RealGM Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #3 - 1999-00 Shaquille O'Neal

[falcolombardi]

So on offense, I should be clear that I'm thinking about the '94-95 post-season. Feel free to say some stuff about why that's not a fair sample - that's clearly a concern.

Second, I love that you're bringing up other players for comparison, and in particular I'm glad you're bringing up Reggie Miller, who I don't think most would realize deserves such consideration, but I sure think he does. In my post I said Hakeem had an argument not that it was definitive, and yeah, Miller has an argument for best offensive player basically for the duration of the Jordan Hiatus.

I must say that I'm pretty influenced by the combination of a) Hakeem's volume and b) the Rockets' ORtg.

On (a)

In '94-95, here are the players with the most 30 point playoff games:

1. Olajuwon 16 (in 22 games)
2. Jordan 5 (in 10 games)
(tie) Miller 5 (in 17 games)
(tie) Robinson 5 (in 15 games)
5. Shaq 4 (in 21 games)

Barkley 3 (in 10 games)

So, we're talking about a post-season where Olajuwon was just far more likely to break 30 points on any given night than anyone else.

Let me also note that 16 is the record in NBA history, matched only by Jordan in '91-92, who also played 22 games that year.

Further, the list is largely dominated by perimeter players. For perspective, there are 20 post-seasons in history where players have scored 30+ in 12 or more games (earliest being Baylor in '61-62, 12 in 13 games, which shows why there's going to be a bias toward more recent players who play longer post-seasons). Here are the seasons that make that list as bigs:

1. Olajuwon '94-95 (16 in 22 games)
9. Giannis '20-21 (13 in 21 games)
(tie) Shaq '99-00 (13 in 23 games)

/end

Now, I'd be misleading if I didn't include some other all-time bigs with their top performances by this (very coarse) metric:

Kareem '79-80 (11 in 15 games) (Also in '73-74 in 16 games)
Wilt '61-62 & '63-64 (9 in 12 both times)
Mikan '49-50 (8 in 12)

Of course everyone should consider all sides of this sort of data, along with its weaknesses, but the thing that strikes me here is this:

It's unusual for a player to so reliably score beyond that threshold, and all the more so among bigs. While what I present probably would not convince a Kareem or Wilt supporter that Olajuwon's offense was more impressive, it at least makes clear why he belongs in a certain conversation.

I think the problem with this comparison is that we don't take into account shooting efficiency and that's where Hakeem was clearly behind the rest, even in 1995:

1995 Hakeem: 31.2 pts/75 on +2.0 rTS%

2021 Giannis: 29.0 pts/75 on +3.1 rTS%
2000 Shaq: 31.2 pts/75 on +6.7 rTS%
1980 Kareem: 29.6 pts/75 on +9.9 rTS%
1974 Kareem: 27.0 pts/75 on +9.0 rTS%
1962 Wilt: 23.6 pts/75 on +2.9 rTS%
1964 Wilt: 28.9 pts/75 on +8.1 rTS%

Hakeem scored on crazy volume in that run, but he wasn't particulary efficient - only 1962 Wilt run is below +3.0 rTS% here, with Kareem, Shaq and 1964 Wilt having massive efficiency advantage.

It's not to criticize Hakeem for what he did, because it worked but using raw volume numbers isn't the best possible evaluation of scoring value, especially when Hakeem clearly lacks in other areas. If we go by Ben Taylor's ScoringValue stat, Hakeem doesn't look the best:

1995 Hakeem: 1.7

2021 Giannis: 1.3
2000 Shaq: 2.4
1980 Kareem: 3.1
1974 Kareem: 2.9
1962 Wilt: 1.9
1964 Wilt: 2.8

Again, clearly worse than Shaq, Kareem and 1964 Wilt. I get that he scored a lot and drew a lot of attention, but he didn't make Rockets players shoot 40% from three point line throughout the postseason. If he's not the best scorer here (and he's not), then what's his case for the best offensive player here? He's clearly the worst passer, clearly worse offensive rebounder than Wilt/Shaq and his off-ball game is probably the worst as well (depending on how you view Wilt in this apsect).

His defense can shorten the gap, so I don't think having his as number one center is unjustifiable. I don't think his case on offense though.

