JoeMalburg wrote:I did not see he was a garbage player who never played well. I conceded he is a great player overall. I think you're mostly right here, but I don't think it has anything to do with my post. And I consider games 6 and 7 more important than the games that came before them. Again, I was focusing on the most critical playoff moments of his career. Not Paul in the playoffs as a whole, where I do not dispute he was very good.
I think the difference here stems from deeming these moments the "most critical" and how they are framed. I don't consider games 6 and 7 more important than those before them, simply because a performance game 1 affects the most potential games in the series (i.e. every subsequent game) whereas a game 7 can only affect a game 7. I do think people also have a tendency to highlight bad moments in losses, and good moments in wins. For example, we remember Kobe's game winning shot percentage, but miss that his actual proportion of game winning shot successes is quite low.
This is a strawman argument.
My "strawman" arguments, such as asking if a game 1 or a game 7 was more important, were directly relevant to this discussion. A player hypothetically waiting to save good performances "in case they're needed in game 6/7" may not even get a chance to do so if his team is swept in 4. You've claimed the importance of games 6 and 7, and predominantly critique this in Paul, whereas I'm downplaying their performance because the earlier games should be deemed more important, if anything, since they're more likely to actually affect the series outcome.
Another example of data being incomplete and misleading when taken alone. Give me the list on NBA Champions who didn't have a closer.
Most teams have a "closer" because most teams are constructed with at least one scorer in mind. The data was more so presenting the idea that being a takeover scorer (i.e. guys who have to be "the man" and "take over" ITO scoring) doesn't really do much for an offence in close minutes, and that close game minutes don't make much of a difference over the course of a season/playoff run. A lot of these narratives are favourable to our minds, and so we accept them without actually digging into the reality of what's happening.
Mainstream perceptions and opinions are also an important part of a complete evaluation. Perception is reality to some extent.
I think that mainstream perceptions are useful when the presence of better data and evidence isn't there - for example, there are guys (such as Benoit Benjamin) that look like good players when checking the back of a basketball card, but actual anecdotes from players/coaches allow us to temper our perceptions on how good they actually were. Isiah is included in this - there is some value in mentioning how others felt about him and this will cause an uptick in how we think of him when looking at his stats.
Of course, this doesn't mean we shouldn't stop digging - the "mainstream opinion" was once that the sun revolved around the earth, and yet this was readily accepted. Not all opinions are correct, even the really mainstream ones. Not saying yours isn't, but I'm saying there is merit towards investigating claims on players and seeing how valuable they are. This even happens in the modern era - look at Kobe's all defensive teams.
He sacrificed everything that was good for his stats for what was for the team. The Pistons had to exploit inefficiencies in the league to win. They weren't going to have a better offense than LA or Boston, so they rebuilt what was a high scoring run and gun team that helped Isiah put up huge numbers into a defensive first team that relied on Isiah to bail them out on offense when no one else was able to get hot.
Dumars Finals MVP came in a sweep where Magic (for 2.5 games) and Michael Cooper were hurt. The Lakers were decimated at guard. Dumars exploited it, Isiah was unselfish and didn't force the issue. When they needed him the next year vs. Portland, he was the best player in the series.
Just a note on 1990-91. Isiah was hurt all year, played through it a lot, but he was not himself and was never the same after. Isiah's individual play may not have looked that much different and the teams stats may seem similar, but look at the results for the team going forward despite Rodman and Dumars improving significantly.
Good information.
What sort of sacrifices did Isiah make? His usage rate generally remained high but his efficiencies dropped off quite a bit. Did he simply gravitate out to the perimeter a bit more (This would make his "real" shooting percentage higher than TS%), did he create more lethal assist opportunities (which might actually underrate his assist numbers)? This is a big part of what I'm wondering - the efficiency drop off is rather large, so how do we explain this? I gave a couple of examples - just picking your brain here.
None of those numbers are wrong (as far as I can tell). But they are all misleading without context. Paul had teams built around his offensive skills and they went nowhere despite gaudy stats. Isiah tried that too, then he sacrificed all that to win. Paul hasn't done that.
