Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor)

[MyUniBroDavis]

I wouldn't call Elgee's analysis worthless, but i did notice he seems to have sort of a blind faith in some players and their seasons and at some point people shouldn't just take his opinions as gospel.

Some examples, his season evaluations already has rookie Bird well into the MVP range and only a little bit worse than where he has someone like a peak Kobe or Dirk and ahead of many of their prime seasons. Like i know he helped the Celtics make a big turn around but i don't see anything in his actual production to suggest he was already on that kind of level. Going by that rookie Bird is better than all but one of Wade's seasons and all but 2 of Kobe's. I can't really fathom that unless you are just granting Bird the all around game that he later developed.

I know at least up through 2017 he has 2016 as KD's best season. This is baffling to me. KD was worse in both the regular season and post season than 2014, and there's really nothing he improved on aside from a series or 2 where he was a legitimately impactful defender. KD's postseason offense in OKC had real questions of reliability, and 2016 didn't answer those questions at all as far as I'm concerned.

There's a few more i could talk about but like 89 and 90 Hakeem being as good or better than 94 Hakeem, but i think you get the point. Some of his seasonal rankings i really have trouble understanding and since he didn't break each of these seasons down I'm not going to just look at it and go along with it just because he said so. I don't think anyone is 100% consistent, but some of those I'm not sure how much thought he really put into.

I'm not going to get into everything but I will say this:

You're note going to find complete evidence of Bird's impact by looking at box score data. I'd suggest finding some footage and watch what Bird's doing when he's not doing something that directly leads to box score tallies. While you may still conclude that he's overrated, Bird's play pops off the screen like few others in history, and this was also why you had people right in that season saying Bird was better than anyone who had played basketball before. Was rookie Bird the GOAT? No. Was he displaying the quickest basketball brain in history? Quite possibly.

Personally i just wanna see where he gets that film lol, does he have a place to find it or aomething?

[Odinn21]

I keep a close eye on his work because it's massive and there are very good takes, points in it. I'm not a particularly fan of him because his process, especially with stats, are too linear, he has an odd disregard for distributions and he has some of the unexplainable feelings. For example his +/- valuation of players he certainly can not understand.
I know how much people put weight into his CORP values and sadly, it's useless. I'll show you why;
1962 Russell +6.25
1967 Chamberlain +6.25
1974 Abdul-Jabbar +6.25
1977 Abdul-Jabbar +6.50
1982 Moses +4.50
1984 Bird +5.50
1986 Bird +6.00
1987 Magic +6.25
1990 Magic +5.75
1990 Barkley +5.00
1989/1990/1995 Olajuwon +6.25
1993 Olajuwon +7.00
1994 Olajuwon +6.50
1998 Malone +5.00
2000 O'Neal +7.00
2002 O'Neal +6.50
2002/2003 Duncan +6.50
2004 Garnett +6.25
And these are without James and Jordan. James has 7 seasons with +6.75 or better, Jordan has 6.

Let me get this straight first; if this is the scale, there's no way in hell 1974 Abdul-Jabbar was worse or less valuable or provided less impact than peak James and Jordan. But he's on par with 1989/1990 Olajuwon. The same goes for 1967 Chamberlain and 1962 Russell.
There's no way Barkley's impact was worse than Olajuwon by that extent in those 2 seasons as well BTW.

This is just CORP and his feelings about impact value. There are other things to be addressed in his work.

Overall, not only his mathematical approach is questionable at best due to being linear, he underrates some of the players he can not truly understand and/or appreciate and he's too pro-modern. He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways. And he clearly has his favourites among players shared their times together.

With all these critics, I'm sure I'll follow his work and what he has to say.

[Doctor MJ]

Personally i just wanna see where he gets that film lol, does he have a place to find it or aomething?

This looks like a job for...

.

