Peaks project update: #4

[Gibson22]

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) Lebron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67

Shaq loses to Wilt in a race that was as close as the one with Lebron. Time limit to get your vote in: 60 hours.

The rules

Reasoning/statistical support is required for votes to be counted. A simple list of names will not be counted.
Window time for votings: 48 hours/thread.

THE VOTING SYSTEM:

Everyone gives their 1st-ballot choice, 2nd-ballot choice, and 3rd-ballot choice. I'll award 4,5 pts for a 1st ballot, 3 for a 2nd ballot, and 2 for a 3rd. Highest point-total wins the spot (24-hour run-off will then only be done in the unlikely event of a tie).

Players don't get credit for all the votes they receive in a round, we just count the votes (and the points) for the designated year. At the end of the 48 hours (not sure about that) the season that has most points wins. Other voted seasons of the winning player will get a mention.

So, you can use your 3 choices to vote for more than 1 season of the same player (if you think that the best 3 seasons among the players left belong all to the same player, nothing is stopping you from using all you 3 choices on that player), but you can't continue voting for other seasons of that player once he wins and gets his spot. The final list will be 1 season per player, with a mention of the other seasons of the winning player who received votes.

Spoiler:

[quote="freethedevil"]
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[Sublime187]

Shaq 2000

He should have been top 3. Oh well.

[euroleague]

Shaq 00
Bird 86

I’ll write up more explanation later. Debating Hakeem 94, KG 04, Duncan 03, Erving 76, and Magic 87 for the third spot

[E-Balla]

Same as last time until I see arguments for or against other players.

1. Shaq 2000
2. Shaq 2001
3. Duncan 2003

[euroleague]

If you guys can copy paste some arguments, it may benefit those still making rankings

[Colbinii]

If you guys can copy paste some arguments, it may benefit those still making rankings

I will be active in an hour or so.

[pandrade83]

Gotta make this brief since I'm traveling for work.

1. Shaq 2000 - Anchoring LA to a 67-15 record with pre-prime Kobe & a bunch of washed/not prime years guys is damn impressive. Lakers finished 1st in DRTG which Shaq obviously anchored - couple that with 30/14/4 on the offensive end on 58% TS & robust TOV economy (10%). . . I don't know what else to say.

2. Kareem '71 - anchored a +11.9 SRS squad to a title (yes, aware there was talent dilution), was dominant in the playoffs against Thurmond, Wilt & Unseld.

3. Kareem '77 - counter to the W/L Record & the sweep arguments that might be coming:

W/L record - the following year, in a weaker year, the Lakers would play at a 49 win pace when Jabbar played vs. a 32 W pace when he was injured; two years prior in Milwaukee, the Bucks would play at a 44 win pace with vs. a 14 W pace when he was injured. His impact goes beyond the box score based on the two times when he was hurt (and didn't have his strongest years).

The Sweep - Jabbar put up 30/16/4/4/66% TS against the 2nd best player in the league & someone who's own season will likely land in the top 25 of this project.

Olajuwon, Bird & Magic get consideration for the next spot.

[Clyde Frazier]

Ballot #1 - 00 Shaq

Shaq showed in 2000 why he has a case for the most dominant offensive force in NBA history. I'm sure some of you have been watching the games on NBA TV during shaq week, and it's a good reminder of how he really played. The notion that he was just bigger and stronger than everyone else is silly. His ability to create space and find the right angles on his array of post moves was exemplary. His decision making and physical quickness for his size was unmatched. This included passing out of the post when necessary.

It's noted by some that he didn't face the likes of hakeem, ewing, robinson, etc. on the way to his first championship. This is with the implication that he didn't hold his own in the past against those guys, which simply isn't true. Also, the lakers faced the 10th, 3rd, 5th and 13th ranked defenses on their way to the championship that season, so they were definitely tested.