Oh, to be clear, I wasn't focused on arguing that Hakeem was the best offensive player of this particular group, only that he was so successful in those '95 playoffs that he had an argument to be the best offensive player around at that point, which is no small thing for anyone - and a particularly big deal to me as a big man, where I'm more skeptical than most.

You mention Wilt here, and to me, there's just a disconnect between how effective Warrior Wilt looks as a scorer and how that actually translates into team offensive success.

I would tend to rank Shaq's offensive peak as better, but am giving the nod to Hakeem based on defense.

Giannis is an interesting question. To this point, the Giannis-led offense has been pretty spotty in the playoffs. You watch them in the finals against Phoenix and they look like an elite offense, but it wasn't all like that that year or any year. I could see arguments for Giannis being comparably as strong as Hakeem on offense, but to this point, I'm not ready to go there. Additionally, while I'm very impressed by Giannis on defense, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that's an advantage for him over Olajuwon.

Kareem to me is the guy from the bunch I'd be most considering here. I would consider Kareem's offense to be better than Olajuwon's, so it's then a question of how strong of an edge I'd give to Dream on defense where I think Kareem's prime was also excellent on defense.

Re: Kareem's '74 & '80s rTS%. It has to be noted that this wasn't his efficiency edge every post-season. While this is a peak project where in theory it makes sense to ignore weaker years, I think with Kareem we definitely saw him being more vulnerable to defensive match-ups than Olajuwon seemed to be, and while Kareem has a significant raw TS% edge in his career in the regular season, that basically disappears when we look over to their playoff careers where - let's note - Hakeem has the edge on PER and BPM (while Kareem maintains a slight lead by WS/48).

(b)

I always try to look at team success context when evaluating players. When you do this, of course, winning bias is a concern, but that doesn't mean not doing this is without harm.

In particular, something that's been a recurring theme throughout the history of the big man in basketball is a situation where the big man scores a lot, and even scores a lot on high relative efficiency, and yet the team offense is stagnant. (This is literally something the Minneapolis Lakers had to work to figure out, because at first the team got worse when Mikan joined despite him putting up eye-popping numbers.) (I'll add that this is a criticism I have had of the WNBA since I started turning a more critical eye over there.)

And so in '94-95, we have these Rockets. 115.2 ORtg in the playoffs - a higher mark than anyone achieved in the regular season.

Looking at their others against mutual opponents, the Rockets have a massive ORtg edge over those who played against their Western Conference opponents, and a massive edge over all who played the Orlando Magic...except Miller's Indiana Pacers.

Considering more closely the Pacers, let's remember that Miller was the original Steph Curry and Shaq was Shaq. This would not be the first nor the last time a Shaq-defense struggled with a Reggie-offense, and while Reggie deserves a lot of credit for it, I think the matchup edge for Reggie is pretty clear - bigs too big get exploited by outside shooting.

The Rockets of course also had a lot of outside shooting, and that was certainly key to their success...but if you're the Magic, you certainly think you're more prepared for an interior big-oriented offense, and the Dream-centered offense proved quite effective there.

My question would be - why do you think Hakeem Rockets never replicated such a successful offensive run before 1995? Do you think it was related to Olajuwon's improvement? If so, what kind of improvemet?

If not, then how much should we give Hakeem credit for that offense vs Rockets being very hot from three point line?

Looking back from 2022, I tend to think any arguments about '90s play where the team that wins with 3-point shooting are dismissed as "just getting hot" don't work any more. There's no doubt that Hakeem had an advantage over player's who played on teams with more backward strategy, but I'd say that when you win with spacing, you're just using proper strategy and the question isn't about you getting lucky but about whether you want to make an argument for someone else being even better had they used better strategy.

Frankly the fact in retrospect that Olajuwon was able to thrive like he did while playing with teammates who still didn't shoot 2020-levels of 3's, only makes me think about what he could do if his team had played even less-dumb.

While I do hear the criticisms about Hakeem's passing limitations, those would bother me a lot more if I hadn't seen how well things seemed to thrive once you started embracing spacing around him.

Again, this is something I'm not sure how to interpret. It seems that Rockets offense looks great when their shooters made shots at unusal rate, but they weren't anything special in most seasons.

Seems like a follow on of the prior point, elaborate if you'd like.