But to just say a little: There's a lot going on with getting access to these old games, and 70sFan is at the forefront of it.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I keep a close eye on his work because it's massive and there are very good takes, points in it. I'm not a particularly fan of him because his process, especially with stats, are too linear, he has an odd disregard for distributions and he has some of the unexplainable feelings. For example his +/- valuation of players he certainly can not understand.
I know how much people put weight into his CORP values and sadly, it's useless. I'll show you why;
1962 Russell +6.25
1967 Chamberlain +6.25
1974 Abdul-Jabbar +6.25
1977 Abdul-Jabbar +6.50
1982 Moses +4.50
1984 Bird +5.50
1986 Bİrd +6.00
1987 Magic +6.25
1990 Magic +5.75
1990 Barkley +5.00
1989/1990/1995 Olajuwon +6.25
1993 Olajuwon +7.00
1994 Olajuwon +6.50
1998 Malone +5.00
2000 O'Neal +7.00
2002 O'Neal +6.50
2002/2003 Duncan +6.50
2004 Garnett +6.25
And these are without James and Jordan. James has 7 seasons with +6.75 or better, Jordan has 6.

Let me get this straight first; if this is the scale, there's no way in hell 1974 Abdul-Jabbar was worse or less valuable or provided less impact than peak James and Jordan. But he's on par with 1989/1990 Olajuwon. The same goes for 1967 Chamberlain and 1962 Russell.
There's no way Barkley's impact was worse than Olajuwon in those 2 seasons as well BTW.

This is just CORP and his feelings about impact value. There are other things to be addressed in his work.

Overall, not only his mathematical approach is questionable at best due to being linear, he underrates some of the players he can not truly understand and/or appreciate and he's too pro-modern. He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways. And he clearly has his favourites among players shared their times together.

With all these critics, I'm sure I'll follow his work and what he has to say.

I dont know much about his corp data but are you saying theres no way hes right because 1974 kareem cant have a lower impact than peak bron and jordan despite most people agreeing that peak bron and jordan>peak kareem?

[LukaTheGOAT]

I mean i'm specifically taking issue with his process.

-> The amount of stock he puts on port. aren't based on anything whatsoever. Players can manage far more lift on teams he'll outright say he considers marginally worse than another team they manage far less lift on, and he'll rate the second season way higher because his eyes decide versaility>singular effiency

-> Just handwaves drastic differences in defensive performance season to season away

-> He compeltely disgregards what actually transpires in the playoffs and even mega regular season outcome shifts

-> He will make asssessmnets that massively disagree with the outputs of his formula on a whim

-> A player who he considers otherwise identical can literally add a significant upgrade to their game and he'll dismiss it as noise.

-> Penalizes players for droppign off against "better playoff teams' but doesn' tbother tracking how players play against good playoff defenses or offenses

He just ignores what players actually do for his theoretical predictions on what they would have done if he resimmed the season a million times, and that seems fundemetnally nonsensical to me.

-He doesn't just use eye-test for port. He has a formula he uses that helps him estimate one's portability, based on the way they score, passing, etc.
the formula has zero grounding in his stated end game here, assessg championship equity. How much he takes away points based on port is just random and that becomes especially clear when you lineup his assessement of team quality with the supposed portablity related ddecline in corp.
-I agree that I don't always agree with his defensive performance measures, but he says the valuations are based on what he believes players would do in a playoff setting. He basically says RS does not matter a ton, and therefore, if someone is lax in the regular season which leads to a decline defensively- that same person can still get a great defensive valuation if they turn up the intensity in the PS.

-I don't think he ignores what happens in the PS, however he just is swayed as easily as some us on this forum might be by PS performance. For example, he penalized Giannis and had him move from what would be the #1 player in the league to the #3 player in the league because he is not confident in his offense against good playoff defenses.
he had giannis at#2 before health adjustment and it was because davis and lebron weren't able to make the playoffs, per his own reasoning and even then he sees it close.
-This is my biggest gripe with Ben, but also might be inevitable. He values eye-test and stats, but if the stats do not necessarily back up what he is seeing, he will at times completely disregard the metrics and count it as noise (his peak KG>peak Duncan take very much rubs me the wrong way and I think it is libel but whatever). But then again, I guess we all to some degree might do this, because we believe stats can only capture certain things and are limited.
the issue comes when he has holistic big picture stats and completely disregards them, ie, kobe's raw corp is 9th but he somehow gets tanked to 14th based on ben's eyes on what isa massive discrepancy between corp and final corp.
-Your right he does believe in the simulation model, because the fact of the matter is we are living in just one of many potential realities. we live in one reality. That reality si the one we're assessing here.If a player does something that is unsustainable (AD hitting like 50-mid 55s in midrange jumpers and being a GOAT mid-range shooter is one),

-Examples? He does say somethings are noise (for example McGrady's offensive jump shooting in 03 is an example). But if a player makes actual tangible improvements in their game that allows them to raise the ceiling of a team, then I think he usually does give credit.

