rebirthoftheM wrote: His +/- explodes above most because of his defensive stuff. I just don't have much faith in these figures when talking about defense, and the 'chaos' you describe in the mid 00s Wolves only strengthens my belief. I highly highly doubt that KG's D fell off in the mid 00s, yet his footprint fluctuates not because he was not healthy-ish, but because his team apparently sucked. I just don't see this occurring with an elite offensive player in his prime.
Garnett is, I believe, still the only player we have who has had both the top offensive RAPM in a season and the top defensive RAPM. In Boston, it was the defense that exploded. In Minny it was more even, he had his peak RAPM impact and it was the offense in general where he got the better numbers.
When you talk as you do here, it gives me the impression you don't actually know any of this and are just jumping into the data looking for something to take issue with.
I am aware of all of this. I don't think you read/understood my point. If we take a look at KG's ORAPM over the years, even during his best years in Minny (so 01-07), he is noticeably lower than other dudes. His RAPM get a boost over others because of his DRAPM. That's what pushes him over, as I'm sure you know very well.
That's why I am looking at the defensive stuff. Because if one has little confidence in these defensive indicators in actually indicating a players concrete footprint on defense, then the whole impact advantage with KG gets murky.
What other dudes? I believe Garnett was 2nd in ORAPM in '03 and 1st in '04.
Re: that's why I look at defense...little confidence in defensive indicators. I just want to take a moment for how crazy that segue is.
I mean, you're clearly actively seeking for a reason to dismiss Garnett's data. You're free to go about this analysis how you want of course, but I think you need to seriously question what it would have taken to have your opinion swayed by +/- data in this debate. I think it's likely that nothing would have and you're just looking for rebuttals against others points.
LA Bird wrote:1. Kevin Garnett Longevity is quite important in my all time list (see Kareem ranking above Jordan/LeBron despite having a far worse prime) so it should come as no surprise that KG would rank highly for me. Garnett in his prime wasn't the best offensive or defensive player in the league but his combined impact on both ends of the floor is definitely one of the best. His post-08 Celtics seasons are largely ignored because they are "post prime" but while that is true for his offense, he played some of the best defense anybody has played in probably the last 50 years. Most of the criticism on KG has been his inability to single handedly carry a team's offense like a superstar but I don't see that as much of an issue when he is still a really good offensive player for most of his prime.
2. Dirk Nowitzki Dirk/Kobe/Malone are more or less on the same level for me but Dirk is slightly ahead of the other two as of now. He could potentially drop lower if he stays around as a below average player for too long but that time hasn't come yet.
Again, using longevity as an argument for guys like this with Mailman sitting right there makes little sense.
You can say that Garnett or Dirk were as good as Malone for a while. Maybe. If you born in 1990 or later and don't realize just how relentlessly dominant Mailman was forever and ever.
I don't consider Malone to be dominant unless we are only looking at regular season box scores. If it wasn't for his GOAT longevity, he wouldn't be top 20 on my list.
You can use "longevity" as an argument for Garnett or Dirk over IMO superior basketball players still on the board in Admiral and Barkley. But compared to Mailman, also still on the board? Well, the shoe is on the other foot and they might as well be Alonzo Mourning.
KG/Dirk aren't ahead of Malone because of longevity though. I used longevity as an argument for them in general because it's one of their best qualities as a player, just like I will mention Jerry West's offense when I later vote for him ahead of Nash even though I consider Nash to be a superior offensive player.
Some go with KG for almost a GOAT candidate and it's all about on/off numbers stuff. Some also talk in here like he wasn't a true superstar.
I mean, KG is a lock for the top 20 of all time. You have to be a fantastic player to do that, and therefore, a superstar.
However I also think KG supporters go with those numbers as almost a voice of god, when those lists are full of absurd results (not absurd because they are what they are, but absurd when making a list of who the best players are... there is only so much you can rely on that type of information).
“These guys have been criticized the last few years for not getting to where we’re going, but I’ve always said that the most important thing in sports is to keep trying. Let this be an example of what it means to say it’s never over.” - Jerry Sloan
Doctor MJ wrote: Garnett is, I believe, still the only player we have who has had both the top offensive RAPM in a season and the top defensive RAPM. In Boston, it was the defense that exploded. In Minny it was more even, he had his peak RAPM impact and it was the offense in general where he got the better numbers.
When you talk as you do here, it gives me the impression you don't actually know any of this and are just jumping into the data looking for something to take issue with.
I am aware of all of this. I don't think you read/understood my point. If we take a look at KG's ORAPM over the years, even during his best years in Minny (so 01-07), he is noticeably lower than other dudes. His RAPM get a boost over others because of his DRAPM. That's what pushes him over, as I'm sure you know very well.
That's why I am looking at the defensive stuff. Because if one has little confidence in these defensive indicators in actually indicating a players concrete footprint on defense, then the whole impact advantage with KG gets murky.
What other dudes? I believe Garnett was 2nd in ORAPM in '03 and 1st in '04.