Re: Shaq. It concerns me that the Magic were one of the worse offensive performers against the Rockets relative to the Suns and Jazz. While those other teams were loaded to be sure, so were the Magic. Between Penny, Grant, and a perspective on spacing that like the Rockets was very ahead of its time, to me this was about as good of an offensive supporting cast as Shaq could ask for, and it just doesn't seem like it reached a ceiling up there with the state of the art at the time.

That's 4 games sample though, don't you think it's not enough to make a clear conclusion from that? Especially since Shaq didn't really play badly.

Only reason it's just a 4 game sample is that Shaq's team couldn't win a single game, which of course, was something of a Shaq signature tendency until the chips started coming. While small sample size theater is certainly a thing here, but I'm quite reluctant with any Shaq team that got swept to say "Yeah, but if they played enough games, Shaq's teams would end up with the advantage." What I tend to see from Shaq is that if his opponent has the match-up edge, the series gets over quickly and decisively.

That though made me just look something up:

Series where your team was down a break (losing in the series due to losing home game) and ended up winning the series.

Shaq did this one time in that I can see, in 2002 against the Kings.

Hakeem, by contrast, did this 3 times in his two championship years (Suns both years, Knicks in 1994 Finals) while also coming back from 0-2 down to win a 5 games series (1995 Jazz)

So yeah, while sample size is a thing, by and large, if a Shaq team gets swept, I feel pretty good in saying they deserve to be seen as the lesser of the two teams at least in a head-to-head comparison.

What about the sonics? Didnt they always mess upn with even peak hakeem (93) with their modern-ish "illegal defense"-lite system?

[Doctor MJ]

For some reason thought this was ending Tuesday. Quick vote:

3. Steph Curry '16-17
4. Hakeem Olajuwon '94-95

As voted before. Can copy and paste the previous argument as needed.

5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar '73-74

I'll go with Kareem and side with year where he was plausible past some of his early post-season struggles and also arguably the best player in the world on both sides of the ball.

[Blazers-1977]

1. 1999-00 Shaq: This was Shaq at the peak of his powers offensively and defensively imo and unlike in 2001 and 2002, Kobe has not developed into a Super Star yet which made Shaq have to carry more of the load than he did in 01 and 02 which is why I would say 2000 was the peak of his career.

2. 1970-71 Kareem: I feel that he peaked offensively with the Bucks and imo getting swept in 1977 puts that season below this season

3. 2002-03 Duncan: Led a team with an Robinson on the verge of retiring and a Young Parker and Manu to the championship and beating out the Shaq/Kobe Lakers attempet at a 4 peat too . He clearly carried the team on offense and defense here and elevated his game in the post season too

[Proxy]

2. 1970-71 Kareem: I feel that he peaked offensively with the Bucks and imo getting swept in 1977 puts that season below this season

Why do you believe he peaked offensively on the Bucks?

[OhayoKD]

Not necesarrily, teams in the bonus defend more lightly to avoid giving free throws so the end result is still bad for the defense even if they dont pick up more fouls than usual

That's true falcolombardi! I didn't think of that There might be a slight increase in offensive effectiveness due to defenses being in the bonus when Shaq draws fouls. And this might not

But... Shaq's teams aren't drawing fouls significantly more than other teams (they aren't even 1st in fouls drawn per game if we take a two year average in 04/05; see above). And for plus minus data not to capture this foul-drawing advantage, his teammates would have to performing better while opponents were in the bonus due to Shaq AND while Shaq was not on the court.... to me, this seems like this would be a pretty small sample of minutes and thus would be a pretty small adjustment from his measured plus minus value. Do either of you disagree?

How do you feel about 19 Curry? I would say he was the second best player in the regular season (behind Giannis) and at worst second best in the playoffs (possibly behind Kawhi). Same question @DoctorMJ? I saw you left it off Curry's best seasons. Why? I am firmly in the 17 Curry is his most complete season camp but 15/19/22 all seem like reasonable choices to me. 21 Curry too but I understand why that can't be in consideration given he didn't play in the playoffs.

Hi Lou! I edited my previous response above to also address this. As I see it, 2017's impact metrics and athleticism advantage are enough to take 2017 over the later years (at least for now), though there are improvements in defense/passing/decision making/resilience after 2017.

