RealGM

Hello.

Link to the project thread.

Pick the top 5 individual single seasons in the Grizzlies franchise history.

As Memphis Grizzlies from 2001-02 to today
As Vancouver Grizzlies from 1995-96 to 2000-01

Things to follow;
- This project is franchise bound, not city bound. Quick example; Philadelphia Warriors from 1949-50 to 1961-62 is part of the Golden State Warriors franchise history and 1952 Arizin is eligible for the GS Warriors history.
- We'll follow continuity of the franchise. I.e. Seattle SuperSonics and Oklahoma City Thunder are the same franchise. We'll use BBRef as reference for this.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/
- ABA seasons are included.
- 2020-21 season is yet to be completed, so, it's not eligible for this project.
- One season per player, no duplicates within the franchise history. Quick example; Shaquille O'Neal can be voted for only once for the LA Lakers franchise history, and he can be voted for the Orlando Magic franchise history. They are separate occasions.

- Reg. season and postseason play, both are included in evaluations.
- Votes will be counted per player, not per version of player.
- An easy going point system of 10/7/5/3/1, the same as Retro PoY project, will be used. Number of higher placement votes will be the tiebreaker (if two players are tied at 27 points for the 1st place, the player with more 1st place votes will get it).
- Explanation is needed, even in short forms.
- We'll be going alphabetically with franchise nicknames. Linked to the voting threads as well.


Results on Google Sheet

- The time frame for each franchise is 2 days (10:00 EST).

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I should look into this for further because comparing 2006 Pau Gasol, 2011 Zach Randolph, 2013 Marc Gasol and 2017 Mike Conley feel too close right now. I feel seeing some discussion about these lads would definitely help us all.

Odinn21 wrote:I should look into this for further because comparing 2006 Pau Gasol, 2011 Zach Randolph, 2013 Marc Gasol and 2017 Mike Conley feel too close right now. I feel seeing some discussion about these lads would definitely help us all.

Without looking I am expecting Marc to be first, Battier 5th and then Zach, Pau and Conley in some order. This is going to be the most difficult because no player truly stands out and there are no all-time greats (First one).

Colbinii wrote:

Odinn21 wrote:I should look into this for further because comparing 2006 Pau Gasol, 2011 Zach Randolph, 2013 Marc Gasol and 2017 Mike Conley feel too close right now. I feel seeing some discussion about these lads would definitely help us all.

Without looking I am expecting Marc to be first, Battier 5th and then Zach, Pau and Conley in some order. This is going to be the most difficult because no player truly stands out and there are no all-time greats (First one).

I'm usually higher on Pau than Marc and 2006 was a strong season from him before going to LA. My initial preference is that I'd probably have 2006 Pau over 2013 Marc. I already looked that some PI-RAPM stuff and with the way I consider RAPM numbers*, they are on the same level.
* Looking directly at percentiles, 2013 Marc ranked higher than 2006 Gasol. But RAPM has a tendency to be like points scored on assists. The individual totals are bigger than the team results. I looked at team SRS/NRtg, the distribution of the players across RAPM percentiles in each season, along with direct individual percentiles. In terms of RAPM rankings, Pau was surpassed by Battier in 2006, Marc was surpassed by Conley in 2013. Both gaps were quite meaningful. The distribution within rosters suggested that Pau was equally impactful for the team.
So, I gave the benefit of the doubt to 2013 Marc for being more impactful as direct percentiles suggest but it did not hold up in a more broad evaluation.

But I've only thought about 1of 6 one vs. one comparison yet. So I don't have a well articulated list.