-False. As with the Giannis example, he absolutely does. He said in a podcast, that if KG could boost his scoring in the PS like Duncan could, he thinks KG would be probably the greatest player ever. Instead KG is quite a bit below that because of his PS scoring. Heck he acknowledges in his writeup that KG beats Duncan in box-score and plus-minus metrics, while being much more portable and a better peak defender through their careers, yet he ranked Duncan higher all-time.
1. He brought up giannis's opipm against non firs t round opponents, and then didn't even bother comparing that to other stars

2. He actually has KG as the higher peak, he has duncan ahead because of longetvity.

Idk what to tell you with the port assessment. Yes, he uses some intuition, but he isn't just using eyetest for his port rankings. He looks at numbers and how the player most frequently scores on the court, how often are they assisted, etc. to come to his conclusion. Portability matters, because of hypothetical fits in which a star might have to play next to another.

Next, he had Giannis at #3 before the health adjustment, and with the health adjustment he falls to #4 behind Kawhi. He shows that in this vid

Watch on YouTube

For Kobe, he is #10 before the in era longevity adjustment. Nominally, Kobe would rank within the top 10 for CORP, however he falls outside the top 10, because guys like Bird, Oscar, etc. get a bump since their career longevities are a bit more impressive relative to era.

You say we are assessing the reality we are living in, but odds tell us, what happened is not necessarily most likely. You might be assessing what happened, but he chooses to assess how good a player is if put on a random team in the league (this is why he values portability too). You have a different philosophy then him; perhaps this list is something that isn't for you if you only judge on what happened.

Yes, he has KG's peak as higher, as I mentioned in another post, though for career he has Duncan ahead. He said he could see KG ahead of Duncan, but he went with Duncan for longevity and also probably due to the confidence in Duncan as a scoring threat in the PS.

With the Giannis example, he didn't bother comparing it to other stars, because he was just attempting to make the point that Giannis' offense is flawed in general. He says in the video his offensive PIPM in that scenario FALLS OUTSIDE the top 10, which was a pretty big note; this is suggestive of Giannis not being a superstar on offensive value alone. No he doesn't compare this to every other star, but I suppose he didn't believe it was necessary to get the point across.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I keep a close eye on his work because it's massive and there are very good takes, points in it. I'm not a particularly fan of him because his process, especially with stats, are too linear, he has an odd disregard for distributions and he has some of the unexplainable feelings. For example his +/- valuation of players he certainly can not understand.
I know how much people put weight into his CORP values and sadly, it's useless. I'll show you why;
1962 Russell +6.25
1967 Chamberlain +6.25
1974 Abdul-Jabbar +6.25
1977 Abdul-Jabbar +6.50
1982 Moses +4.50
1984 Bird +5.50
1986 Bİrd +6.00
1987 Magic +6.25
1990 Magic +5.75
1990 Barkley +5.00
1989/1990/1995 Olajuwon +6.25
1993 Olajuwon +7.00
1994 Olajuwon +6.50
1998 Malone +5.00
2000 O'Neal +7.00
2002 O'Neal +6.50
2002/2003 Duncan +6.50
2004 Garnett +6.25
And these are without James and Jordan. James has 7 seasons with +6.75 or better, Jordan has 6.

Let me get this straight first; if this is the scale, there's no way in hell 1974 Abdul-Jabbar was worse or less valuable or provided less impact than peak James and Jordan. But he's on par with 1989/1990 Olajuwon. The same goes for 1967 Chamberlain and 1962 Russell.
There's no way Barkley's impact was worse than Olajuwon in those 2 seasons as well BTW.