If his 2022 regular season shooting ends up being just noise (not a true decline in value), I could see arguments for 2021/2022 then (probably over 2019). I think it would end up being like arguing 2016/17/18 LeBron (which parallels 2021/22 Steph) over 2013/2012 LeBron (which parallels 2017 Steph) over 2009 LeBron (which... sort of parallels 2016 Steph, though I think this is a stretch lol ). In short, the argument would go: I know there's a decline in impact metrics as he got older, but I think he was more valuable "when it mattered" and the regular season decline isn't big enough for me to care otherwise. I don't think it'll be consensus for sure, but perhaps in a few years, it'll be a possible argument!

Feel like 2022 curry is being overrated compared to his previous selves due to the celtics defense making the unprecedented decision to focus on curry's teammates as opposed to him.

Your curry-lebron comparision is interesting, 2009 lebron = 2016 curry is not a bad comparision for regular season (less so for playoffs)

2010 lebron may work out better tho (was not actually much worse than 2009 in reg season, had messy playoffs)

For some reason impact stats across the board seem to have 2010 lebron signifcantly worse at defense, even compared to later versions of lebron. Is that noise? or did he coast that year

[OhayoKD]

Going into this project, I assumed I'd be voting for Shaq as 3rd and Hakeem as a strong argument for top 5. But the more I look at the data and the previous discussions, the less sure I am that's the case. I'm starting to wonder whether Kareem, Duncan, Curry, and Wilt are all on a tier above Shaq and Hakeem. If you're still planning on voting for Shaq or Hakeem, I'd love to hear what your counterarguments are against the advanced stats we have!

1. The Statistical Case Against Shaq
1a) Curry vs Shaq: To my surprise, the data actually supports 2017 Curry > 2000 Shaq. Here are the various statistics I've used before:

Spoiler:

Plus minus data
Ai. AuPM: 2017 Curry > 2000 Shaq (and healthy 2016 Curry (2nd all time) >> 2000 Shaq )
Aii. Postseason AuPM: 2017 Curry (2nd all time) >> 2000 Shaq (4th all time)
Bi. Goldstein RAPM: 2000 Shaq (5th all time) > 2017 Curry
Bii. Goldstein Playoff PIPM (3 years for sample size): 2017 Curry (8th all time) > 2000 Shaq
Additional plus minus stats: C. on/off: 2017 Curry > 2000 Shaq
Additional plus minus stats: D. WOWY: 2000 Shaq > 2017 Curry
Additional plus minus stats: E. ESPN’s RPM: 2017 Curry > 2000 Shaq
Additional plus minus stats: F. Backpicks’ CORP evaluation: 2000 Shaq (2nd all time) > 2017 Curry (though healthy 2016 Steph Curry is 4th all time)

Box score-based data
Gi. Backpicks BPM: 2000 Shaq > 2017 Curry (but healthy 2016 Curry (2nd all time) > 2000 Shaq)
Gii. Postseason Backpicks BPM: 2017 Curry (4th all time) >> 2000 Shaq
Hi. BR’s BPM: 2000 Shaq > 2017 Curry (but healthy 2016 Curry (4th all time) > 2000 Shaq)
Hii. BR’s Postseason BPM: 2017 Curve > 2000 Shaq
Additional box score stats: Ii. WS/48: 2000 Shaq > 2017 Curry (but healthy 2016 Curry (5th all time) > 2000 Shaq)
Additional box score stats: Iii. Postseason WS/48: 2017 Curry > Shaq

In short, 2017 Curry beats 2000 Shaq in 8/14 of these total stats and in 5/5 of the playoff-specific stats. If we add healthy 2016 Curry to the mix, Curry beats Shaq in 11/14 stats. Adding 2001 Shaq to the mix does not help Shaq. The only 3 stats where Shaq beats Curry are Goldstein's regular season RAPM (but not PIPM), WOWY (which is a particularly noisy stat in smaller samples), CORP (which is Ben Taylor's personal evaluation). Put simply, I’m not sure the data supports having peak Shaq clearly over peak Curry. Do any contextual factors help? Not enough as far as I can tell, but here they are:

