ATG Offensive Engines LeBron, Magic, Jordan, Curry, Nash, and Jokic and Playoff Series

[falcolombardi]

Bottom of all this is that with jokic a lot of people use the idea of "ceiling raising" or elevating teams to the highest heights offensively to argue him as high as the greatest offensive player of all time

He has not done that. So people are being consistent
About it

That's so weird to me. He is an excellent Floor Raiser but the idea he is a ceiling raiser just doesn't bode with the Data.

Miller, Dirk, Jordan, Nash, LeBron and Magic all look exceptional for Ceiling Raising. Goes to show that different archetypes can all be ceiling raisers.

I honestly think when people talk about "floor raisers" versus "ceiling raisers" is more aesthetic than anythingh results based

Same thingh with the word "portability" actually meaning "plays as i like"

Lebron has won in more different positions/roles/team constructions than almost anyone else. Aka being -ported- into a different system but he is the unportable one.

Nash or magic or lebron or oscar have led the best playoffs offenses (or regular season ones too) but is actually west, bird and others who led worse offensive teams are the ceiling raisers

When someone like lebron lebron carries a offensively slanted team he is a floor raiser, when he elevates a offensively anted team he is still a floor raiser. But when curry or jordan or jokic carry defensively slanted teams they are actually ceiling raising

[CodeBreaker]

Watch on YouTube

So your argument is a Youtube video?

The General Board is calling, they want their sheep back.

Nah, his arguments on that video are just better than yours.

[Owly]

Bottom of all this is that with jokic a lot of people use the idea of "ceiling raising" or elevating teams to the highest heights offensively to argue him as high as the greatest offensive player of all time

He has not done that. So people are being consistent
About it

Struggling to parse this.

Personally I tend to think ceiling raising as with regard to as maintaining or even scaling up value on (should be) good teams with other high end talent. Not particularly "highest heights" with real team (in a playoff series?). As such, fwiw, I'd suggest it's pretty woolly and largely speculative but therefore not really amenable to falsification.

But regardless "people" have him as the greatest offensively and then "people" are being consistent in knocking him ... without knowing who anyone is it's hard to know actual arguments and who is right or wrong.

[Owly]

Watch on YouTube

So your argument is a Youtube video?

The General Board is calling, they want their sheep back.

Nah, his arguments on that video are just better than yours.

Let's assume they are ... some people don't want to want to tell youtube to recommend them whatever, some people don't want to give views to unknown content, or at the margins concerned by a stylized thumbnail that the content won't be of substance (though many are going this way now in terms of clickbait-y titles and images)... etc

It might be worthwhile articulating any core points that you think are particularly telling or generally summarizing. Or not. Obviously it's up to you.

[Owly]

Jokic elevates his game in the playoffs way higher than Nash

Nash elevated in the playoffs too. And these are playoff graphs.

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

B-B-But BPM and the Box-Score

It wasn’t my intention to only compare Nikola Jokić, even though others are doing so, but talking about injuries and supporting cast isn’t really a good excuse when you’ve had other players who had multiple injuries to their teammates and/or diminished supporting casts do better. Additionally, there were people on this board and others who were making arguments forJokic being the greatest offensive player ever, and if you’re going to make those arguments, there are really high standards you have to meet.

Also, on an unrelated note, I saw that you forayed into the abyss of the GB with the Duncan thread

Greatest ever is going too far. We agree on that. I just want to point out that he's a bit disadvantaged.

And to be clear here I think (without a thorough methodology) LeBron is the pretty clear cut greatest player ever. But if one is looking at Offensive Ratings when on and impact side stuff in 2015 series ... scaling back to the playoffs ... that gets pretty ugly for LeBron versus Kyrie or Love. And yeah that means uneven samples and mostly or entirely not playing the toughest defense

GB is ok. A little change of scenery!

Go look at LeBron's rORTG 2016-2018 without Kyrie

In 2015 (injured Kyrie) and 2018 (no Kyrie), the rORtg were much worse actually. Maybe when you say "without Kyrie" you meant when he's off the court in games he played but those are smaller samples.