This is just CORP and his feelings about impact value. There are other things to be addressed in his work.

Overall, not only his mathematical approach is questionable at best due to being linear, he underrates some of the players he can not truly understand and/or appreciate and he's too pro-modern. He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways. And he clearly has his favourites among players shared their times together.

With all these critics, I'm sure I'll follow his work and what he has to say.

If he was too pro-modern would he really have Kareem ranked #1 all-time until this past season occurred by Lebron? The latest GOAT rankings on here had Kareem at #3, and much of the mainstream stuff like ESPN etc., have Kareem top 3, but not #1.

I'm not sure by what you mean with the "He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways," argument, so I can't help with that.

And finally, I'm pretty sure his favorite player of all-time is Larry Bird, who is outside the top 10. Once again, considering all the mainstream stuff out there has Bird as unanimous top 10, yet he goes against that grain (and his prior intuition), to say Bird did not have a top 10 career, doesn't seem to fit the idea that he is biased in favor of his favorites.

[Odinn21]

If he was too pro-modern would he really have Kareem ranked #1 all-time until this past season occurred by Lebron? The latest GOAT rankings on here had Kareem at #3, and much of the mainstream stuff like ESPN etc., have Kareem top 3, but not #1.

I'm not sure by what you mean with the "He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways," argument, so I can't help with that.

And finally, I'm pretty sure his favorite player of all-time is Larry Bird, who is outside the top 10. Once again, considering all the mainstream stuff out there has Bird as unanimous top 10, yet he goes against that grain (and his prior intuition), to say Bird did not have a top 10 career, doesn't seem to fit the idea that he is biased in favor of his favorites.

He's yet to update his goat list.

He's too pro-modern because he's evaluating the earlier eras like they had the tools we have now. That's one thing. This is also apparent in his portability opinions.
Another one is, going back to my example; 1974 Abdul-Jabbar was in a situation like 1989/1990 Jordan and 2009 James pretty much. He led his team to #1 offense (+3.5 rORtg) and #2 defense (-4.1 rDRtg) in regular season. He was the best offensive and defensive player of his team, he was the reason for those performances. He forced a game 7 against a much more complete team in the NBA Finals. Robertson was basically a defensive liability by that point, his scoring efficiency and volume weren't there. The team was basically Abdul-Jabbar and Dandridge. I listed the numbers for scale. I watched the entire 1974 NBA Finals when I had my collection and I know that Abdul-Jabbar's impact and production were not something short of anyone. It's not just Abdul-Jabbar being behind of Jordan and James. What makes 1993 Olajuwon more valuable than 1974 Abdul-Jabbar? If you put him behind, especially with that margin, I'm going to assume you have pro-modern bias.
The same goes for 1967 Chamberlain and 1962 Russell.

- I'm not sure by what you mean with the "He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways," argument, so I can't help with that.
Example; he finds prime Garnett's skillset more portable to 2010s compared to Duncan's skillset. But he wouldn't acknowledge that Duncan's skillset is more portable to 1990s, 1980s, 1970s and 1960s. Portability does and should work backwards, too.

Particularly in Bird's case, his 1984 postseason run is among the best title-winning runs and Bird doesn't get proper recognition for that. 1984 Bird being closer to 1998 Malone than 1989 Olajuwon doesn't make sense. 1989 Olajuwon being more impactful / more valuable than 1984 Bird doesn't make sense to begin with though.

[70sFan]

Personally i just wanna see where he gets that film lol, does he have a place to find it or aomething?

This looks like a job for...

.

But to just say a little: There's a lot going on with getting access to these old games, and 70sFan is at the forefront of it.

I will say quickly - if you want to get full games that are available among collectors, but are rare online then the best place to find them is here:

https://www.usasportsondvd.com/nba?rating=0|0&dtrange=range&issearch=1

This collector has gigantic collection from whole NBA history and most games he sells are quite cheap.