Spoiler:

possible contextual factors worth considering:
1. Scalability. If you value ceiling raising over floor raising, this supports 2017 Curry > 2000 Shaq.
2. Resilience. Shaq may have the advantage here over the course of his prime, but the data universally shows 2017 Curry as the better playoff performer over 2000 Shaq. Further studies have shown Curry does not play statistically worse in the playoffs when he’s healthy (which he is in 2017). Again, according to the data: Playoff 2017 Curry > Playoff 2000 Shaq. (though for overall primes, Shaq > Curry in resilience largely due to health). Speaking of health...
3. Health. Both Shaq and Curry are injury risks. Although Shaq is healthier in his prime, injuries are not a factor in their peak years.
4. Defense. Shaq is the better defender in a vacuum, but I’m not sure he’s that much better relative to position, and the data suggests the defensive advantage is not enough to put peak Shaq over peak Curry.
5. Fit. Both had favorable team circumstances, though in my estimation 2017 Curry had a more favorable fit than 2000 Shaq. Here's a point for Shaq!
6. Time machine. Hard to know for sure. People say Curry would suffer if forced to shoot less 3s in the past; on the other hand, if he found a coach that did let him shoot 3s in volume, his relative offensive advantage would be even greater. People say Shaq would be more valuable offensively playing bully-ball against smaller lineups today; on the other hand, higher pace (with Shaq’s poorer conditioning), stricter big man offensive fouling calls, and a massive increase in the importance of perimeter and pick and roll defense would decrease Shaq’s value.

1b) Kareem vs Shaq: There's also an argument for Kareem > Shaq.

Spoiler:

Plus-minus based stats:
A. AuPM (no data available for Kareem. Shaq 6th)
Bi. Goldstein RAPM / Historical Square2020 RAPM: 2000 Shaq(5th all time) > 1985 Kareem (6th all time) > Curry (But only a 41 game sample for Kareem and non peak).
Bii. Goldstein Playoff PIPM (3 years for sample size): 2017 Curry (8th all time) > 1977 Kareem (10th) > 2000 Shaq
Additional plus minus stats: C. on/off: (no data available for Kareem)
Additional plus minus stats: D. WOWY: Shaq > Kareem > Curry (not full stats for Curry)
Additional plus minus stats: E. ESPN’s RPM: (no data available for Kareem)
Additional plus minus stats: F. Backpicks’ CORP evaluation: Shaq > healthy Curry > Kareem

Box score-based data
Gi. Backpicks BPM: (healthy 2016 Curry) 2000 Shaq > (Curry) > 1977 Kareem (though 71/72 seasons compare)
Gii. Postseason Backpicks BPM: (2017 Curry 4th all time) > Kareem (7th all time) > 2000 Shaq
Additional box score stats: Hi. BR’s BPM: Kareem > Shaq (just barely)
Additional box score stats: Hii. BR’s Postseason BPM: Kareem > Shaq
Additional box score stats: Ii. WS/48: Shaq > Kareem (just barely)
Additional box score stats: Iii. Postseason WS/48: Kareem > Shaq

Shaq wins 5/10, Kareem wins 5/10. Kareem wins 4/4 playoff-only numbers. Adding 2001 Shaq and 78 Kareem doesn’t make a difference. If you value the playoffs, Kareem has a surprisingly compelling case over peak Shaq. Check out 70sFan's previous comment for some fascinating film analysis!

2. The Statistical Case Against Hakeem
2a) Curry vs Hakeem. There's an even more compelling statistical case for Curry > Hakeem.

Spoiler:

Plus-minus based stats:
Ai. AuPM: 2017 Curry > 1994 Hakeem
Aii. Postseason AuPM: (no data for peak Hakeem. 2017 Curry 2nd all time)
Bi. Goldstein RAPM / Historical Square2020 RAPM: (no data for peak Hakeem. Partial data in 91/96 and 97 Hakeem are far below Curry, who’s 7th all time).
Bii. Goldstein Playoff PIPM (3 years for sample size): 2017 Curry (8th all time) > 1994 Hakeem
Additional plus minus stats: C. on/off: (no data available for Hakeem. Curry 1st all time)
Additional plus minus stats: D. WOWY: 1993-1995 Hakeem > 2016-2017 Curry (not sure about full prime WOWY. I brought in 16 Curry because Ben hasn't finished publishing Curry's mid/post-2017 WOWY numbers yet).
Additional plus minus stats: E. ESPN’s RPM: (no data for Hakeem. 16 Curry 2nd all time)
Additional plus minus stats: F. Backpicks’ CORP evaluation: 2017 Curry > 1994 Hakeem (healthy 2016 Steph Curry and 1993 Hakeem tied 4th all time)

