortg vs. 104.1 Drtg (+14)
05 vs Spurs: 115.7 Ortg vs 98.8 Drtg (+16.9)

06 vs Lakers: 115 Ortg vs 105.7 Drtg (+9.3)
06 vs Clippers: 115.1 Ortg vs 103.8 Drtg (+11.3)
06 vs Mavs: 113.3 Ortg vs 105 Drtg (+8.3)

07 vs Lakers: 111.8 Ortg vs 105.6 Drtg (+6.2)
07 vs Spurs: 109.6 Ortg vs 99.9 Drtg (+9.7)

10 vs Blazers: 111.5 Ortg vs. 107.1 Drtg (+4.4)
10 vs Spurs: 124.5 Ortg vs 104.5 Drtg (+20)
10 vs Lakers: 122 Ortg vs 103.7 Drtg (+18.3)


RAPM:

Best offensive RAPM's in the RAPM era:

Year Rank Name Offense per 100
2007 1 Steve Nash 7.9
2010 2 Dwyane Wade 7.6
2007 3 Baron Davis 7.5
2008 4 Steve Nash 7.4
2010 5 LeBron James 7.1
2007 6 LeBron James 7.1
2009 7 LeBron James 6.6
2007 8 Manu Ginobili 6.5
2010 9 Steve Nash 6.3
2007 10 Tim Duncan 6.3
2011 11 Steve Nash 6.2
2009 12 Steve Nash 6.2

5 out of the top 12 belong to Nash. This doesn't even include his 2005 season where he had a 121.7 On court offensive rating, the highest ever since 1997


System/conventional lineup argument:

There is an argument that somehow Nash can only succeed in 1 system (Dantoni). D'Antoni left after 2008, yet Nash still had 2 of his best offenses in the next 2 years. Here is how D'Antoni's offenses ranked in the years after leaving Nash:

17th
17th
7th
17th
9th
21st

Looks like Nash deserves more of the credit than D'Antoni.

Nash has had success with more conventional lineups. In 2006, He succeeded with Kurt Thomas as his center. In 2008, Nash had a 119.1 O rating with Shaq/Amare on the court. That's a traditional big lineup and Nash was as good as ever.

Here is how certain players did with and without Nash. Nash showed huge impact on these players and it could be argued that Nash made them stars.

Marion:
Before Nash: .513 TS%, 107 O rating
Nash comes to Phx: .566 TS%, 116 O rating

08 w/Nash: .594 TS%, 119 O rating
08 after Nash: .503 TS%, 99 O rating

Amare:
Before Nash: .536 TS%, 102 O rating
Nash comes to Phx: .617 TS%, 121 O rating

with Nash 2010: .615 TS%, 117 O rating
after Nash 2011: .565 TS%, 109 O rating

Shaq:
08 before Nash: .577 TS%, 100 O rating
08 with Nash: .605 TS%, 103 O rating

09 with Nash: .623 TS%, 117 O rating
10 leaves Nash: .565 TS%, 104 O rating

These #s you've posted really aren't that surprising. Nash orchestrated an offense in PHX very specific to his strengths. He did an incredible job at it, but PHX never had a backup capable of even imitating it (aside from dragic for short stretches, but he barely had any NBA experience at the time). As a result, there was no reason to expect his teams to play well when he missed games. I think using those in / out figures to argue for him at #12 is overstated. It certainly was a driving force in him winning back to back MVPs, though. Narrative is a powerful thing.

[john248]

I'm trying to decide between Dr J, Kobe, West, Oscar. I see the case for Dirk and Karl Malone. I'm just curious how much people either penalize (or not) the ABA. El Gee's WOWY chart about West has certainly influenced me. I like Dr J here though since I see a guy who's highly capable offensively, peaked very high, and was a good defender too, so in this regard, I see him as the best. Add in historical significance, there's certainly greatness.

[therealbig3]

My general view of the next group of players right now:

1. Karl Malone
2. Dirk Nowitzki
3. Kobe Bryant
4. Oscar Robertson
5. Jerry West
6. Julius Erving

[therealbig3]

BTW, as for Moses Malone, and why I'm not that high on him, and why a lot of other people might not be so high on him, this is a post by mysticbb in the last project. It's a post about why he believes Moses is overrated in general and it was in response to why LeBron should go over Moses, hence why he's comparing the two throughout the post (seems crazy now that it was a legitimate debate back then).

BTW, yes, I know the first paragraph sounds A LOT like Kevin Garnett in Minnesota, so this might sound like hypocrisy, but I don't support that part of his post...I do happen to find the rest of his post, in which he actually discusses Malone's impact through both the box score and with/without, pretty convincing.

Also, mysticbb was never a guy to hold team success against someone either. I have a strong feeling he said that as a general response to similar logic being used against LeBron/Dirk (he was supporting Dirk at the time).

Moses Malone didn't even make a huge difference to the team performance at his peak, why should I want him in other seasons when he constantly was out in the first round and not the cornerstone of a franchise being able to win.
I count 8 seasons in which Malone was healthy enough and good enough to be the best player on a championship team, that is exactly 1 season more than James has. But Malone had a lot less impact, if we don't dismiss all the evidence we have. He made a small improvement to the Rockets when he joined. He didn't improve a below average team much (granted, he had that playoff run to the finals), he didn't make a big difference to the 76ers at his absolute peak. The 76ers without him were already a 5.7 SRS team, with him that improved to 8.15 SRS with a healthy Erving playing in 1983. When Erving missed 10 games (2 games in January and 8 games in March with a wrist injury) the 76ers went down to a 3.06 SRS team. The 76ers without a absolute peak Malone were better than the 76ers with absolute peak Malone and without past peak Erving. What should I believe when peak Malone doesn't even come close a difference LeBron James made?

I think people are putting way too much stock into the boxscore numbers and way too easily they are impressed with big offensive rebounding numbers. Since the offensive rebounding numbers are available the correlation coefficient between scoring margin and ORB% is 0.06, in the last 10 years it is even -0.1. There is no clear indication that offensive rebounding helps a team to win more games. In comparison the coefficient for DRB% is 0.3. Offensive rebounding might be the single most overrated boxscore stat, even BLK% and STL show a much higher correlation to scoring margin (0.2 and 0.17 respectively). That is based on the data of 983 single team seasons from 1973/74 to 2010/11.

If you want to know how much someone helps a team win with his rebounding look at the DRB% of that player. Moses Malone's defensive rebounding is basically on par with Nowitzki's, his BLK% and STL% too. The defensive impact of Moses Malone was not big, for sure not bigger than Nowitzki's, especially when we take into account the negative effect of turnovers for the team defense. It is very likely that Moses Malone's impact on the game was lowered due to the high TO-R (turnover rate has a -0.3 correlation coefficient to scoring margin, a much bigger impact factor than offensive rebounding).

And that all is reflected in the team results with and without Moses Malone. He didn't make such a big difference, for sure not a big difference as people seem to think.

8 seasons vs. 7 seasons while James had a bigger impact, I don't see the longevity argument for Moses Malone. Nobody would pick Kevin Willis over Dwight Howard based on longevity either.

There's also not much evidence that Moses was all that good of a defender either. So in general, what I found was that Moses tended to be overrated based on offensive rebounding and point totals.

For further Moses info, here's ElGee's WOWY data for him in 84, the year after they won the title:



Controlling for Erving, Cheeks, and Toney, the Sixers actually played a little bit better that year without him. And according to mysticbb, they played better in 83 without Moses as well.