Re: that's why I look at defense...little confidence in defensive indicators. I just want to take a moment for how crazy that segue is.
I mean, you're clearly actively seeking for a reason to dismiss Garnett's data. You're free to go about this analysis how you want of course, but I think you need to seriously question what it would have taken to have your opinion swayed by +/- data in this debate. I think it's likely that nothing would have and you're just looking for rebuttals against others points.
I don't think the majority of this forum puts as much weight on +/- data as you do. I think people have been skeptical of it since it was first introduced.
I mean, you're clearly actively seeking for a reason to dismiss Garnett's data. You're free to go about this analysis how you want of course, but I think you need to seriously question what it would have taken to have your opinion swayed by +/- data in this debate. I think it's likely that nothing would have and you're just looking for rebuttals against others points.
I don't like the implications of this. There's an insinuation that I'm rejecting stuff to fit a pre-conceived agenda. This is not remotely the case. My opinions on KG have changed over the course the time, specifically on his offense (I once wrote I thought TD>KG on offense, which I now disagree with him). I actually have KG higher on my own ATG list because of this.
I was also very open to the suggestion earlier on in other list threads about the possibility of KG just having defensive 'down years' in 05 & 06. But unfortunately all I've heard back about those years is how his teams sucked, and that it compromised his defensive indicators. Which then led to me the conclusions I make here.
We all examine things differently. What I see from some is a specific interpretation of KG's 05 & 06 defensive stuff that maintains the general thesis that all those major shifts in defensive indicators we saw from him in pre 05 years, and also in 07, should be majorly attributed to him. Basically have your cake and eat it too type of situation.
I just don't find that particular approach to be convincing at all for the reasons I mentioned. To each their own...
And oh..re the orapm stuff. Yes, KG peaked in 03 & 04, though IIRC, his peak is still lower than a whole lot of other dudes best 2-3 year runs. I was speaking about 'over the years'... not just a season here and there.
rebirthoftheM wrote: I am aware of all of this. I don't think you read/understood my point. If we take a look at KG's ORAPM over the years, even during his best years in Minny (so 01-07), he is noticeably lower than other dudes. His RAPM get a boost over others because of his DRAPM. That's what pushes him over, as I'm sure you know very well.
That's why I am looking at the defensive stuff. Because if one has little confidence in these defensive indicators in actually indicating a players concrete footprint on defense, then the whole impact advantage with KG gets murky.
What other dudes? I believe Garnett was 2nd in ORAPM in '03 and 1st in '04.
Re: that's why I look at defense...little confidence in defensive indicators. I just want to take a moment for how crazy that segue is.
I mean, you're clearly actively seeking for a reason to dismiss Garnett's data. You're free to go about this analysis how you want of course, but I think you need to seriously question what it would have taken to have your opinion swayed by +/- data in this debate. I think it's likely that nothing would have and you're just looking for rebuttals against others points.
I don't think the majority of this forum puts as much weight on +/- data as you do. I think people have been skeptical of it since it was first introduced.
I mean, you're clearly actively seeking for a reason to dismiss Garnett's data. You're free to go about this analysis how you want of course, but I think you need to seriously question what it would have taken to have your opinion swayed by +/- data in this debate. I think it's likely that nothing would have and you're just looking for rebuttals against others points.
I don't like the implications of this. There's an insinuation that I'm rejecting stuff to fit a pre-conceived agenda. This is not remotely the case. My opinions on KG have changed over the course the time, specifically on his offense (I once wrote I thought TD>KG on offense, which I now disagree with him). I actually have KG higher on my own ATG list because of this.
I was also very open to the suggestion earlier on in other list threads about the possibility of KG just having defensive 'down years' in 05 & 06. But unfortunately all I've heard back about those years is how his teams sucked, and that it compromised his defensive indicators. Which then led to me the conclusions I make here.
We all examine things differently. What I see from some is a specific interpretation of KG's 05 & 06 defensive stuff that maintains the general thesis that all those major shifts in defensive indicators we saw from him in pre 05 years, and also in 07, should be majorly attributed to him. Basically have your cake and eat it too type of situation.
I just don't find that particular approach to be convincing at all for the reasons I mentioned. To each their own...
And oh..re the orapm stuff. Yes, KG peaked in 03 & 04, though IIRC, his peak is still lower than a whole lot of other dudes best 2-3 year runs. I was speaking about 'over the years'... not just a season here and there.
To be clear, putting the cart before the horse in analysis is something we all do. It can feel demeaning for someone to question you like this, and I'm sorry, but know that I don't consider myself remotely immune to the phenomenon.
Also to clarify: I don't have Garnett scoring highly on my POY list for the years in question. I'm not trying to insist that Garnett was at his best every year, but in general I think it's a really problematic mistake to look at years where team context goes south as the time when you can see what a player "really" is. Nothing exists outside the team in a team sport. When things fall apart, things fall apart.