If you want to get more rare stuff, then it's much more complicated. I've been working on transferring old analog films from various media archives (Northeast Media Archive, AP Archive, UCLA Archive and others...) for two years. I've collected large set of footage that has never been available online before. I'm still trying to do more - at the beginnig of December I'll get game 6 of 1965 ECF for example (I already have game 7).

[70sFan]

I dont know much about his corp data but are you saying theres no way hes right because 1974 kareem cant have a lower impact than peak bron and jordan despite most people agreeing that peak bron and jordan>peak kareem?

Not everyone agree with that though. To me Kareem's peak is as good as anyone's.

[Odinn21]

I dont know much about his corp data but are you saying theres no way hes right because 1974 kareem cant have a lower impact than peak bron and jordan despite most people agreeing that peak bron and jordan>peak kareem?

Not everyone agree with that though. To me Kareem's peak is as good as anyone's.

It's not just Abdul-Jabbar. It's the highlight for me but it's very had to justify 1967 Chamberlain and 1962 Russell.
It's also very hard to agree with Oscar having 2 +5.5 or better season and West and Nash having 5, etc.

Edit; Taylor has his biases like any of us. I'm not putting him at fault for that. Don't get me wrong. What I don't like is, people tend to take his work as absolute and there are many people relying on his work, so I don't like that some of his work those are not so good get assumed good because it's Taylor.
To me, his corp list is useless because it's too infected with his biases. 1989 Olajuwon's value matching and 2002 O'Neal's value surpassing 1974 Abdul-Jabbar's impact doesn't make sense at all... This is just one example BTW. I'm not saying it's useless because of this one example. There are many.

[LukaTheGOAT]

If he was too pro-modern would he really have Kareem ranked #1 all-time until this past season occurred by Lebron? The latest GOAT rankings on here had Kareem at #3, and much of the mainstream stuff like ESPN etc., have Kareem top 3, but not #1.

I'm not sure by what you mean with the "He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways," argument, so I can't help with that.

And finally, I'm pretty sure his favorite player of all-time is Larry Bird, who is outside the top 10. Once again, considering all the mainstream stuff out there has Bird as unanimous top 10, yet he goes against that grain (and his prior intuition), to say Bird did not have a top 10 career, doesn't seem to fit the idea that he is biased in favor of his favorites.

He's yet to update his goat list.

He's too pro-modern because he's evaluating the earlier eras like they had the tools we have now. That's one thing. This is also apparent in his portability opinions.
Another one is, going back to my example; 1974 Abdul-Jabbar was in a situation like 1989/1990 Jordan and 2009 James pretty much. He led his team to #1 offense (+3.5 rORtg) and #2 defense (-4.1 rDRtg) in regular season. He was the best offensive and defensive player of his team, he was the reason for those performances. He forced a game 7 against a much more complete team in the NBA Finals. Robertson was basically a defensive liability by that point, his scoring efficiency and volume weren't there. The team was basically Abdul-Jabbar and Dandridge. I listed the numbers for scale. I watched the entire 1974 NBA Finals when I had my collection and I know that Abdul-Jabbar's impact and production were not something short of anyone. It's not just Abdul-Jabbar being behind of Jordan and James. What makes 1993 Olajuwon more valuable than 1974 Abdul-Jabbar? If you put him behind, especially with that margin, I'm going to assume you have pro-modern bias.
The same goes for 1967 Chamberlain and 1962 Russell.

- I'm not sure by what you mean with the "He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways," argument, so I can't help with that.
Example; he finds prime Garnett's skillset more portable to 2010s compared to Duncan's skillset. But he wouldn't acknowledge that Duncan's skillset is more portable to 1990s, 1980s, 1970s and 1960s. Portability does and should work backwards, too.

Particularly in Bird's case, his 1984 postseason run is among the best title-winning runs and Bird doesn't get proper recognition for that. 1984 Bird being closer to 1998 Malone than 1989 Olajuwon doesn't make sense. 1989 Olajuwon being more impactful / more valuable than 1984 Bird doesn't make sense to begin with though.

I know this because I am a patreon of Ben, but he said as of now he would have Lebron at #1 cautiously. He said after going back through certain years for the peaks project, it is possible he would have Kareem move back to #1 if he ends up higher on him. But yeah, he hasn't officially updated his list.