Ballot #2 - 77 Kareem

I went back and forth between 71 and 77 for a while here. Part of me still wants to go with 71. However, my picking of 77 is 2 pronged:

- A player’s peak doesn’t necessarily have to come in a championship year
- 77 is post merger, which many feel increased the competition in the league

Using trex and bball ref’s per 100 #s, let’s look at 71 vs. 77:

71: 34.4 PPG, 16.9 RPG, 3.5 APG, +10.57% rTS
77: 32.7 PPG, 16.6 RPG, 4.8 APG, +9.7% rTS

On top of being incredible #s on their own, we see kareem performed about as well in 77 as he did in 71. This also included an excellent playoff performance with the following (keeping with per 100 here to be consistent):

37.8 PPG, 19.4 RPG, 4.5 APG, 1.9 SPG, 3.8 BPG, 64.6% TS, .332 WS/48

His postseason would end in a sweep to the eventual champion blazers, who ranked 1st in SRS that season and 5th in defense. To say their front line of walton and lucas was solid would be a real understatement. They rounded out the roster with key guys like lionel hollins, bob gross and johnny davis. Outside of cazzie russell and lucius allen, the lakers roster was pretty bare. I’d say they performed to about as well as expected that season.

77 was his 5th MVP season, so it’s reasonable to say that kareem had reached his peak in terms of developing his game on both ends of the floor.

Some footage of kareem from 77

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Ballot #3 - 03 Duncan

We sorta forget that Mr. Consistency was a really dominant player who played major minutes at his best. An excellent regular season topped of by a stellar championship run makes him more than deserving.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2003-nba-finals-nets-vs-spurs.html

[Gregoire]

1. Shaq 2000
2. Shaq 2001
3. Hakeem 93

[_Game7_]

1. 01 Shaq
2. 03 Duncan
3. 77 Kareem

[E-Balla]

1. 01 Shaq
2. 03 Duncan
3. 77 Kareem

Wow 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan over 2000 Shaq? Any particular reason you voted this way?

[penbeast0]

Russell 62
Russell 65
Russell 64

The most dominant player of all time, the defensive ratings his Celtics put up are consistently among the best all time. While he got some good defensive players around him later (KC Jones, Havlicek, Sanders), his teams were as dominant with bad defenders around him as well (Cousy, Heinsohn). The Celtics were bad the seasons before he came (despite retaining their HOF back court) and bad the season after he left (despite retaining Havlicek and Sanders). It's hard to see the Celtics defensive dominance as anything but Russell to me. As this is the most dominant dynasty of all time -- less playoff series but their record in playoff series is appreciably better than the Jordan Bulls or anyone else; less teams overall but with stronger, if anything, big men on the average because of concentration of talent before the dilution by expansion of the 70s and 80s -- and no one else on the team (possibly Havlicek but he was better in the 70s) is that dominant, the Celtics dominated with Russell and depth (Red may not have been a GOAT level coach -- I am in a minority on this one -- but he was a GOAT level GM). It's hard to pick a season because Russell was both extraordinarily consistent and extraordinarily healthy, so throwing 3 of them out there as I don't see even prime Shaq or Kareem dominating to the extent Russell did. And, he did it over Wilt (repeatedly), another of the top GOAT candidates.

[Samurai]

1. 2000 Shaq
2. 1971 Kareem
3. 1965 Russell

[JoeMalburg]

Shaq 2000
Russell 1965
Bird 1986

Gave strong consideration to '03 Duncan and '76 Doctor

'04 KG, '87 Magic, '77 Kareem, '17 Durant, '16 Curry, '94 Hakeem, '83 Moses are all on my radar for top ten.

[_Game7_]

1. 01 Shaq
2. 03 Duncan
3. 77 Kareem

Wow 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan over 2000 Shaq? Any particular reason you voted this way?

Well while I understand 2000 Shaq had some dominating stats, I give 2001 Shaq the edge because of how the Lakers dominated the postseason. At the end of the day it's all about results right.
03 Duncan impact isn't measured all by stats IMO, when you have a player with intangibles at a high level as him, not to mention his all-time defense, that cannot be easily ignored.
I admit I don't really know how to hedge Bill Russell's impact, but I'm not sure I can see him having much more impact then Duncan. But I'm willing to learn and I got my ears open in these threads.