What we know about Garnett is that over his career this data says he was amazing, that up through '04 no one thought he was fundamentally suspect as a superstar, and that while people underrated him in Boston, he was the backbone of the team defense on a team that won because of defense.
If you can accept all of that, and it's not enough to sway you in a particular comparison, cool. If you find yourself putting asterisks on all of that because of what happened when the wheels came off in Minny, I think you're analysis process has some things backward. Apologies if that is an offensive statement.
Re: peak still lower. Well, depends exactly what you mean. Be careful. RAPM scale isn't the same each year so when a guy rates out as the biggest offensive impactor in the game by +/- while also leading the league in PER, WS, etc, I find it hard to take seriously the idea that we should be all that skeptical of him.
That said, I certainly rate peak Kobe among others as the superior offensive player.
So: Garnett was a best in game offensive player for a brief moment, Kobe was better when he had himself in gear.
Garnett at his best was the most impactful defense player of the era, Kobe was nothing like that.
Doctor MJ wrote:Snip on KG's defensive numbers falling apart in '05 because of team chemistry
Honestly Doc, this seems a bit like hand-waving because then I can just point to any bad season by a great player and then say this. It doesn't mean it's not true or anything, but RAPM should be able to separate his impact from that of the team's, no?
All the talk of '05 and when I look at the numbers, his D is +1.3. Not TERRIBLE, not at his peak, but +1.3. I don't know why people are fixating on this - even if you consider KG's '05 a negative for him, he still has better superstar longevity than Bryant... His case doesn't rest on 1 season, lol.
Also, because this thread is destined to be Kobe vs. KG 120870834, I just wanted to ask: what exactly about RAPM or +/- stats makes it unreliable? What about its methodology implies that its results are going to be inaccurate?
Because the methodology it uses is as close as we have to a scientist or statistician trying to determine which of a number of variables drives a specific outcome in a system. In this case, it's a player's individual impact and his team's scoring margin. That's it.
Is it the math used? Is it that there are some weird results (most of which can be explained by either a small sample, or multi-collinearity)? If this debate is ever going to be resolved, we need to address what's at the root of the problem, so I'd like to hear what people think.
One more thing: Haralobous Voulgaris, the premiere sports gambler, the guy who routinely beats Vegas, once said that the best player-season using his player evaluation method (not sure about what year he started) was KG'04. Now, we don't know if his stat works like RAPM, which adjusts for team-mates, or it's closer to raw +/-, which doesn't - but it's not a stretch to say that KG played about the same way he did in '04 as in other years, for most of his career... Just then, you have the makings of a pretty good KG case.
And take note: this isn't some random guy putting weights on box-score measures. This is a guy who BEATS VEGAS. If you disagree with this and post box-score numbers, tell me how well those correlate with beating Vegas - because I'm pretty damn sure it doesn't beat what Voulgaris has been able to do with his player eval tool.
rebirthoftheM wrote: To be clear, putting the cart before the horse in analysis is something we all do. It can feel demeaning for someone to question you like this, and I'm sorry, but know that I don't consider myself remotely immune to the phenomenon.
Also to clarify: I don't have Garnett scoring highly on my POY list for the years in question. I'm not trying to insist that Garnett was at his best every year, but in general I think it's a really problematic mistake to look at years where team context goes south as the time when you can see what a player "really" is. Nothing exists outside the team in a team sport. When things fall apart, things fall apart.
What we know about Garnett is that over his career this data says he was amazing, that up through '04 no one thought he was fundamentally suspect as a superstar, and that while people underrated him in Boston, he was the backbone of the team defense on a team that won because of defense.
If you can accept all of that, and it's not enough to sway you in a particular comparison, cool. If you find yourself putting asterisks on all of that because of what happened when the wheels came off in Minny, I think you're analysis process has some things backward. Apologies if that is an offensive statement.
Re: peak still lower. Well, depends exactly what you mean. Be careful. RAPM scale isn't the same each year so when a guy rates out as the biggest offensive impactor in the game by +/- while also leading the league in PER, WS, etc, I find it hard to take seriously the idea that we should be all that skeptical of him.
That said, I certainly rate peak Kobe among others as the superior offensive player.
So: Garnett was a best in game offensive player for a brief moment, Kobe was better when he had himself in gear.
Garnett at his best was the most impactful defense player of the era, Kobe was nothing like that.
To make it clear, my issue here is not KG's teams spiralling downwards during those years in terms of wins/losses. It was a specific inquiry on his defensive stuff during that 3 year stretch. Whole lot of fluctuations that don't really make sense to me. 07's Wolves sucked also, yet KG's defensive stuff spikes. Again, I did not watch much of KG during those days and I was seeking clarification on it. The answer: his team sucked. Which to me doesn't hold up for our purposes here.
And re peak... was using your ORAPM scaled stuff that DRZA put me on. From what I remember, Kobe's 06-09 all rank higher than 04 KG as does Dirk in 07 & 11. And then there is Wade in 07 (injured though), 09 & 10 etc who also finished higher than peak KG. Unless I'm misreading stuff.