Yeah and there are games/series like the 2017 Indiana Pacers series where Cleveland is down 30 at half-time and in the 2nd half Ty Lue benches Kyrie/Love for a majority of the game and the Cavaliers come back with just LeBron.

Kyrie also only played in 2/4 games in 2015 against Atlanta Hawks, 49 total minutes. Kevin Love didn't play at all.

Cleveland's rORTG in this series: 10.3
Atlanta's SRS since I know you care: 4.75

And even in the series before this against Chicago, Kyrie puts up 20 points/3 assists to 2.2 turnovers on 40/40/91 shooting [Really nothing better than Jamal Murray in any capacity] and no Kevin Love in the series and it is still +7.3 rORTG.

But if you want to cite the NBA Finals in 2015 where the best offensive players next to LeBron James were Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson, go ahead

I know you are still holding on hope Jokic can have a 2-year run at +13 rORTG like LeBron had in 2016 and 2017.

Struggling a little here.

In the first instance the post seems to be ... I don't know the broader context but at face value seemingly mocking the use of the box-score and box aggregates to measure offense.

In the second Kyrie Irving's contribution to a series is minimized because ... of a weak looking slashlines (i.e. a superficial, incomplete box score - and indeed on shooting side I think inaccurate (Reference has .425, .429, .895 for FG%, 3pt%, FT%) and misleading in that without FT rate we don't see Kyrie's high secondary percentage leading to TS% of .585. In that very series, LeBron's high raw turnovers make sense in light of his huge overall creation burden but even factoring in the usage his .460 TS% is I think quite poor.

And if one sincerely is opposed to the boxscore than the first round that year see's Cleveland amass a little over 43% of their net points margin in the scant few minutes LeBron was off the floor whilst "Love on" accounts for almost 92% of the net points margin and the "out" at a game level sees Cleveland losing in 2, tieing in 1 and winning in 1. Do we conclude that Cleveland are in trouble of losing the series sans Love and the 121.7 offense they happened to have with him on? Perhaps they are (though I wouldn't think so).


I don't know it just seems like ad hoc jumping around criteria for specific individual series when ... on the LeBron side I don't think he needs it ... and I'm not sure it helps inform much on Jokic (even granting the context of a "help" discussion - for one of several potential points of comparison to Jokic).

For myself I'd tend towards boxscore for playoffs given smaller samples for the impact side (plus uneven competition etc). Jokic's playoff impact stats (and I guess in a related manner these team level offense stuff at first glance, though team level can feel clunky in what are still smaller samples, we're assuming RS is an accurate representative bar of a particular team for small sample, matchups, luck etc) aren't great and it's for individuals to weight that as they choose.

[zimpy27]

.

A question for you but anyone can jump in and answer.

When looking at a players career for ranking, why do we look at their 8-10 best seasons? Isn't it statistically correct that you'd actually look at the 8-10 seasons closest to their median (remove lower and peak seasons in equal quantity)? Has anyone taken this approach to analysing the top 10?


My guess is that it would be hard to deal with players that were injured for multiple seasons or like Jordan were not playing.
But typically a statistical workflow would be looking at players within an age range. The age range would have to be non-biased. Maybe youngest and oldest aged All-NBA player (multiple players needed to not bias for LeBron). Age 20 season had Luka, Kobe, LeBron, Braun all as All-NBA and aged 38 season had Duncan, KAJ and LeBron as All-NBA. That's a 19 year range. So maybe take median and 4 season either side (9 seasons), look at averages and then come out with those stats to chart for comparison.

[Djoker]

Yeah and there are games/series like the 2017 Indiana Pacers series where Cleveland is down 30 at half-time and in the 2nd half Ty Lue benches Kyrie/Love for a majority of the game and the Cavaliers come back with just LeBron.

Kyrie also only played in 2/4 games in 2015 against Atlanta Hawks, 49 total minutes. Kevin Love didn't play at all.

Cleveland's rORTG in this series: 10.3
Atlanta's SRS since I know you care: 4.75

And even in the series before this against Chicago, Kyrie puts up 20 points/3 assists to 2.2 turnovers on 40/40/91 shooting [Really nothing better than Jamal Murray in any capacity] and no Kevin Love in the series and it is still +7.3 rORTG.