Box score-based data
Gi. Backpicks BPM: 2017 Curry > 1994 Hakeem (and healthy 2016 Curry is 2nd all time)
Gii. Postseason Backpicks BPM: 2017 Curry (4th all time) > 1994 Hakeem
Hi. BR’s BPM: 2017 Curry > 1994 Hakeem (but healthy 2016 Curry (4th all time) > 2003 Duncan)
Hii. BR’s Postseason BPM: 2017 Curry > 1994 Hakeem
Additional box score stats: Ii. WS/48: 2017 Curry > 1994 Hakeem (but healthy 2016 Curry (3rd all time) > 2003 Duncan)
Additional box score stats: Iii. Postseason WS/48: 2017 Curry > 1994 Hakeem

2017 Curry beats 1994 Hakeem in 9/10 stats. If we add 2016 Curry and either 1993 or 1994 Hakeem (whichever helps Hakeem more), Curry beats Hakeem in 8/10 stats with 1 tie. In the four of the stats that aren’t old enough for Hakeem, Curry is at least 2nd all time in three of them.

****

If you still have Shaq or Hakeem next, but I'd love to hear what case there is to overcome the data!

For Hakeem you can probably argue based on
a. teammates and
b. defense being less accounted for the more an impact metric uses box-stuff
c. playoff resiliency by surrounding postseasons?

For shaq i guess you can argue
a. teammates(though it's to a much smaller degree than hakeem)
and
b. foul-stuff?
c. playoff reseliency(to a smaller degree than hakeem tho)

Best argument vs curry is probably that he didn't lineup a great rs with a great ps with the exception of 2017 when the warriors were obviously playing on easy mode.

It's worth pointing out that these stats yoou're citing are simiply measuring effiency per possession, so if curry is playing signifcantly less minuites, arguably being a bit more effecient on less volume in very favorable conditions isn't the most compelling case.

[70sFan]

I have so many points to touch, but couldn't find enough time in the last few days. Quick voting:

My voting:

1. 1976/77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
(1973/74 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)
2. 1966/67 Wilt Chamberlain
(1963/64 Wilt Chamberlain)
3. 2002/03 Tim Duncan
(2001/02 Tim Duncan)

Reasoning:

Let's start with Kareem. In my honest opinion, this season was one of (if not THE) greatest carryjobs in NBA history. Jabbar anchored Lakers mediocre supporting cast to 53 wins, which was the best record in the league at that time. His boxscore numbers were strong, but not out of mind.

It got worse in the playoffs though, because Lakers lost their starting forward Kermit Washington and their best perimeter creator (Lucious Allen) played through injury. As a result, Kareem was forced to do literally everything on both ends of the floor to make Lakers competitive against quality competition. He did that: he averaged astonishing 35/18/4/4 on ridiculous 60.7 FG% and 64.6 TS% (+13.7 rTS%). This already amazing combination of GOAT volume and GOAT efficiency should tell you that he was incredible in that sample, but you have to add that he rebounded like the best rebounder in the league (21.6 TRB%), all while being forced to erase all the mistakes from his teammates on defensive end.

The playoff run lasted 12 games and I've been fortunate to get footage from 8 of them. Two of them were highly incomplete (from WCSF game 7 is only 20 minutes long, game 3 has only half of the game), but other games are farily complete. I made a shotchart from these games, along with shooting data:

Spoiler:

0-3 feet: 82.8% efficiency, 20% of shots taken (24/29)
3-10 feet: 62.0% efficiency, 54.5% of shots taken (49/79)
10+ feet: 48.6% efficiency, 25.5% of shots taken (18/37)

I know that the sample of size isn't huge (only 145 shots in total), but it's just nothing short of incredible. Kareem in that run was just absurd from all spots of the floor, he could make any shot he wanted. Even with bigger sample including different seasons, Kareem's efficiency and volume from in-between area (3-10) made his extremely unique scorer. You just couldn't do anything to stop him from scoring effectively from that range. He didn't take a lot of long range shots, but that wasn't his game - Lakers tried to create spacing for him to work in the paint (which usually didn't work, because Lakers didn't have many good shooters).

His skyhook efficiency was also absurd in sampled games. He made 35/56 attempts in sampled games, which given linear adjustment leads us to 62% on over 8 attempts per game.