From what I gather, things like RAPM only tell you that shifts are ongoing with a player on/off the court, adjusting for teammates, opponent strength etc. It says nothing about what is actually happening on the court. On offense, I find this to be not too troublesome, as an elite offensive player tends to exhibit either direct or indirect control on their entire teams offense when they are on the court. But defense to me is qualitatively different. Even for anchoring bigs. There's only so much control they can have. And KG 05-07 to me illustrates this point. That despite the near consensus here that he actually was still playing very good D, he was not able to mitigate his teams defensive woes like he was in his previous years. His team was barely shifting on D with him on and off during these years. Which is why in this case, I am troubled with attributing defensive shifts to KG's actual defensive footprint like I would attribute offensive shifts to a Dirk Nowitzki.
LA Bird wrote:1. Kevin Garnett Longevity is quite important in my all time list (see Kareem ranking above Jordan/LeBron despite having a far worse prime) so it should come as no surprise that KG would rank highly for me. Garnett in his prime wasn't the best offensive or defensive player in the league but his combined impact on both ends of the floor is definitely one of the best. His post-08 Celtics seasons are largely ignored because they are "post prime" but while that is true for his offense, he played some of the best defense anybody has played in probably the last 50 years. Most of the criticism on KG has been his inability to single handedly carry a team's offense like a superstar but I don't see that as much of an issue when he is still a really good offensive player for most of his prime.
2. Dirk Nowitzki Dirk/Kobe/Malone are more or less on the same level for me but Dirk is slightly ahead of the other two as of now. He could potentially drop lower if he stays around as a below average player for too long but that time hasn't come yet.
Again, using longevity as an argument for guys like this with Mailman sitting right there makes little sense.
You can say that Garnett or Dirk were as good as Malone for a while. Maybe. If you born in 1990 or later and don't realize just how relentlessly dominant Mailman was forever and ever.
I don't consider Malone to be dominant unless we are only looking at regular season box scores. If it wasn't for his GOAT longevity, he wouldn't be top 20 on my list.
That does not really seem like a very good assessment of a 2x MVP, the 2nd leading scorer of all time and a Dream Teamer who was a Top 5 player for something like a dozen years in a row.
Not considering Mailman a dominant player...it's one of those things where again you just couldn't have been there watching it. Stockton to Malone went on and on and on forever. They were like Dallas before Dallas. Between 1988-89 and 2000-01 they went:
and I can guarantee you there was nothing on those rosters beyond Stockton and Malone to remotely even sniff the playoffs let alone anything else.
When they won 64 games and challenged the Bulls this was the roster: Karl Malone (age 33) John Stockton (age 34) Jeff Hornacek (age 33) Bryon Russell Greg Ostertag Antoine Carr Shandon Anderson Adam Keefe Chris Morris Howard Eisley the immortal Ruben Nembhard Greg Foster Jamie Watson Stephen Howard Brooks Thompson = 64 wins
How on earth could that group have won 64 games if they were not being led by an all timer's all timer?
When they won 64 games and challenged the Bulls this was the roster: Karl Malone (age 33) John Stockton (age 34) Jeff Hornacek (age 33) Bryon Russell Greg Ostertag Antoine Carr Shandon Anderson Adam Keefe Chris Morris Howard Eisley the immortal Ruben Nembhard Greg Foster Jamie Watson Stephen Howard Brooks Thompson = 64 wins
How on earth could that group have won 64 games if they were not being led by an all timer's all timer?
Having a pair of 'just' all-timer's should do it. (though I give the small edge overall to Malone due to better health in later years)
Winsome Gerbil wrote:Again, using longevity as an argument for guys like this with Mailman sitting right there makes little sense.
You can say that Garnett or Dirk were as good as Malone for a while. Maybe. If you born in 1990 or later and don't realize just how relentlessly dominant Mailman was forever and ever.
You can also say that Garnett or Dirk lasted...well, almost as long. Not really actually as there is still a big minutes gap, but you can say they lasted for a very long time themselves.
What you can't say is that Garnett and Dirk lasted as long while being as good as Mailman. In the end, their longevity involved getting old, losing their stuff, and hanging on for years.
Underrated post. I'm not exactly pertaining to Dirk and KG here but regarding the longevity part. Context is very important regarding longevity. We punish players like Bird, but Bird made the best out his years by being a top 5 player throughout his career. That's why i point out to MVP shares as metric for longevity. It points out to RELEVANT prime seasons. You're an ELITE player almost all your time in the league and that's whats important.
Frank Dux wrote:
LeChosen One wrote:Doc is right. The Warriors shouldn't get any respect unless they repeat to be honest.
According to your logic, Tim Duncan doesn't deserve any respect.
Re-run of Kobe vs Dirk post I wrote previously (due to time, this is best way I can contribute to this thread right now). These are two players I believe to both be all history, but a clear step behind Kevin Garnett.