[E-Balla]

1. 01 Shaq
2. 03 Duncan
3. 77 Kareem

Wow 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan over 2000 Shaq? Any particular reason you voted this way?

Well while I understand 2000 Shaq had some dominating stats, I give 2001 Shaq the edge because of how the Lakers dominated the postseason. At the end of the day it's all about results right.
03 Duncan impact isn't measured all by stats IMO, when you have a player with intangibles at a high level as him, not to mention his all-time defense, that cannot be easily ignored.
I admit I don't really know how to hedge Bill Russell's impact, but I'm not sure I can see him having much more impact then Duncan. But I'm willing to learn and I got my ears open in these threads.

It is about results but the Lakers dominated the postseason in 01 not necessarily Shaq who probably wasn't even their best player until the Finals series. Kobe did a lot of heavy lifting in 01 that he couldn't do in 00 if they wanted him to.

[Timmyyy]

Spoiler:

Now that Lebron and Michael are voted in the maybe most exciting part begins for me.
Shaq, TD, Kareem, Wilt, Russell, Hakeem and heck even KG are pretty close.

This time I will again starting off with voting, since last time when I started off with a longer post with some thoughts and questions it wasn't really discussed anyway, with exception of E-Balla (thanks bud). So I will vote now and try to engage in the discussion that is already going on and hope that my thoughts below are leading to a little discussion as well.

My general thoughts:
I already talked a little in the first thread when I thought it was one year per player, how I see the competition after MJ and LBJ. I first had Shaq then changed it to TD and Kareem was a thought too. I am still not confident.

First of all I want to erase two guys I am most confident erasing. That is 04 KG and 94 Hakeem.
I will erase both by comparing them to 03 TD (since I have Kareem and Shaq so close to TD it will be ok for me to erase these guys then because then they can't make my ballot).
TD compared to KG is actually really, really close in the RS. Both seemed to be the best players in the league by RAPM with the biggest rival being the exact other guy of this comparison. Both had phenomenal multiyear RAPM values that were comfortably above the league. In the end I think it is hard to quantify who was better in the end for RS, both have their arguments, both had solid but not great supporting casts. Both did great with their teams. I call it a draw, but see arguments for both sides. In the PO's TD just reaches a whole new level. To get in depth analysis it's better to check out Colbiniis post from the first thread. KG was always underrated for his PO's performance because guys were way to much into his decrease of efficiency when scoring wasn't even the most important part of his game. He played phenomenal D in the PO's and was still a great playmaker. He also scored a lot but oftentimes on worse efficiency. So overall I think he was able to keep his RS level up or even slightly increase his level, but the scoring efficiency is still a factor why he didn't elevate to the same heights as Timmy. So RS a draw roughly and PO's comfortably Timmy.
TD vs Hakeem I already made a post in one of the first threads. Long story short is Hakeems team results in that season were pretty inconsistent with the talent around him. He had a talented offensive cast, that was good but not great, but wasn't able to lead them to a good offense (15th). The PO offense was better but still not particularly great. So he wasn't able to elevate the strength of his supporting cast. The team defense shows me that he, despite the fact that his supporting cast wasn't anything special on D, carried his team on the back on D for the RS. In the playoffs the team D goes down and I think it is because Hakeem concentrated on offense (and still not really getting them to a great offensive level). All that tells me 2 things. First in my opinion Hakeems offense is a little overrated by the boxscore that year since his team offenses weren't as spectacular despite having a good fitting scheme and team around him. Second he was pretty inconsistent in his approach. That is complaining on the highest level considering he won the title but compared to TD, who always got the best out of his defensive minded supporting cast (Top2 both RS and PO) and elevated this not so talented offensive supporting cast just enough to get the title (RS team offense looks even better than Hakeems, 7th place), it is a disadvantage. So in the end I think Duncan was more consistent and did exactly what the team needed at the right time. I have him with a tiny advantage on both offense and defense compared to Hakeem. So it's really close but clear enough for me.