Again, note that all these numbers were created against very strong defensive competition - he was guarded by the combination of Ray/Parish and swarming Warriors defense in 5 of these 7 games, while he had to deal with peak Bill Walton in another 3.

Scoring isn't the only thing that puts Kareem at the top for me. In the sampled games, I estimated that Kareem successfully contested 6.5 shots at the rim per game, which is extremely high number - only short of the very best rim protectors ever. His rotations also kept from scoring at the rim around 3.1 times per game. It doesn't include regular intimidation inside of course. He also made relatively low mistakes with his rotations or late contests. I don't have enough time to post clips right now, but if anyone is interested - I will post them later.

Despite massive offensive load from Kareem, Lakers still posted very solid -2.1 rDRtg in the playoffs and they missed their second best defender. All of that was due to Kareem's massive size inside, but also his smart positioning and willingness to step outside and help on perimeter.

Kareem vs Shaq

Thank you for your very detailed response, I will try to answer to all these points!

As for the wholistic data that we do have:
Ai. Regular Season BPM: +7.3 2000 Shaq > +5.2 1977 Kareem [though 1972 Kareem is higher, and 1971 and 973 are close].
Aii. Postseason BPM: +8.5 1977 Kareem > +7.0 2000 Shaq [1974 Kareem is also higher than peak Shaq, though 2000 and 2001 Shaq come next]
B. CORP: 29.4% 2000 Shaq > 25.8% 1977 Kareem.
If we're looking for more data, regular season total win shares has Shaq over Kareem (with equal WS/48), BR's regular season BPM has Kareem just edging out Shaq by a hair. In the postseason, Kareem has a better WS/48 (though a lower total WS due to the fewer games), and a better BR BPM. WOWY favors Shaq over Kareem by a fair bit.
That's about all the data I could find. Supposedly Goldstein PIPM data exists for late 70s Kareem, but I've been unable to find a publicly accessible version. I know Shaq and Kareem's ~3 year average postseason PIPM is similar.

Thanks for putting all these stats together. Yeah, it seems reasonably close, which isn't surprising considering that we're talking about GOAT-level peaks here.

It's clearly close, with Shaq likely having the better regular season and Kareem having the better postseason. To me, it's a question of how low you are on the regular season and on the smaller sample of playoff games. You (70sFan) were saying you were lower on incomplete seasons by LeBron compared to complete seasons by MJ; I think I'm similar for the more incomplete season by 77 Kareem compared to more complete season by 2000 Shaq, particularly since the postseason sample of 12 games is smaller. Could Kareem sustain such a lofty postseason performance over a deeper postseason run, or if he had dedicated more of his motor during the regular season? It's certainly possible, but those are some of my concerns for him vs Shaq. If I could find better data (e.g. a larger sample of 77 PIPM/RAPM) to suggest Kareem was 1977 closer in the regular season, that might assuage my concerns a bit and push him over the edge.

I think I don't have similar reservations for two reasons:

1. Kareem was well known for his postseason resiliency, so I wouldn't expect him to regress against the Sixers in the finals. We've seen him having 3 complete finals runs (1971, 1974, 1980) that were on extremely high level anyway. I know it's not the perfect way to judge season (maybe I am too inconsistent with my approach as well?), but I think that Kareem couldn't have done anything better with what he had in 1977, while Shaq was in inarguably better situation and I have seen moments when he didn't play up to his potential (although he was amazing overall in the playoffs).

2. Given how well both played, I find it hard not to pick a player I consider simply better. It's not MJ vs LBJ situation to me, because I legitimatelly can't decide who was better between these two. Shaq in comparison has a lot of exploitable weaknesses compared to Kareem (FT shooting, lack of mobility, limited range, poor defensive fundamentals) and even though he was dominant in spite of them, I don't think he was more dominant than Kareem.

-Scoring: 27.2 inflation adjusted pts/75 at +9.7% relative True shooting for Kareem vs 30.3 pts/75 at +5.5% relative True shooting for Shaq. Kareem may have the edge in overall scoring (certainly in efficiency), though Shaq may be better in volume. Both of their scoring can translate to the playoffs.