Most of Paul's teams broke down because of defence, yep. I think defence was the biggest problem with Paul's playoff career (as well as poorly timed injuries), because he often still had outrageous ORTGs in series in which he was defeated. I would have
loved to have seen Paul with a more Bad Boy Piston-esque team. I do think team building is also a lot more complex than this though, and I don't see why CP3 couldn't emulate Isiah in 89-90 if he played in that scenario, unless he gets injured, lol.
Just to find some common ground, would you agree that Paul is much worse in crucial situations than he is in general over 82 games and the early parts of playoff series'?
I won't agree here, simply because I don't view those moments as "crucial situations" and the data presented in terms of elimination games (Pandrade had some data on this in the Top 100 project) and "clutch" situations is pretty impressive.
No-more-rings wrote:Which is cool because most people have one, but don't you think this may possibly cloud your judgment a little or create blind spots when evaluating him?
It's absolutely a possibility, but I tend to be a highly data driven person (actuarial science grad, do stat modelling for the government here now) and do try to align my views and eye test with what data presents to me. For what it's worth, I became a Rockets supporter because of Hakeem, and yet I actually think he's a tad overrated because I found him to be a far worse passer in his youth, and as amazing as his scoring bag of tricks was, he often fell into an isolation post scoring trap. And this doesn't mean I don't consider him in the top 10 or anything (I think he'd be at around 9th or 10th for me) but it's an example on how I do try to compartmentalize emotions from production and impact when assessing basketball.
"Team success" isn't something I dismiss for Paul and then prop up for Hakeem because he won 2 titles. Biases are going to be there somewhat, and there is also a question on whether or not criteria biases are also selected because they make one's favourite player look better than other criteria biases are. I'm naturally highly analytical/statistical, and my case for Paul is often aligned to my innate nature, so I don't feel I'm as biased because what I inherently value in life is aligned to what Paul provides on the court. But yes, it's a possibility.
I can't speak for Joe, but i would imagine many don't bring it up because we know it's a given that he had great games and series. The idea is to pick at moments where he didn't come through, because well when the standards some are holding him to is top 20 which is a ridiculously high standard, we shouldn't have to celebrate things like a first round series win. Also whenever that series is brought up as a defense for Paul, it goes ignored how great Griffin was in the series.
24.1/13.1/7.4 with low turnovers is no Joke. His scoring efficiency wasn't special, but his rebounding and playmaking was a problem for the Spurs.
I think all in all, Paul fans see the need to jump quick to Paul's defense because they see the criticisms as unfair, some of it may be but you have to remember we're judging him by high standards so i think a little nitpicking is fine since separating great players may require that.
So it's different between "Paul sucks!" and "i don't quite buy Paul being as good as his numbers because of x, y or z, and i don't think his career warrants top 20."
There is no objective debunking for saying Paul isn't top 20 all time, ranking players is opinion not agreed fact.
Oh no, I agree with you. Blake was great in that series. A few unfortunate injuries aside, Blake was a good player for the Clippers in both the regular season and the playoffs. I think very fondly of the CP3-Blake-DAJ-JJ core, and think they were a good playoff core too, but rather that many of the more auxiliary players (e.g. the Austin Rivers, Glen Davis contingent) were pretty terrible for the Clips in the playoffs. I don't think that either Blake or CP3 HAS to be marginalised for what happened to the Clippers (nor do I think they should be), because basketball is more holistic than looking at team success, and either crediting or deriding the team star as a result.
I don't actually think that was a special series for Paul (not that it wasn't good), but I don't put it a step above, say, 2017 Jazz. It was a relevant example to the discussion, and it's also an example on how our perception changes based on little tricks such as "timing" and "winning bias."
I honestly generally go to his defence not just because he happens to be my favourite player, but also because some of the criticisms leveled at him have a very clear, statistical defence. I don't, for example, defend his injuries, because I think they're a valid criticism that people will weight differently (although I also feel like people weigh injuries differently from player to player too). I don't defend people finding his personality grating, because although I think different personalities will mesh with different players (and we've seen this with CP3 too), I understand that a fan might value this, and quantify this differently to another person. Stuff like, "he shies away from scoring in close games" when the evidence presents the exact opposite is when I feel more of a need to actually post. Sometimes, he sucks in close games, and sometimes he doesn't, and it's times like this where tapping into data gives a more holistic view of this scenario than our paltry memories will.
Agreed - ranking players is not agreed fact, and we won't agree, simply because we value different things.
