Owly wrote:trex_8063 wrote:penbeast0 wrote:23 should be close between Magic and Nets. Nets have the ABA years (or it wouldn't be close), Orlando has Shaq and Penny and the Dwight Howard years. I can't see a good argument for Kings but then I'm one of the prime Webber anti-stans on the board so who knows.
FYP.
Yeah, I can't see a case a good case for the Kings either. It's like I implied in my post above: we could REMOVE 10 [1st round exit] playoff appearances for the Nuggets [i.e. pretend they had X number of fewer wins required to instead make them MISS the playoffs], and they'd still have at least marginally better rs win%, playoff appearance frequency, and playoff series win% than the Kings franchise.
Not necessarily a good case but I was curious to see if the title bump is enough ... so a case for the Kings would be ...
Regular Season performance
Knicks: 10th
Cumulative SRS -20.89
Average SRS-0.286164384
(all through the start of this year)
over
Pacers: 11th
Cumulative SRS 15.2
Average SRS 0.353488372
(BAA/NBA only -
not ABA)
Pacers have been a better team - just NBA alone - not including ABA and the (
three) titles there. But longevity and ultimate playoff success are (otoh .. and at first glance in the thread, some "total"-based support) leapt the Knicks up circa say 0.7 SRS (assuming SRS is a good RS baseline). That's assuming the Pacers' ABA stuff valued at nothing and averages used as an initial baseline. I think ABA would be valued to some extent so the Knicks' bump is more than that.
If the Kings one title (as a proxy for the main aspect of the playoffs) is worth half that then ... they are still behind Denver and Orlando, but extend an already large lead over NBA only Nets (and looking at it a with ABA SRS - obviously including the ABA gives nets titles in a very small but by then more talented league). So probably not a case for here but maybe one for not last in this group as seemed widely suggested. And if the Nets titles move them up more (and Knicks's were worth more than just marginally enough to get them where they landed, enough to get them over Nets with some value to ABA titles - even if "only" mid-ABA titles) then maaaybe, maybe the Kings are into consideration here (how much difference the Royals +6.431818182 points dif in '47 and 6.433333333 in '48 might also be a factor - see below).
One other note. Playoff success has been measured crudely here by titles. On the other hand, stuff like finals births ... the 50s Knicks got to more finals, but were, IMO, lesser threats to the Lakers than the 40s-50s Royals - and Nets 2000s finals berths were a joke, far lesser contenders than Sacramento were out in the Western bracket).
Caveats:
Not all titles necessarily considered equal, i.e. era (mind you '73 Knicks got to face an injured [Hondo] Boston and so a relatively simple path to the finals).
Not all voters necessarily the same.
This based one one simple model with SRS as a good RS model, titles as main importance of playoffs - RS performance as acceptable baseline to be adjusted from. Your mileage may vary.
Re: Knicks v PacersSRS difference (NBA-only) is about 0.64 (in Pacers favour). If we look at win% difference it's .502 to .486 (in Pacers favour); that's an avg 41.2 wins vs 39.9 wins (more or less the same picture that SRS paints???
slightly less favourable for the Pacers, perhaps). Not a huge difference either way.
If we include Indiana's ABA years, their cumulative SRS is 34.15, avg of 0.65673.......that's ~+0.94 to the Knicks avg. Their total (ABA + NBA) win% is .514. That's avg 42.1 wins in an 82-game schedule (vs 39.9 for the Knicks).
However, I'd not necessarily conclude the Pacers NBA-only history is superior from that (though I suppose the case could be made). The Knicks have one more finals appearance during the same years of NBA existence. They have one fewer titles (either league) than the Pacers, but TWO additional finals appearances (albeit in a longer history---->similar frequency of reaching the finals [in a vacuum, for me, tie-breaker would go to the team with longer history in this situation [Knicks]]).
As you implied, however, not all finals appearances/titles are created equal. To summarize how I [more or less] view overall competitiveness and talent density in the league.....
I consider much of the league from ~1990 on as "modern" and extremely competitive with a few notations. The highest points ("Golden Ages", if you will) for me were the first few years of the 90's [~'90-'92 or '93], the mid-late aughts [~'05-'08], and the very recent NBA [~'15/'16-present].
A number or extraordinary centers began entering the league in the early 90's, but at the same time you had Bird and Magic [and McHale, Daugherty, Nance, etc] exiting the league, Jordan leaving after '93, the league expanding by two teams upon his return, DRob missing the whole year in '97 while other stars began to go into decline shortly thereafter [and before the next generation had fully filled out the ranks].......consequently I feel talent density began to slip, and the "Golden Age" of the early 90's was already past by the mid-90's; and I actually feel that from approximately '97-'02 or '03 was probably the weakest "era" of the last 30 years.