The thing with portability is that he is evaluating players on dominance relative to era. Saying Duncan's game was better suited for the 90s only has so much relevance with regards to Garnett, because in his estimation, Garnett became a MVP level guy in 2000, and a majority/all of his prime takes place up until 09. For better or for worse, Ben is really high on Garnett's passing that he considers all-time level and believes Garnett is a better floor spacer.

But okay, I see your gripes. Sorry you feel this way, but I hope you can still get something valuable out of the project even though you greatly disagree with him on many things. I have a feeling that I myself am going to absolutely hate one of Ben's takes with regards to peak Garnett>peak Duncan, and I already have a very detailed post lined up for why I question this. But I will wait until Ben makes it official in his Peaks series.

[Odinn21]

I know this because I am a patreon of Ben, but he said as of now he would have Lebron at #1 cautiously. He said after going back through certain years for the peaks project, it is possible he would have Kareem move back to #1 if he ends up higher on him. But yeah, he hasn't officially updated his list.

The thing with portability is that he is evaluating players on dominance relative to era. Saying Duncan's game was better suited for the 90s only has so much relevance with regards to Garnett, because in his estimation, Garnett became a MVP level guy in 2000, and a majority/all of his prime takes place up until 09. For better or for worse, Ben is really high on Garnett's passing that he considers all-time level and believes Garnett is a better floor spacer.

But okay, I see your gripes. Sorry you feel this way, but I hope you can still get something valuable out of the project even though you greatly disagree with him on many things. I have a feeling that I myself am going to absolutely hate one of Ben's takes with regards to peak Garnett>peak Duncan, and I already have a very detailed post lined up for why I question this. But I will wait until Ben makes it official in his Peaks series.

Garnett vs. Duncan was just an example. All of these talks are about goat lists and evaluating portability as only going forward is one-way, incomplete thinking. That's my point. I think we've been over this in the top 10 project, especially when the talks about Garnett were pretty heated.

Sure, I follow Taylor's work closely. I have my reservations surely, but that doesn't mean I can't take anything good from his work.

BTW I expect Taylor to rank 2004 Garnett over 2003 Duncan. I remember listening to one of his podcasts, that was about Garnett vs. Duncan and with the way his arguments went, it's clear that he prefers Garnett over Duncan. I'd be surprised if he ranks Duncan over Garnett.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I know this because I am a patreon of Ben, but he said as of now he would have Lebron at #1 cautiously. He said after going back through certain years for the peaks project, it is possible he would have Kareem move back to #1 if he ends up higher on him. But yeah, he hasn't officially updated his list.

The thing with portability is that he is evaluating players on dominance relative to era. Saying Duncan's game was better suited for the 90s only has so much relevance with regards to Garnett, because in his estimation, Garnett became a MVP level guy in 2000, and a majority/all of his prime takes place up until 09. For better or for worse, Ben is really high on Garnett's passing that he considers all-time level and believes Garnett is a better floor spacer.

But okay, I see your gripes. Sorry you feel this way, but I hope you can still get something valuable out of the project even though you greatly disagree with him on many things. I have a feeling that I myself am going to absolutely hate one of Ben's takes with regards to peak Garnett>peak Duncan, and I already have a very detailed post lined up for why I question this. But I will wait until Ben makes it official in his Peaks series.

Garnett vs. Duncan was just an example. All of these talks are about goat lists and evaluating portability as only going forward is one-way, incomplete thinking. That's my point. I think we've been over this in the top 10 project, especially when the talks about Garnett were pretty heated.

Sure, I follow Taylor's work closely. I have my reservations surely, but that doesn't mean I can't take anything good from his work.

BTW I expect Taylor to rank 2004 Garnett over 2003 Duncan. I remember listening to one of his podcasts, that was about Garnett vs. Duncan and with the way his arguments went, it's clear that he prefers Garnett over Duncan. I'd be surprised if he ranks Duncan over Garnett.