1. Mike Conley, 2016/17 - Conley has an argument for best regular season for the Grizzlies and even if you don't think this is the best regular season in Grizzlies history, he's at wordt 3rd best behind 06 Pau and 13 Marc. What made me decide to put Conley at #1 was him stepping up his already impressive game even further in the play-offs. Sadly his impressive numbers come from a rather small 6 game sample size but with the Grizzlies there aren't a lot of deep play-off runs to begin with. I thought about Marc and even 13 Conley for this reason because of it being the only deep post-season for the Grizzlies but both of them performed at roughly the same level as they did in the regular season, which doesn't sway me enough to not pick 16/17 Conley at #1.

2. Marc Gasol, 2012/13 - Just a very solid season all around. I do think Pau had a better regular season in 06 but while Marc played about as well in the play-offs as in the regular season, we see Pau's numbers drop significantly in the 06 post-season. Pau does have a similarly strong but very short play-off run in 04 as Conley had in 17 but his regular season in 04 was quite a bit worse than either his 06 season or Marc's 2013 season.

3. Pau Gasol, 2005/06 - Probably the best regular season for the Grizzlies but his post-season wasn't great. Either the 04 or 06 versions of Pau would rank third for me here so I decided to go with the more popular and better all around season.

4. Zach Randolph, 2010/11 - I'd honestly be a bit surprised to find anyone not having Randolph at #4. I don't think his season matches up to the three guys above but I don't see anybody else with a decent case over him either.

5. James Posey, 2003/04 - A bit strange to have what is basically a roleplayer in the top 5 of a franchises best players but here we are. His 10 WS is tied with Conley's 16/17 WS for 5th most in Grizzlies history and his VORP of 3.5 ranks 9th behind seasons only from Pau, Marc and Conley. I did consider 2000 Shareef Abdur-Rahim and 2020 Jonas Valanciunas but both rate out lower in boxscore stats and didn't even make the play-offs unlike Posey. I was a bit wary of possibly crediting Posey too much for Pau Gasol's strong season but Posey only played 11 less minutes than Pau over the regular season and play-offs combined.

1) 2015 Marc Gasol - Marc's boxscore stats underrate his value. Just like many of the Grizzlies from his era they played at a snails pace, and in terms of rebounds Marc was a bit unfairly labeled as a soft rebounder. When Marc was out there though the Grizzlies generally rebounded well because he boxed out. I mainly look at his lack of rebounding having to do with sharing court with Zach Randolph. Marc nearly hit 20 PPG this season despite playing slow paced basketball. Onto that, he was one of the best defenders in the league. I'm also a fan of Marc's interior passing, it seems a bit quicker than Pau's. Pau is his main competition here, and personally I think the defensive gap is larger than the offensive one. Marc's offense strikes me as a guy who will score when he needs too because he DOES have the post moves, the touch, the jumper etc. He just seems like a slightly better two way player.

2) 2007 Pau Gasol - Pretty easily a better RS than 2006. No playoffs this year but I mean...all those other years were first round ass whoopings anyway. I'm not really going to give brownie points in 2006 just because he was swept in 4 games. Anyway, at his peak there is only like a 2 PPG difference between him and Marc albeit he is way more efficient. I don't think Pau's defense is good enough to close the gap that him and his brother have on offense because Marc seems to be better than his numbers suggest.

3) 2017 Mike Conley - One of those point guards who do not really stand out in any particular way, but is good at everything. I thought he was the best of the "non superstar" point guards around this era - better than Lillard, Lowry, Irving and Wall. Great handles, good defender, good shooter, could score. His lack of weaknesses make me think he's more valuable than the Randolphs, Battiers, Allen's and Millar's of the world.

4) 2006 Shane Battier - This is probably going to be really dumb, but I think I'm going to place a couple of roleplayers above Zach Randolph here. I feel like Battier and my #5 pick are more "scalable" than what Randolph gives you. I also think Zach might have gotten a bit too much credit in the earlier years of the grit and grind Grizzlies - they're more of an ensemble cast. Shane is pretty much the prototypical 3 and D guy - he is a better defender than Miller by a decent amount and way-way better shooter than Tony Allen. His defensive impact very much gave the Grizzlies that defensive identity.