But '05-'08(ish) brought another "Golden Age" [imo], with talents like Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, Nowitzki, Nash all in their primes [if not peaks] within that span, as well as 2nd/3rd-tier stars like Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Elton Brand, Shawn Marion, Chauncey Billups, Amare Stoudemire, and Ben Wallace all in their primes [peaks?] within that span. Additionally, the all-time great 2003 draft class was all hitting their primes [if not peaks] in this span: Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Melo, etc. AND as if that weren't enough, there were mega-talents who came in just after 2003 (CP3, Howard, as well as lesser talents like Iggy and David West).
The league then dipped somewhat for a few years (and hold-out years never seem to look all that strong, fwiw), but has seen recent resurgence with the extraordinary depth at the center position, as well as the ascent of guys like Giannis, Curry, Harden, Kawhi, Davis, Lillard, while some of the "old guard" (Lebron, Durant, CP3) continued to play well.
As far as NBA history prior to 1990(ish), I generally feel the more recent is the more competitive, with a possible exception being the pre-merger 70's (which I generally view as similar(ish) to the mid or mid-late 60's).
I view ABA competitiveness from ~'71 or '72-'76 as similar to that of the early 60's NBA. The early years of the ABA I view similarly as the mid-late 50's NBA (~'57-'59).
And otherwise mid 50's > pre-shotclock NBA > BAA.
So if I was ranking the respective competitiveness of the various finals appearances between the Knicks and Pacers (* marking where they won),
from least to most.....
'51 Knicks
'52 Knicks
'53 Knicks
'69 Pacers (ABA)
'70 Pacers (ABA)*
'72 Pacers (ABA)*
'73 Pacers (ABA)*
'75 Pacers (ABA)
'70 Knicks*
'72 Knicks
'73 Knicks*
'99 Knicks
'00 Pacers
'94 Knicks
So you'll note that [imo] the Knicks occupy most of the "high ground" on that finals hierarchy (edit: though I guess they have a good chunk of the bottom ground, too; they maybe average out marginally better overall, though)
Does that mean the Knicks deserved to go over them here? idk. I voted that way, though I'll admit I'm not 100% confident in that stance; I certainly don't fault anyone who voted Pacers at that time.
fwiw, one can also get an idea how I view the Nets titles and finals appearances based on the above, too. I'll also quote myself from a prior thread regarding the difficulty of path to the finals [as it pertains to the '02 and '03 Nets]:
trex_8063 wrote:Since the relative easy path to the finals has been mentioned in relation to the two NBA finals appearances for the Nets, I got curious and did a little study of my own, evaluating the path to reach the finals for every finals participant since the ABA/NBA merger (so that's the last 86 finals participants).
I started with a methodology similar to one displayed in another recent thread: just adding up the SRS of opponents faced. For late 70's/early 80's teams who only played TWO rounds to reach the finals, I prorated the cumulative SRS to THREE opponents (that is: multiplied by 1.5.........same effect as using average SRS faced).
But that doesn't give full consideration to what is arguably the biggest factor, which is the HIGHEST SRS faced. For example, consider the following hypothetical:
Team A faces a +3 SRS, a +3 SRS, and then a +3.5 SRS (total: +9.5).
Team B faces a 0 SRS, a +1 SRS, and then a +8 SRS (total: +9.0).
Using only the cumulative SRS method, Team A rates as having had the tougher path to the finals; but I think most of us would agree that Team B actually had it harder (because they had to go thru a +8 SRS team). So I wanted to give some added consideration to that highest SRS faced; though I didn't want to go too overboard with it, as that highest SRS is already part of the cumulative.
So while it's a bit arbitrary, I went with the following formula:
Cumulative SRS faced + (0.65 * Highest SRS faced)
Anyway, based on that formula for calculating difficulty of path to the finals, the '02 and '03 Nets paths rate 82nd and 78th (out of 86), fwiw.
EDIT: ^^^Also worth noting that by the above formula, the difficulty of path to the finals for the '00 Pacers ranks 83rd (out of 86)---->easier than either of the Nets trips.
I generally agree that the Nets have NEVER (in 43 years NBA history) truly looked liked a contender in the NBA. I'll again quote myself from prior thread:
trex_8063 wrote:The Nets have hit 50+ wins exactly ONCE in 43 years of NBA existence. Their all-time highest SRS is +4.42 (which is the one and only time in 43 years they've managed a 4+ SRS, btw; they've only twice gone >3, and only four times >2, fwiw)......what that tells me is that they were never truly a contender. I realize you can only face what's in front of you, but it should nonetheless factor into the thinking somewhere.