Oh yeah I know he likes Garnett better. Not just from the podcast, but also from his Backpicks rankings. I also attend his monthly Q&A and he has nothing but glowing things to say about Garnett. The thing is, I think the gap between Garnett and Duncan in the PS is bigger than I think people realize. That is why I am waiting for him to rank the all-time peaks, so that once he ranks Garnett> Duncan, I can finally share my post that I have saved up. Because, I really need someone to answer, how if we are valuing PS play, that Garnett>Duncan is fair outside of portability. I think my post can stir up some interesting conversation.

[freethedevil]

If he was too pro-modern would he really have Kareem ranked #1 all-time until this past season occurred by Lebron? The latest GOAT rankings on here had Kareem at #3, and much of the mainstream stuff like ESPN etc., have Kareem top 3, but not #1.

I'm not sure by what you mean with the "He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways," argument, so I can't help with that.

And finally, I'm pretty sure his favorite player of all-time is Larry Bird, who is outside the top 10. Once again, considering all the mainstream stuff out there has Bird as unanimous top 10, yet he goes against that grain (and his prior intuition), to say Bird did not have a top 10 career, doesn't seem to fit the idea that he is biased in favor of his favorites.

He's yet to update his goat list.

He's too pro-modern because he's evaluating the earlier eras like they had the tools we have now. That's one thing. This is also apparent in his portability opinions.
Another one is, going back to my example; 1974 Abdul-Jabbar was in a situation like 1989/1990 Jordan and 2009 James pretty much. He led his team to #1 offense (+3.5 rORtg) and #2 defense (-4.1 rDRtg) in regular season. He was the best offensive and defensive player of his team, he was the reason for those performances. He forced a game 7 against a much more complete team in the NBA Finals. Robertson was basically a defensive liability by that point, his scoring efficiency and volume weren't there. The team was basically Abdul-Jabbar and Dandridge. I listed the numbers for scale. I watched the entire 1974 NBA Finals when I had my collection and I know that Abdul-Jabbar's impact and production were not something short of anyone. It's not just Abdul-Jabbar being behind of Jordan and James. What makes 1993 Olajuwon more valuable than 1974 Abdul-Jabbar? If you put him behind, especially with that margin, I'm going to assume you have pro-modern bias.
The same goes for 1967 Chamberlain and 1962 Russell.

- I'm not sure by what you mean with the "He doesn't acknowledge that portability should cut both ways," argument, so I can't help with that.
Example; he finds prime Garnett's skillset more portable to 2010s compared to Duncan's skillset. But he wouldn't acknowledge that Duncan's skillset is more portable to 1990s, 1980s, 1970s and 1960s. Portability does and should work backwards, too.

Particularly in Bird's case, his 1984 postseason run is among the best title-winning runs and Bird doesn't get proper recognition for that. 1984 Bird being closer to 1998 Malone than 1989 Olajuwon doesn't make sense. 1989 Olajuwon being more impactful / more valuable than 1984 Bird doesn't make sense to begin with though.

He placed 5 seasons of a 25 win player in the 90's over a 40 win player from the 2000's/2010's, but sure, he's too pro-modern era


Here's a better question, how is it justifed to place russell's peak anywhere in arms reach of 40 win player when he was never able to lift the best supporting cast of the 60's past 63 wins?

[MyUniBroDavis]

I dont know much about his corp data but are you saying theres no way hes right because 1974 kareem cant have a lower impact than peak bron and jordan despite most people agreeing that peak bron and jordan>peak kareem?

Not everyone agree with that though. To me Kareem's peak is as good as anyone's.

Thats a fair opnion, but its more so the idea of

this doesnt make sense because of X result is kind of an odd take, like i dont take peoples word as gospel, even cranjis who I probably think is the goat of analyst online at this kind of stuff, but him having a take i disagree with doesnt make me say his analysis as a whole is useless

someone disagreeing with it shouldnt invalidate their work you know what I mean, esp if its not one thats near a consensus or anything

[MyUniBroDavis]

GOAT lists are literally subjective tho idk why people be complaining about that tho lol

someone could have elfird payton as their goat and idc as long as their analysis is interesting

[70sFan]

Here's a better question, how is it justifed to place russell's peak anywhere in arms reach of 40 win player when he was never able to lift the best supporting cast of the 60's past 63 wins?