Dirk vs Kobe
Dirk Nowitzki and Kobe Bryant. This is a very interesting, potentially epic comparison, that in my experience pretty much never gets made (not including this project, of course, where Reservoir Dogs has taken a crack at it). But outside of here, there are a million Kobe threads and Dirk is pretty popular on this board too, but rarely (if ever) do I see Dirk vs. Kobe. I think part of that is due to perception...before 2011 it was considered ridiculous around here to put Dirk on Kobe's level (I remember ranking 2003 Dirk over 2003 Kobe in the 2010 RPoY project, and it was NOT well received). After 2011 people felt better about giving Dirk his due, but he generally gets compared with great frontcourt players. When in reality, I think he and Kobe make one heck of a match-up. So, let's start digging in and see where it goes.
Playoffs, 10 year primes per 100 possessions Kobe Bryant (2001 - 2010): 35.8 pts (54.8%), 7.1 reb, 6.7 ast, 4.0 TO Dirk Nowitzki (2002 - 2011): 33.4 pts (58.5%), 13.5 reb, 3.5 ast, 3.0 TO
I often like to start with the box score stats (regular and postseason) just to get some baseline information out there to look at. Most of us watched both of these careers play out, so we all have images in our heads of what these two can do. But the numbers help to firm up the impressions, and really quantify those contributions. The per-100 numbers aren't so necessary for two players in the modern era, but for this project I like to use per 100 for everyone for a bit of cross-era normalization.
Anyway, the story is similar in both the regular and postseason. Kobe scores on slightly more volume, with Dirk at better efficiency (but both look really impressive in both). Kobe is more of a playmaker, while Dirk is stronger on the glass as you'd expect for a big (though again, it's clear that each contributes in the opposite category as well, for their position). From these numbers I don't think anyone could really get a feel for who was better, but both look extremely elite for a long period.
"The style makes the fight"
Both Kobe and Dirk evolved stylistically over time, going from extremely raw (Kobe entered the NBA as a teenager out of high school, Dirk entered the NBA as a teenager from Europe) to extraordinarily polished. Very good arguments can be made that Dirk and Kobe are the two most skilled offensive players of this generation, mixing technique and precision in with physical attributes that already made them mismatches.
They are also two of the most unique talents that the NBA has seen. I think people recognize the uniqueness of Dirk, but maybe don't always see it in Kobe because he (seemingly deliberately) reminds people so much of Jordan. But ironically, despite his resemblance to his Airness, Kobe is still extremely rare. People forget that before Jordan a shooting guard that was 6-6 or 6-7 and uber athletic was extremely rare. After Jordan it became more of the goal (because everyone wanted to be the next Jordan), but for the most part these bigger 2s handled the ball more like 3s. Kobe, on the other hand, could control his dribble and direct the offense almost like a combo guard...only most combo guards are 3 or 4 inches shorter. Then, while Jordan was always a slasher first-and-foremost (and then later in his career became more of a post threat as his athleticism waned), Kobe always seemed more comfortable operating from the outside-in. He had the high-flying athleticism (and later the strength/footwork to be a great post threat on offense), but his long-range was always more natural than Jordan's and it was a larger staple of his scoring. This played a part in what has been both a boon and a bane for Kobe...he could always get a shot that he was comfortable with from the perimeter, no matter how he was defended. As such, he is one of the best difficult-shot-makers that I've ever seen. That sometimes tempts him to take a lower percentage shot when a higher percentage look (for himself or a teammate) was available, but on the flip-side it makes him a higher-than-expected percentage threat when the offense breaks down and he has to make something happen alone.
And then there's Dirk. No one has ever seen a 7-footer that is such a natural, effortless, pure scorer from the perimeter. He has the jumper of an elite shooting guard, and the ball-handling and court vision of a reasonable small forward. Put those things together, and it is extremely difficult to match up with him. Up through his MVP season the conventional wisdom used to be that he was too good on the perimeter to be defended by a big man, but that he was too tall to be defended by a wing. For the most part this was true, which is why he was receiving All NBA nods early in the decade and rose to MVP status by 2007. However, he had the misfortune in his MVP season of running into the one coach that knew his tendencies well enough (former coach Nelson) and also had a long wing that could play 1-on-1 defense (in Stephen Jackson) that, in conjunction with other factors, allowed a #8 seed to defeat Dirk's #1 Mavs. That series played a big part in Dirk's perception as a so-called "failure" for a long time...but it seemingly had the hidden benefit of getting Dirk to focus more on his post-game. Once he mastered that and added it to his other offensive talents, Dirk became nigh unguardable 1-on-1. Which is why many consider 2011 his absolute peak, despite his MVP and most impressive box score exploits coming 4 or 5 years earlier. Plus, because Dirk IS 7-0 tall, he brings a dimension of spacing/defensive warpage that even exceeds his own scoring. This is part of why his impact shows up so well in +/- studies, even better than his boxscore numbers might suggest. Having a 7-footer that can dominate a game from the perimeter, demanding not only a big man to leave the paint (weakening opposing defenses) but often a double if he stepped inside the arc, is arguably the biggest warping effect you can have (which is why I tend to believe his offensive impact might be pretty close to what a modern Bird would have been, despite Bird's much better passing, because Bird is 3 inches shorter and height really matters for this effect).