But if you want to cite the NBA Finals in 2015 where the best offensive players next to LeBron James were Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson, go ahead

I know you are still holding on hope Jokic can have a 2-year run at +13 rORTG like LeBron had in 2016 and 2017.

If we look at all the games without Kyrie...

2015 ECF Games 2-3 +7.5 rORtg
2015 Finals Games 2-6 -2.5 rORtg
2018 Round 1 -2.6 rORtg
2018 ECSF +21.4 rORtg
2018 ECF +2.5 rORtg
2018 Finals +0.9 rORtg

Average (29 games): +3.1 rORtg

Mind you this isn't meant to be a knock on Lebron but just a point that without a strong supporting cast, it's very tough to produce very strong offenses.

[SpreeS]

Something to leave here

League avg ortg

2017 108.8 rOrg +15.8 (big 4)
2017 108.8 rOrg +12.7 Curry
2017 108.8 rOrg +9.9 Curry w/o Durant
2023 114.8 rOrg +11.3

2017 103.7 rOrg -5.1 Curry off
2023 114.8 rOrg -8.8 Jokic off

2017 Curry on/off ortg -17.8 (This is offensive drop with teammates like Durnat/Klay/Green/Iggy)
2023 Jokic on/off ortg -20.2

Career RS vs PS (only Playoff seasons)

Curry RS ortg to PS ortg -1.6nrtg
Jokic RS ortg to PS ortg -3.4nrtg

Curry PS on/off ortg +9.0 nrtg
Jokic PS on/off ortg +6.5 nrtg

Curry RS on/off ortg +9.4 nrtg
Jokic RS on/off ortg +10.9 nrtg

[Colbinii]

Yeah and there are games/series like the 2017 Indiana Pacers series where Cleveland is down 30 at half-time and in the 2nd half Ty Lue benches Kyrie/Love for a majority of the game and the Cavaliers come back with just LeBron.

Kyrie also only played in 2/4 games in 2015 against Atlanta Hawks, 49 total minutes. Kevin Love didn't play at all.

Cleveland's rORTG in this series: 10.3
Atlanta's SRS since I know you care: 4.75

And even in the series before this against Chicago, Kyrie puts up 20 points/3 assists to 2.2 turnovers on 40/40/91 shooting [Really nothing better than Jamal Murray in any capacity] and no Kevin Love in the series and it is still +7.3 rORTG.

But if you want to cite the NBA Finals in 2015 where the best offensive players next to LeBron James were Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson, go ahead

I know you are still holding on hope Jokic can have a 2-year run at +13 rORTG like LeBron had in 2016 and 2017.

If we look at all the games without Kyrie...

2015 ECF Games 2-3 +7.5 rORtg
2015 Finals Games 2-6 -2.5 rORtg
2018 Round 1 -2.6 rORtg
2018 ECSF +21.4 rORtg
2018 ECF +2.5 rORtg
2018 Finals +0.9 rORtg

Average (29 games): +3.1 rORtg

Mind you this isn't meant to be a knock on Lebron but just a point that without a strong supporting cast, it's very tough to produce very strong offenses.

Yes and No. I would say the Cleveland supporting cast in Finals Game 2-6 is clearly worse than just about anyone on this list has ever had.

[OhayoKD]

Watch on YouTube

So your argument is a Youtube video?

The General Board is calling, they want their sheep back.

Nah, his arguments on that video are just better than yours.

If they were you would have used them to refute the arguments colibini made rather than linking a video and telling us it magically refutes actual results...

Speaking of

lebron 09-21
656-263 with lebron 0.714% win rate
37-73 without lebron 0.336% win rate
net rating with lebron +6.49 (59 win pace level)
net rating without lebron -5.50 (25 win pace level)
+8.6 ortg difference
-3.68 drtg difference
+12 total swing


jokic 2022-24
136-68 (66.7% win rate) with jokic
8-15 (34.8% win rate) without jokic
+4.1 net rating with jokic (53 win pace)
-4.6 net rating without jokic (28 win pace)
+6.5 ortg change
-2.2 drtg change
+8.7 overall change

Maybe you should stop watching basketball via BPM. Though even then:

Now imagine if there were metrics that actually penalized Jokic for being a vastly worse ball-handler

[homecourtloss]

Yeah and there are games/series like the 2017 Indiana Pacers series where Cleveland is down 30 at half-time and in the 2nd half Ty Lue benches Kyrie/Love for a majority of the game and the Cavaliers come back with just LeBron.