In the first thread I already told, that I have TD, Shaq, Kareem coming up. Why not Russell or Wilt? Yeah it's really close and as usual with guys from the 60's hard to quantify or proof anything. With Wilt it's mostly that I don't think his passing was as impactful as the volume would suggest. From what I saw it oftentimes didn't come in the flow of the offense and the Sixers actually let the ball move quite a bit when Wilt was less involved. I talked more indepth about that in thread nr2. His scoring was on great efficiency but really low volume, which also gets me to believe his role was a lot of finishing with a little post creating (and history shows finishers are usually less valuable than guys that create more on his own, even though he was an extraordinarily good finisher). That paired with his FTA's and percentage makes me questioning his offensive impact a bit (compared to the competition at this point). Which is why in combination of offense and defense I prefer the other guys for now.
Russell I see a little behind because, while I think he has the GOAT one way impact, I don't think he beats the package the other guys are providing (although I'm really thinking about putting Russell in that ballot in an edit later if something can convince me).

So that leaves me with Duncan, Kareem and Shaq. The following were my thoughts about TD vs. Shaq in the first thread.

We have the RAPM data of both Duncan and Shaq. Both seem to be the clear best player in the league and both have one data set were they completely crush the lead and look even comparable to Lebron peak years (Engelmann 2003 multiyear for Duncan and acrossthecourt 2000 PI for Shaq). Very comparable. But for me it comes down to the fact that Shaq didn't seem to keep up his defensive impact in the PO's because the Lakers D took a huge dip. Duncan on the other hand remained his defensive impact in a way that the gap became huge in the PO's and the offensive gap since both elevated their games roughly stayed the same. So I give RS slightly to Shaq and PO's slightly to Duncan with a tiny little bigger gap. Why not Kareem? Not quite sure. I compared Kareem and Duncan with Shaq and thought all 3 are as close as it gets. I just think Kareem and Shaq are so comparable with their offensive and defensive impact split they might be even closer to each, resulting in a situation where if I have Duncan above Shaq, I think I should also have Duncan above Kareem.
But to be honest between these three guys, to me it is more or less a draw and I don't think I will ever be 100% confident with it.

Kareem 74. Somewhat the only comparable big on offense to Shaq in my opinion. Even has a lot of things he is better than Shaq. But I see Shaq as a Curry of the big men. I don't think his gravity effect was ever matched, even though others had the effect too but smaller. In the end I see the offensive gap in favor of Shaq as small but clear. The 74 Bucks had a great offense for the 70's both RS and PO with Kareem being the clearly most important guy.
That was Kareems best year defensively imo. The Bucks that year had the best RS defense and 2nd best PO D and Kareem was the clear anchor of it and I see his defensive Impact way better than Shaq.
Comparing it to Shaq I might get to the point where I see the defensive gap as bigger than the offensive one.

Tim Duncan 2003. We have impact stats from these years and both Timmy and Shaq look killer at their peaks and absolutely comparable. I see Shaq better in the regular season but really can see Duncan as better in the PO because the defensive gap becomes gigantic and the offensive gap doesn't seem to widen because both Timmy and Shaq went nuts offensively these PO. Since I value PO high I really see a good case for Duncan being in front too.

That is leaving me with 2003 Duncan as 1st.

Now Shaq vs Kareem vs 2002 Duncan. For me these 3 guys are way too close at their absolute peak seasons to take a 2nd Duncan season in front of the other two, where he wasn't proving it until the very end of the season. That leaves me with 74 Kareem and 00 Shaq. I go with Kareem on that because of the thoughts stated above. Both are really close on both ends with Shaq having the offensive and Kareem having the defensive advantage. But looking at the Bucks I believe Kareem was more consistent than Shaq on defense making the defensive gap a little bigger than the offensive one (same old Shaqs playoff defense concerns of mine ).