Chronology and the story outside of the box scores: the infamous RAPM
RAPM has gotten a lot of attention thus far in the project (understatement alert), but here the RAPM scores over time help to really tell the story of how Dirk's and Kobe's impacts have changed over time as their roles have changed and their games have developed. It's unfortunate that we don't have RAPM data for 2001 and that 2002 is only partial season data as well, because that was an important time period, but we have enough data to work with that I feel like I have a handle on what the missing/partial data may have said anyway. Again, the RAPM numbers reported are from Doc MJ's normalized PI RAPM spreadsheet from 1998 - 2012.
Late 90s Kobe and Dirk didn't really move the needle much (RAPM values right around 0). Dirk scored a slight positive RAPM in 2000 (+2.3), and in the partial 2002 his RAPM was still at a similar place (+2.6). Kobe, on the other hand, went from a mark of +0.7 in 2000 to a +4.9 in the partial 2002, then he just about replicated that score in 2003 (+5.5). It is pretty universally agreed upon that Kobe took a major step forward in impact in 2001, so I'd guess that his 2001 score probably looks similar to/better than his 2002 and 2003 scorers. So, much as the impressions of the time would have suggested, Kobe took the leap towards stardom a bit before Dirk.
However, in 2003 Dirk's RAPM scores surpassed Kobe's to date (Dirk's score jumped to +7.3 in 2003, an elite amount of team lift) and he maintained that mark like a metronome for the next six years (RAPM between +7.2 and +8.0 every year between 2003 and 2008). What's really interesting about Dirk's flat-line major impact is that so much was changing around him. 2003 was the peak of Nellie-ball (where the Mavs had a legit title shot if Dirk doesn't go down to injury against the Spurs) with Nash and Finley as side-kicks, while by 2008 Dirk had won an MVP and come within a breath of another possible championship in a team with a more defensive philosophy with Coach Avery Johnson and side-kicks Josh Howard and Jason Terry. The situations were dramatically different, the team philosophy at the opposite end of the spectrum, but Dirk's impact remained rock solid at a level worthy of a reasonable MVP.
Kobe, meanwhile, was entering the most volatile period of his career both on- and off- the court. For the 2004 season the Lakers brought in the aged Karl Malone and Gary Payton to supplement Kobe and Shaq in a posited super-team, and of course Kobe had his incident in Colorado that had to deal with over the course of that season. This was also the peak of the unfortunately public Shaq and Kobe feud, and after the 2004 season we saw Shaq (and Phil Jackson, and Malone, and Payton) leave town. The Lakers (and Kobe) both had their worst season of the decade to date. With all of this going on, it doesn't surprise me that Kobe's RAPM values reached the lowest point of the decade in these two years (average of about +1.5).
However, in 2006 Kobe returned renewed (after his first major injury and the Lakers missing the playoffs in 2005), and Coach Jackson also came back to town. Kobe was soon to turn in an offensive season for the ages in 2006, and this touched off his own metronomic high-impact stretch in which he registered RAPM values between +6.4 and +8.1 every year between 2006 and 2010. This time period, of course, saw Kobe win his only career MVP as well as his first two Finals MVPs. For those that had questions as to whether Kobe could really be a megastar and lead a team to the promised land without Shaq, all of those questions were answered emphatically 'yes!' during this stretch.
Back to Dirk. After 2008 coach Johnson was out, to be replaced by Rick Carlisle. Carlisle was a defensive coach like Johnson, but by all accounts he was a better tactician and planner. While the Mavs continued to have 50+ win seasons in '09 and '10, they weren't really championship contenders. And while Dirk continued to measure out with really good RAPM scores (+5.3 and +4.9), it was a step down from his Groundhog Day-like +7.5s through the middle of the decade. Seemingly it took those couple of years for Dirk to perfect the post-game that I mentioned above, for the Mavs to build a team that complimented him fully while also fitting Carlisle's schemes, and for Carlisle to perfect the way that he wanted to use him. But it all came together in 2011, when the Mavs put on the floor a defensive-minded squad with tough, battle-tested vets at every position that were really strong and their complemntary roles. But a squad that would have been awful without an offensive engine...and it just so happens that the Mavs had one of the best offensive engines of all-time on their squad. Everyone knows that Dirk led the Mavs to the title in one of the more storied "superstar without big name help" runs that we've seen. But RAPM also recognized the incredible lift that Dirk was providing to those teams, as his +11.5 normalized RAPM in 2011 marked a career-high for Dirk and entered him into the pantheon of the top-10 highest RAPM scores measured since 1998.