Kyrie also only played in 2/4 games in 2015 against Atlanta Hawks, 49 total minutes. Kevin Love didn't play at all.

Cleveland's rORTG in this series: 10.3
Atlanta's SRS since I know you care: 4.75

And even in the series before this against Chicago, Kyrie puts up 20 points/3 assists to 2.2 turnovers on 40/40/91 shooting [Really nothing better than Jamal Murray in any capacity] and no Kevin Love in the series and it is still +7.3 rORTG.

But if you want to cite the NBA Finals in 2015 where the best offensive players next to LeBron James were Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson, go ahead

I know you are still holding on hope Jokic can have a 2-year run at +13 rORTG like LeBron had in 2016 and 2017.

If we look at all the games without Kyrie...

2015 ECF Games 2-3 +7.5 rORtg
2015 Finals Games 2-6 -2.5 rORtg
2018 Round 1 -2.6 rORtg
2018 ECSF +21.4 rORtg
2018 ECF +2.5 rORtg
2018 Finals +0.9 rORtg

Average (29 games): +3.1 rORtg

Mind you this isn't meant to be a knock on Lebron but just a point that without a strong supporting cast, it's very tough to produce very strong offenses.

Yes and No. I would say the Cleveland supporting cast in Finals Game 2-6 is clearly worse than just about anyone on this list has ever had.

My intent wasn't any Jokic comparisons, but since this has been brought up, it seems there is some nitpicking here. For example, Kyrie only played 49 minutes total in that 2015 ECF. For the entire series, the Cavs had a rORtg of +8.3 without Kyrie and without Love if you use nba.com's numbers.

The Cavs with Kyrie sitting, Love missing, and JR missing two games were still a +9.6 rORtg vs. the Bulls and were a +17.5 rORtg with Lebron on court and Kyrie off.

You also had a +11.4 vs the 2009 Hawks, +8.7 vs the 2009 Magic, +10.2 vs the 2010 Bulls with what exactly as a supporting offensive cast?

In 2014, you had a meh Wade and the Heat vs. Charlotte had a +23.3 rORtg without him, +19.2 without Bosh. and so on and so on.

And, of course, that +21.5 does exist.

Jokic's last three series have been +.9 vs. the Heat (healthy everyone), -1 vs. the Lakers, -.5 vs. the TWolves. "Poor supporting casts" and "injuries" have been overcome.

[Owly]

.

A question for you but anyone can jump in and answer.

When looking at a players career for ranking, why do we look at their 8-10 best seasons? Isn't it statistically correct that you'd actually look at the 8-10 seasons closest to their median (remove lower and peak seasons in equal quantity)? Has anyone taken this approach to analysing the top 10?


My guess is that it would be hard to deal with players that were injured for multiple seasons or like Jordan were not playing.
But typically a statistical workflow would be looking at players within an age range. The age range would have to be non-biased. Maybe youngest and oldest aged All-NBA player (multiple players needed to not bias for LeBron). Age 20 season had Luka, Kobe, LeBron, Braun all as All-NBA and aged 38 season had Duncan, KAJ and LeBron as All-NBA. That's a 19 year range. So maybe take median and 4 season either side (9 seasons), look at averages and then come out with those stats to chart for comparison.

Some thoughts.

Depends what you're looking to measure (and of course I suppose any biases that tilt your process)

For me in general I'd tend to look at something like net career value. Variations within this will be there. One I'll talk about in a second in relating to why some might tilt towards highest end seasons, another would be positive value only - i.e. Kobe doesn't get hurt by his final 3 years. Some might simply retort he's playing in a way that would hurt teams and reduce their chance of winning, some might go further and point to salaries and if superstars are under-producing (or unavailable) that hurts chances of winning. So it depends on remit, perspective etc.