1962 Celtics had 60-20 record, which equals 63 wins pace in 82 games schedule. Same with 1960 Celtics and 59-16 record (65 wins pace) and 1965 Celtics's 62-18 record (64 wins pace). So Russell actually led his team three time past 63 wins pace - you are wrong.

Another easy answer - in smaller league it's tougher to reach 63 and more wins:

There were 4 team which reached that level in the 1960s (1960/1962/1965 Celtics and 1967 Sixers).
There were 4 teams in the 1970s (1971 and 1972 Bucks, 1972 Lakers and 1973 Celtics).
There were 6 teams in the 1980s (1982 Celtics, 1983 Sixers, 1985 Celtics, 1986 Celtics, 1987 Lakers, 1989 Pistons).
There were 8 teams in the 1990s (1990 Lakers, 1991 Blazers, 1992 Bulls, 1994 Sonics, 1996 Bulls, 1996 Sonics, 1997 Bulls, 1997 Jazz).
There were 7 teams in the 2000s (2000 Lakers, 2006 Spurs, 2006 Pistons, 2007 Mavs, 2008 Celtics, 2009 Lakers and 2009 Cavs).
There were 6 teams in the 2010s (2013 Heat, 2015 Warriors, 2016 Warriors, 2016 Spurs, 2017 Warriors, 2018 Rockets).

If we count 60+ wins teams, the difference would be even larger.

[No-more-rings]

I wouldn't call Elgee's analysis worthless, but i did notice he seems to have sort of a blind faith in some players and their seasons and at some point people shouldn't just take his opinions as gospel.

Some examples, his season evaluations already has rookie Bird well into the MVP range and only a little bit worse than where he has someone like a peak Kobe or Dirk and ahead of many of their prime seasons. Like i know he helped the Celtics make a big turn around but i don't see anything in his actual production to suggest he was already on that kind of level. Going by that rookie Bird is better than all but one of Wade's seasons and all but 2 of Kobe's. I can't really fathom that unless you are just granting Bird the all around game that he later developed.

I know at least up through 2017 he has 2016 as KD's best season. This is baffling to me. KD was worse in both the regular season and post season than 2014, and there's really nothing he improved on aside from a series or 2 where he was a legitimately impactful defender. KD's postseason offense in OKC had real questions of reliability, and 2016 didn't answer those questions at all as far as I'm concerned.

There's a few more i could talk about but like 89 and 90 Hakeem being as good or better than 94 Hakeem, but i think you get the point. Some of his seasonal rankings i really have trouble understanding and since he didn't break each of these seasons down I'm not going to just look at it and go along with it just because he said so. I don't think anyone is 100% consistent, but some of those I'm not sure how much thought he really put into.

I'm not going to get into everything but I will say this:

You're note going to find complete evidence of Bird's impact by looking at box score data. I'd suggest finding some footage and watch what Bird's doing when he's not doing something that directly leads to box score tallies. While you may still conclude that he's overrated, Bird's play pops off the screen like few others in history, and this was also why you had people right in that season saying Bird was better than anyone who had played basketball before. Was rookie Bird the GOAT? No. Was he displaying the quickest basketball brain in history? Quite possibly.

I don’t disagree with those things, but i still think some of the ratings are inflated.

[LukaTheGOAT]

The first vid of the peaks series, has just dropped. At the 15:50 minute mark or so, he gets into his criteria for this series. He will be using 2 year peaks btw.

Watch on YouTube

;t=127s

[LA Bird]

On ElGee and portability: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1197767

He has a formula for combining portability with SIO into championship odds but the portability rating itself is not based on any formula. ElGee just slots players into one of five levels of offensive portability based on his own opinions. If the portability score could actually be calculated with a formula, it would be a continuous metric instead and there would be no need to approximate it with discrete tiers.

Edit: There was an error in the Wilt vs Russell video. At 9:13, ElGee said "the year before Russell arrived, Boston had the worst defense in the league statistically, giving up an estimated 3 points more than league average." That should be 1955 not 1956, or two years before Russell arrived.