The playoffs
Dirk and Kobe both have reputations for performing on the big stage. There have been box score numerical analyses done in this project to either argue for or against Kobe's performance based on scoring efficiency, and those arguments are worth absorbing and filtering. Kobe apparently did have some efficiency blips through the years against good defenses, which we didn't see with Dirk (who maintains an absurd volume/efficiency ratio from the regular season right into the postseason). I don't really think that individual scoring efficiency is nearly as important as many make it out to be, but for players that are primarily offensive and more specifically primarily scorers, scoring efficiency has to at least be considered. On the other hand, Kobe has also faced off against some of the best defenses in history throughout his time, and that can certainly affect the old true shooting percentage.
(Aside on playoff on/off +/-)
Spoiler:
One thing that I like to look at when available (but which is considered controversial as a quantitative tool) is the postseason on/off +/- scorers. There was a time (not that long ago) when on/off +/- was the state of the art for "impact" studies, before APM came into being. There are obvious issues with on/off +/- that led to developing APM, such as the potential for big teammate effects, level of competition effects (e.g. there's no correction for playing against a starting unit or back-ups), and skews due to back-up quality or even rotations (shout out to Unbiased Fan). These issues are exacerbated in the postseason, as many stars rarely leave the court and the sample sizes can get vanishingly small.
I'm aware of these issues, but I'm also convinced that in long playoff runs in a given season (e.g. conference finals or beyond) or multi-year samples we can get large enough samples to be able to get some useful information. I tend to find that really high on/off +/- values over runs or periods help indicate heavy lifting, whereas really negative marks over extended periods don't indicate negatives so much as a lack of a positive drive. Also, I'm less impressed with entire units having high on/off scores (usually indicates a strong unit more-so than a strong individual) but I note when a star puts up a huge number on an island. Reminder: B-R only has this data from 2001 to present.
Examples of some of the best single-season postseason on/off +/- championship runs: LeBron '12: +24.3 per 100 possessions (he also went +24.2 in his 2007 Finals run) Duncan '03: ++23.1 per 100 possessions Shaq 2002: +22.9 per 100 (also went +25.3 during 2004 Finals run) Wade 2006: +22.2 per 100
Famous counter-intuitive counter-examples: LeBron '11: -14.7 per 100 Dwight '09: -12.7 Duncan '05: -5.3
Examples of some of the best 3 - 4 year stretches of postseason on/off +/- Duncan 01 - 03: +27.4 Manu 03 - 06: +21.6 (caveat: came off bench in 44/70 games) Shaq 02 - 04: +21.5 LeBron 07 - 10: +20.4
Examples of some of the best career +/- scores (from 2001 - 2014) Manu Ginobili +11.2 (caveat: 128/180 games off the bench) Jason Kidd +10.2 (+10.2 in Jersey, +14.9 in Dallas, negative else) Duncan +8.9 Shaq +8.6 (+16.3 in LA, -6.4 in Miamii, negative else) LeBron +8.1 (+12.3 in Cleveland, +4.6 in Miami)
Interestingly, for those that give any credence at all to playoff on/off +/-, it's Kobe (even with his lower scoring efficiencies) that tends to look more impressive than Dirk. Dirk's best postseason mark of his career (obviously) came in 2011 with an impressive +16.8 per 100 possessions, and this capped off a run of three positive double-digit marks in four years (thought the first two were for relatively short runs and thus I give them next-to-no weight as single seasons). However, outside of that period his playoff on/offs are pretty pedestrian compared to the other greats of this generation. He was +6.9 in the 2006 run, but pretty meh else for a career playoff on/off mark (from 2001 - 2014) of +1.8.
Kobe measured out with a positive playoff on/off +/- in every playoff run of his career (at least since 2001) in which his team made at least the 2nd round. His best career mark came in 2003 (+17.4), but he was also really strong in 2001 (+14.2 vs. Shaq's -0.3, lending credence to those that say that Kobe was driving the bus for that postseason run) and 2009 (+12.4 vs Pau's +6.8, though Odom measured out best at +16.7). Kobe was also +8.9 in 2008 and +7.6 in 2010, and sports a career-mark of +8.3 that's right in line with Shaq, Duncan and LeBron.
Bottom line:
As I figured before I got started, this is an epic comparison. It's almost a toss-up, a "what do you like"? Stylistically, in the box scores, and in the +/- stats for both the regular and postseason it's hard to find a consistent advantage for either of them. I hope and expect that their placements on this list should reflect that similarity, regardless of which goes in first.
Drza, the amount of effort you put into your posts is on another level from the rest of us. I wouldn't mind giving you 3 votes instead of 1 even if you seem to be in love with all things KG.
I sometimes wonder just how exactly Dirk would be remembered if he had rolled his ankle in the first round of 2011 and the Mavs got bumped. And if that one singular unlucky/lucky event would have significantly changed assessments, it's not a great sign for the accuracy of overall analyses.