One reason to tilt slightly towards the top end seasons (though not to the exclusion of all else) would be the argument that they make the most difference. Minutes are finite. Money has been restricted to some extent. Especially one player max salaries came into place money for individuals is restricted. The goal is typically to win the title. You get more title probability from a 10 SRS team (and maybe four 0s) than from five 2 SRS teams. You want greatness so arguably raw, absolute terms great seasons value should curve up something like exponentially when talking about the championship probability added.

Focus on a specific age range ... is one way to try to be fair but you're going to arbitrarily cut out some people's good season's and others' bad ones. Maybe you grade on a curve granting for age, in some contexts if it's useful (probably not necessary for career value comps).

If the focus is on playoffs that's tougher ... uneven playoff availability, competition makes fairness in comps hard. Career averages will punish longevity (and be skewed by when your runs happen to fall in your career). Focus on a limited sample at the high end will benefit those who fell into good team contexts. Cumulative value will depend heavily on team context. Playoff side comps are inevitably going to be messier.

[CodeBreaker]

Now imagine if there were metrics that actually penalized Jokic for being a vastly worse ball-handler

And KD is a worse ball-handler than Jokic

[AEnigma]

Now imagine if there were metrics that actually penalized Jokic for being a vastly worse ball-handler

And KD is a worse ball-handler than Jokic

Now you are just trying to take blind potshots based on a username. Good way to torch what remained of your credibility on this subject.

[CodeBreaker]

Now imagine if there were metrics that actually penalized Jokic for being a vastly worse ball-handler

And KD is a worse ball-handler than Jokic

Now you are just trying to take blind potshots based on a username. Good way to torch what remained of your credibility on this subject.

And you think it's fair to criticize and compare Jokic's ball handling to the likes of Curry and Magic, but call it potshots when I compare it to another all-time great like KD? oh please

[AEnigma]

And KD is a worse ball-handler than Jokic

Now you are just trying to take blind potshots based on a username. Good way to torch what remained of your credibility on this subject.

And you think it's fair to criticize and compare Jokic's ball handling to the likes of Curry and Magic, but call it potshots when I compare it to another all-time great like KD? oh please

It is a potshot because he has no relevance to the thread and you are very blatantly only bringing him in because you think it will somehow offend OhayoKD, under the mistaken impression that everyone who likes a player will follow your example and attempt to portray that player as better than they are.

[Colbinii]

And KD is a worse ball-handler than Jokic

Now you are just trying to take blind potshots based on a username. Good way to torch what remained of your credibility on this subject.

And you think it's fair to criticize and compare Jokic's ball handling to the likes of Curry and Magic, but call it potshots when I compare it to another all-time great like KD? oh please

So why are you bringing up KD specifically here? Nobody else has. His name isn't even in the title

[OhayoKD]

And KD is a worse ball-handler than Jokic

Now you are just trying to take blind potshots based on a username. Good way to torch what remained of your credibility on this subject.

And you think it's fair to criticize and compare Jokic's ball handling to the likes of Curry and Magic, but call it potshots when I compare it to another all-time great like KD? oh please

As the biggest KD fan, I must admit, with heavy heart, KD is also a fraud.

[Colbinii]

Now you are just trying to take blind potshots based on a username. Good way to torch what remained of your credibility on this subject.

And you think it's fair to criticize and compare Jokic's ball handling to the likes of Curry and Magic, but call it potshots when I compare it to another all-time great like KD? oh please

As the biggest KD fan, I must admit, with heavy heart, KD is also a fraud.

Fraud in what sense?

I've actually come to respect his abilities and skill-set more as time goes by (I was lower on him for most of his prime). Ironically he has become a player to me where you just put him on any team, he does what he does (Score at incredible efficiency) but doesn't do much else.

Ironically, Durant is, to me, the poster child of why the term portability and it's typically uses is a rubbish, corporate jargon in the basketball communities.

Durant can go to any team and do his thing. The problem is he doesn't exemplify them to higher degrees. And he isn't a good enough ball-handler or playmaker to enhance those around him--and that's really where the value of being portable lies.

[The High Cyde]

It was kind of shocking seeing Boston completely shut him down in that playoff series, he could barely dribble the ball without getting stripped.