5) 2011 Tony Allen - He actually wasn't THAT terrible as he usually is on offense this year. He made good on his slashes and cuts. Gives me a bit of a Dennis Rodman type of vibe, albeit Rodman still beats him as an offensive player by a good amount. I do think that Tony Allen has true earth shattering defense, and if I can recall his impact stats showed him as the best of the best. I'm not sure if there has been a better guard defensively on a per minute basis. He's not the easiest guy to use in the modern era, but if a team can figure out how to get him 25+ minutes I think he is a huge plus. Again, I think his outlier ability makes him a bit more useful than Zach's 20/12 on league average efficiency inside type of game. More upside and scalability.

06 Battier > 06 Gasol

I just want to say this first since people always credit Pau as the MVP on that team while pretending like they didn't collapse the next season after Battier left. They won because of their defense and they cratered from #2 in DRtg to #30 after the DRAPM king was traded. If a team had collapsed on offense to this degree after their best offensive player left, nobody is going to think he wasn't the most valuable player on the team.

1. Mike Conley 2017 - I felt Conley was the better player than 2017 Gasol, and 2017 Gasol is either his best season or pretty close. He also had a great playoffs. This was elite PG season.

2. Marc Gasol 2013 - Between 2013 (his defensive peak) and 2017 (his offensive one), 2015 is actually his 1st team All NBA but he doesn't seem the best of either in that season. I'll go with 2013 where he has the best +/- and makes a deep playoff run

3. Zach Randolph 2011 - I was going to vote Pau over him but Zbo has a legit pretty good season this year, they needed him in playoffs.

4. Pau Gasol 2006 - I'm not sure the Grizzlies success coorlates Pau the most in these years, but it would still feel wrong putting Battier over him

5. Shane Battier 2006 - I can't think of many alternatives, Grizzlies Bibby isn't good enough, Mike Miller has some decent seasons but his main scoring one is on a bad team. I'd take batter over Allen.

Is nobody else even considering Posey at this point? I thought he looks easily more impressive than Battier, Mike Miller and Tony Allen.

Dutchball97 wrote:Is nobody else even considering Posey at this point? I thought he looks easily more impressive than Battier, Mike Miller and Tony Allen.

I will consider him as I didn't realize how good his stats were, but if I go role player it's hard for me to put anyone over Battier

Dutchball97 wrote:Is nobody else even considering Posey at this point? I thought he looks easily more impressive than Battier, Mike Miller and Tony Allen.

I did at first, but well - then I thought about Miller, Batier and Allen. I think they're all better tbh.

I don't see how Posey can be a better defender than Batier or Allen. And his offense isn't really good enough for me not to take a premium of defenders for these perimeter roleplayers.

No love for Big Country Reeves? I thought he's the real GOAT :O

70sFan wrote:No love for Big Country Reeves? I thought he's the real GOAT :O

Coincidentally, I decided to watch some of his highlights for fun - because when else will I ever do that?

The VANCOUVER GOAT

Dutchball97 wrote:Is nobody else even considering Posey at this point? I thought he looks easily more impressive than Battier, Mike Miller and Tony Allen.

Posey is a worse defender and shooter than Battier. How does Posey make up the difference?

Colbinii wrote:

Dutchball97 wrote:Is nobody else even considering Posey at this point? I thought he looks easily more impressive than Battier, Mike Miller and Tony Allen.

Posey is a worse defender and shooter than Battier. How does Posey make up the difference?

Maybe over their careers but that definitely isn't true for these specific seasons. Posey scored 13.7 ppg on 48/39/83% splits and .614 TS%. Battier scored 10.1 ppg on 49/39/71% and .574 TS%. Posey's 18.8 PER and 2.3 OBPM also seem to suggest a pretty significantly better overal offensive performance compared to Battier's 14.7 PER and 0.8 OBPM. Given how they both weren't really playmakers (1.5 APG, 8.4 AST% for Posey and 1.7 APG, 8.2 AST% for Battier) Battier would have to be a much more impactful defender than Posey to make up that difference.