Winsome Gerbil wrote:I sometimes wonder just how exactly Dirk would be remembered if he had rolled his ankle in the first round of 2011 and the Mavs got bumped. And if that one singular unlucky/lucky event would have significantly changed assessments, it's not a great sign for the accuracy of overall analyses.
He would slip out of the Top 15, but I think that's fine. At this level things are very tight and you need something that's going for you to have a strong case. I vividly remember scrolling pre-2011 and posters wondering if he can catch David Robinson. Now it's not even a debate.
That being said, Dirk had another strong chance at the title in 2003. He did get injured. So it's not like a 1 and done type thing with him. He had...
03 06 07 11
His shots at the title. 07 was a black mark. 03 was injury. 06 was a Dwyane Wade assault and perfect storm with the new 06 rules. 11 was his year.
Winsome Gerbil wrote:I sometimes wonder just how exactly Dirk would be remembered if he had rolled his ankle in the first round of 2011 and the Mavs got bumped. And if that one singular unlucky/lucky event would have significantly changed assessments, it's not a great sign for the accuracy of overall analyses.
He would slip out of the Top 15, but I think that's fine. At this level things are very tight and you need something that's going for you to have a strong case. I vividly remember scrolling pre-2011 and posters wondering if he can catch David Robinson. Now it's not even a debate.
That being said, Dirk had another strong chance at the title in 2003. He did get injured. So it's not like a 1 and done type thing with him. He had...
03 06 07 11
His shots at the title. 07 was a black mark. 03 was injury. 06 was a Dwyane Wade assault and perfect storm with the new 06 rules. 11 was his year.
'03 of course the only reason he had that shot was because Webber got injured the round before. That's another example. So, Webber doesn't get hurt, the Kings were the favorites to win it all that season, and crushed the Mavs the year before in the playoffs either 4-1 or 4-0, the Lakers were not what they had been...so the Kings go on and win it. Webber finishes his career normally without the abrupt mid career change. He's now a champion, maybe even multiple if they come back again the next year...where does that leave him?
But I was thinking of other things here.
For instance:
Karl Malone never won a title. People ascribe nearly infinite importance to his playoff work so they can bump one of the 3 or 4 most productive players of all time down a ridiculous amount. Meanwhile, during the Jordan "hole" it was Hakeem, long viewed as a bit of a malcontent and underachiever (one of my two fave players at the time (Barkley) but it was true) who steps forward and wins those titles. Really the only ones truly available to win during the heart of Mailman's career. But then Hakeem fades off and deteriorates, meanwhile Mailman actually does reach the Finals twice, the same number of times as Hakeem (well, except for Hakeem's early Twin Tower appearance). But instead of a drab Knicks team with John Starks at SG, or a young Orlando team, Mailman finds Michael Jordan and the Bulls waiting for him, looking to win title #5 and #6 in the decade.
Was what Mailman did in reaching the Finals twice really any less impressive than what any other guy did in reaching the Finals twice? He just met a nearly unbeatable opponent. Just a matter of timing that really didn't have much to do with him. Just flip the timing, nothing else, the Mailman teams meat the Knicks and Magic, the Hakeem teams meet the Bulls dynasty...there's every chance that Mailman is the two time champion, and Hakeem the two time loser. Does that change their assessment? Should it?
The same thing goes for Barkley v. Dirk. Chuck made the Finals too, just in time to run into the MJ Bulls a the end of their first three peat. Does failing to stop MJ from winning his 3rd of 6 actually count against Chuck and for Dirk when you compare them? Really? Great as Dirk was in 2011, were those 2011 Mavs going to beat MJ at the peak of his powers before his retirement? I have sincere sincere doubts. And things like that are just timing and luck. And one of the reasons btw why I have never put overwhelming importance on playoff results. Some of it is out of a players' hands.
I think the next batch of players could include West/Oscar/Dirk/Mailman/KG/Moses/Barkley/Admiral/Durant/Dr J/Wade/Curry/Nash/CP3.
Mailman and Chuck in particular, I think would be spoke of much more highly had they won it all. West and Oscar of course, and even Durant. KD has the highest ceiling, Chuck was Shaq at 6-6, KG is a 6-11 version of Admiral, and Oscar was Lebron at 6-5.
I don't think of KG as THAT much less impactful than Duncan (I have Duncan closer to 10 than 5), statistically he really was a stat sheet suffer closer to Lebron, I just think his game while versatile, and without much more than maybe one possible area you could consider weak, he never had that extra gear in being able to attack playoff defenses. Duncan really didn't either tbh.
West was incredibly dominant at the guard position in his time, and whose talent translated into more impactful team success than Oscar imo. From a pure talent POV though, serious consideration can be given to KD.
West/Oscar/Mailman/Dirk/Durant stand out to me in this group.
Thru post #99 (thread to be open about 16 hours longer):
Kobe -9 Garnett - 6 Mikan - 2 Erving - 2 Karl - 1
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