Yeah and I don't see another Kareem season that should be between these two seasons, so I come up with the following votes:

1. Duncan 2003
2. Kareem 1974
3. Shaq 2000

[Odinn21]

Wow 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan over 2000 Shaq? Any particular reason you voted this way?

Well while I understand 2000 Shaq had some dominating stats, I give 2001 Shaq the edge because of how the Lakers dominated the postseason. At the end of the day it's all about results right.
03 Duncan impact isn't measured all by stats IMO, when you have a player with intangibles at a high level as him, not to mention his all-time defense, that cannot be easily ignored.
I admit I don't really know how to hedge Bill Russell's impact, but I'm not sure I can see him having much more impact then Duncan. But I'm willing to learn and I got my ears open in these threads.

It is about results but the Lakers dominated the postseason in 01 not necessarily Shaq who probably wasn't even their best player until the Finals series. Kobe did a lot of heavy lifting in 01 that he couldn't do in 00 if they wanted him to.

Isn't that a bit going overboard?
In 1st round against the Blazers, they had similar impact. I'd give a slight edge to Shaq.
In 2nd round against the Kings, Shaq played better.
In WCF agains the Spurs, it was Kobe.
In NBA Finals against the Sixers, it was Shaq again.

I agree that 1999-00 season as a whole is the best of Shaq. His best regular season and his best postseason. No doubt.

[E-Balla]

Well while I understand 2000 Shaq had some dominating stats, I give 2001 Shaq the edge because of how the Lakers dominated the postseason. At the end of the day it's all about results right.
03 Duncan impact isn't measured all by stats IMO, when you have a player with intangibles at a high level as him, not to mention his all-time defense, that cannot be easily ignored.
I admit I don't really know how to hedge Bill Russell's impact, but I'm not sure I can see him having much more impact then Duncan. But I'm willing to learn and I got my ears open in these threads.

It is about results but the Lakers dominated the postseason in 01 not necessarily Shaq who probably wasn't even their best player until the Finals series. Kobe did a lot of heavy lifting in 01 that he couldn't do in 00 if they wanted him to.

Isn't that a bit going overboard?
In 1st round against the Blazers, they had similar impact. I'd give a slight edge to Shaq.

Really? I'd give a large edge to Kobe. Shaq was +55 in 44 minutes per game in that series while Kobe was +66 in 40 mpg. Looking at the boxscore Shaq put up 27/16/3 on 53 TS% and a 113 ORTG (9 TOV% and 18 offensive boards in 3 games saved his overall efficiency) while Kobe put up 25/4/8 on 57 TS% with an absolutely absurd 122 ORTG (8 TOV%!!! while nearly averaging 8 assists a night).

In 2nd round against the Kings, Shaq played better.

What makes you say this? Kobe averaged 35/9/4 while being more efficient and he had a higher +/- than Shaq in the series and in each game other than game 1.

We agree the rest of the way but I think Kobe's performance is the only difference between 01 and 00. If Shaq in 00 played just as hard and played with 01 Kobe playing that hard to prove himself LA in 2000 is the GOAT regular season team. That's the main difference between the two years IMO.

Kobe averaged 31.6/7.0/6.2, had over a 30 PER, a 24.2 GameScore, a 121 ORTG, and was better than Shaq statistically in all 3 series if we just go off aggregate stats like PER and Game Score. I think that postseason run by Kobe is so underrated, he was playing like early 90s Jordan for those few weeks, maybe a bit better since he's a better passer than MJ. To this day I'm pretty sure outside of the 2017 Warriors Kobe has the highest postseason on/court rating of any player to make the Finals since 01.

[Mavericksfan]

1) Shaq ‘00
Already provided explanation.
2) Duncan ‘03
Knocked off the 3peating champions with a less than steller cast. Posted insane boxscore production in the toughest defensive era and anchored one of the best defenses in the modern era. There’s been some other detailed posts about Duncan’s greatness and I dont think I can add anything else.
3)1971 Kareem
Dominated the league on both ends in route to a championship. I dont have anything bad to say about this. It’s only so low due to Shaq/Duncan doing their damage in a tougher defensive era.