Now sure Battier was a better defender than Posey but let's not act like Posey was a bad defender by any means. I personally see the offensive difference as bigger than the defensive difference. There is a case for Battier if you value his defense really highly but it's just untrue to claim Battier was a better shooter in 06 than Posey in 04.

Besides that this project also accounts for play-off performance. How much you weigh those play-offs is up to everyone's own interpretation but it should at least be a factor. Neither Posey nor Battier shot particularly well from the field in their respective play-off outings. Posey's TS% of .541 in the 04 post-season isn't much better than Battier's .530 in 06 but in terms of overal offensive impact the gap is even bigger than in the regular season. Posey even sees a small jump up to 19.4 PER and 2.6 OBPM but Battier's stats nosedive in the 06 play-offs. Battier's 6.8 PER and -2.5 OBPM in the 06 post-season can't really be described as anything but terrible.

Dutchball97 wrote:

Colbinii wrote:

Dutchball97 wrote:Is nobody else even considering Posey at this point? I thought he looks easily more impressive than Battier, Mike Miller and Tony Allen.

Posey is a worse defender and shooter than Battier. How does Posey make up the difference?

Maybe over their careers but that definitely isn't true for these specific seasons. Posey scored 13.7 ppg on 48/39/83% splits and .614 TS%. Battier scored 10.1 ppg on 49/39/71% and .574 TS%.

We must go Deeper

The offensive system in 2004 resulted in Battier shooting many mid-range 2's in comparison to Posey (15% of Posey's shot attempts compared to 31% of Battiers). Battier was significantly better in these shots (Around 47% for Battier compared to 32% for Posey).

Line-up Data suggests in 2004 the Grizzles performed better with Battier rather than Posey while in 2005 the Grizzles didn't see a drop in Defensive Rating with Posey only playing 50 games. In fact, the team in 2005 actually improved defensively (11th in Drtg in 2004, 5th in 2005) with Mike Miller taking a larger role (mediocre defensive player at best).

The 2005 Grizzles were also missing Gasol for 26 games and were still a 45-win team with Battier leading the team.

If we look at more line-up Data we see Battier crushing even more-so in 2006 we see Battier with a +7.1 +/- and an on/off of +9.2 (top on team). Even jumping back to 2005 we see a similar story with Battier actually having a +6.8 on-court rating and +10.8 on/off (Both clearly top of team).

I get +/- has noise but we never saw Posey approach these numbers in his career.

Posey's 18.8 PER and 2.3 OBPM also seem to suggest a pretty significantly better overal offensive performance compared to Battier's 14.7 PER and 0.8 OBPM. Given how they both weren't really playmakers (1.5 APG, 8.4 AST% for Posey and 1.7 APG, 8.2 AST% for Battier) Battier would have to be a much more impactful defender than Posey to make up that difference.

I would actually question what offensive impact is Posey having at 18.9 USG%. Battier's lower usage gives room for shot creators and playmakers more-so than Posey.

Now sure Battier was a better defender than Posey but let's not act like Posey was a bad defender by any means. I personally see the offensive difference as bigger than the defensive difference. There is a case for Battier if you value his defense really highly but it's just untrue to claim Battier was a better shooter in 06 than Posey in 04.

I'm not saying Posey was a bad defender but Battier was a world-class defender and a tier (or tiers) ahead or Posey.

Besides that this project also accounts for play-off performance. How much you weigh those play-offs is up to everyone's own interpretation but it should at least be a factor. Neither Posey nor Battier shot particularly well from the field in their respective play-off outings. Posey's TS% of .541 in the 04 post-season isn't much better than Battier's .530 in 06 but in terms of overal offensive impact the gap is even bigger than in the regular season. Posey even sees a small jump up to 19.4 PER and 2.6 OBPM but Battier's stats nosedive in the 06 play-offs. Battier's 6.8 PER and -2.5 OBPM in the 06 post-season can't really be described as anything but terrible.

I'll pass on 4 game samples against a clearly superior team.

Dutchball97 wrote:...

I agree with your general stance about scoring volume and overall offensive quality in comparison between Posey and Battier. The aspect I don't agree with that is (going by PI-RAPM) Battier was in the top 1% in D-RAPM along with Tim Duncan, Ben Wallace and Ron Artest (for some reason, 2006 numbers do not like Garnett's defense that much). And I have to agree with those numbers. Battier's defensive performance was just massive in that season. With a smaller offensive responsibility compared to Posey, he was still a slightly positive impact on offense too. Combined both ends of the floor and he ended up in the top 2% on overall.
I guess I got too sidetracked with my reasons, the gap on defense actually looks bigger. Posey was not a positive impact 20 ppg offensive weapon. They were both limited players, and even when Battier's offense suffered more in the playoffs, he was still the better and the more impactful player because his defense was better by a bigger margin.

1. 2017 Mike Conley—peak offensive Conley (really like 2013 Conley, too, because of defense and overall play). Very good performance against Spurs and peak offensive Kawhi.

2. 2013 Marc Gasol—great defensive season while being a plus offensive player as a center. Good at pretty much everything. While his defensive rebounding percentage numbers may be low, the Grizzlies rebounded defensively better when he was on court. Memphis’s defense through the playoff run was anchored by Gasol who was a plus on court in 3 of the team’s 7 playoff losses.

3. 2006 Shane Battier —Peak defensive year while guarding everybody and rotating on to everybody. Offense was better in other years

4. 2006 Pau Gasol —offense might have been better in other seasons, but offense+defense combo solid this year

5. 2011 Zach Randolph though was thinking about 2011 Allen or even 2013 Allen who was a great defensive peak but had awful offense,

HM 2011 Tony Allen

1. 2012-13 Marc Gasol - a magical year with DPOY Gasol at the center of it all.

2. 2016-17 Mike Conley - can definitely argue he bested Gasol's best by this point.

3. 2005-06 Shane Battier - so glad to see the Battier love, yup, he was the team MVP that year.

4. 2005-06 Pau Gasol - I think it's important not to belittle what Pau was doing, he would show more value for the Lakers later, but the Grizz used him as their rock for everything, and it was working.

5. 2010-11 Zach Randolph - that upset of the Spurs was quite the moment for the Grizz, and ZBo was at the center of it.

HM. Tony Allen. Seriously considered putting Allen over Randolph, but couldn't quite justify it.

1. 2015/2013 Marc Gasol

Splitting hairs on this seasons for me. Just a tremendous defensive player who was just quick enough to not get run off the floor in playoff games and was a tremendous defensive anchor. Provided offensive value as a hub away from the hoop which opens up cutting lanes and difficult passing angles for shooters.

2. 2017 Mike Conley

If this season and 2013 Gasol had overlapped then we could have been looking at a different Western Conference representative in the NBA Finals in a handful of seasons. Dynamic offensive options while providing increadible defensive value.

3. 2006 Shane Battier

I love Battier. I love his defensive versatility and intensity, his floor spacing, his IQ, portability and ability to do his thing at a high level without interrupting a teams offensive flow in the slightest.

4. 2006 Pau Gasol

Pau's impact is interesting in that he actually plays off of better players best. His passing and IQ allow him to scale tremendously and be better with better players, which is why he and Battier made a great tandem and he and Kobe made an all-time great tandem in 2008, even joining mid-season.

5. 2011 Zach Randolph

Not many options here, either Randolph, Posey or Eddie Jones. I actually prefer mid 2010s Z-bo more as a passer and defender in comparison to this season but he was simply a much more impactful scorer here that it makes up the difference.