I think even without adjusting for anything else, Kareem looks comfortably better to me, though raw volume difference does look significant. I want to touch a few points here:

1. Pace adjustments are very important in evaluations across eras, but we shouldn't stop at linear adjustments without taking into account the context behind these differences. Kareem's team played at much higher pace than Shaq, but we have to ask how much it actually helps Kareem's raw volume scoring numbers. Jabbar was a halfcourt player, who occasionally could score in transition. He's a post up center and to run your offense through him, you have to set your offense and start running plays. How much the increased number of transition possessions could help him? I'd say that Shaq played in an era that was the most suited to maximize low post scorers volume numbers - slow, very halfcourt-heavy offenses with few transition opportunities.

2. In postseason, Shaq averaged 30.6 pts/75 on +4.8 rTS% vs Kareem's 31.2 pts/75 on +13.7 rTS%. The difference in efficiency is staggering and it's not really related to small sample of size:

- Shaq's highest rTS% accomplished in the playoffs during his prime (1994-03) was +8.7 rTS%,
- Kareem surpassed that mark 6 times in 1970-83 period (1970, 1974, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1983).

I just think that Kareem could reach the level of efficiency (with similar volume) at levels that were beyond Shaq's reach. Efficiency also requires applying context, but in this case we're comparing two high volume post players who created the offense in similar way.

3. Shaq's scoring efficiency was heavily driven by putbacks and inside finishes. It could be seen both as advantage as disadvantage. On one hand, he's amazing at creating easy shots - better than Kareem. On the other, he's far more limited as a creator with the ball in his hands. Take a look at their post game numbers I tracked throughout the last year:

- 1971-79 Kareem (33 games): 21.8 ppg on 52.8 FG% and 57.1 TS%
- 2000-01 Shaq (38 games): 17.8 ppg on 49.3 FG% and 49.8 TS%

I think samples are decently representative for both. Again, it's up to you if you prefer Shaq's ability to generate easy points, or Kareem's ability to finish tough shots no matter what. I think what Kareem gives you brings a bit more value and is less teammates depended. We really haven't seen prime Shaq in a bad situation and I don't think he'd be able to carry his team to the same degree Kareem did. We also have seen Kareem in great situations (let's say in 1971 and 1980) and he showed ridiculous value, despite probably not being at his peak anymore.

-Defense: Kareem may have the defensive advantage, but I'm not sure Shaq's a significantly worse defender in the one-year sample. It's absolutely significant over the course of their full prime, but I have 2000 as Shaq's best defensive year, with him taking far fewer possessions off defensively than he would later. For Kareem, I have 77 has a good defensive year but certainly not his best, as he'd lost some of the motor he had when he was younger (at least for the regular season).

This is where we disagree more than in creation (which I touch later). I know that a lot of people are quite aware that 2000 is Shaq's defensive peak and I likely agree with you. The problem is that Shaq even at his absolute defensive peak wasn't close to elite defensive player.

I already posted Kareem's rim protection numbers I tracked. To make the sample of size bigger, here are all the numbers I tracked:

Rim protection

1971-79 Kareem: 6.4 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.5 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1999/00 Shaq (excluding 2000/01 games): 3.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.8 weak effort plays at the rim per game

With roughly the same number of questionable plays, Kareem defended almost twice as many shots as Shaq. You may think that Shaq was more intimidating inside, but that's not true. When I also incluce high quality rotations that prevented from rim shots vs lack of them, Shaq also looks notably worse:

1971-79 Kareem: 3.1 high quality rotations vs 2.2 missed rotations
1999/00 Shaq: 1.4 high quality rotations vs 1.8 missed rotations

If we compare these numbers to all time great rim protector like Hakeem, you'll see how these two compare:

1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 7.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 1.9 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 3.6 high quality rotations vs 1.3 missed rotations

I know that my stats are a little bit fuzzy, so I'll show my concerns based on a few examples from games I tracked:

Spoiler:

- let's start with something subtle - Shaq here cheated inside, leaving Smits open to help on Miller drive, but when Reggie actually decides to drive O'Neal was way too late with his help. Possessions like these don't pop out in mind if you don't track a lot of games, but Shaq did it consistently. He didn't guard his man on perimeter, because he wanted to help inside but he often was way too late anyway.

Spoiler:

- in this case, Shaq rotated well and was in perfect position to shut down the drive, but instead of waiting for the next move, he jumped forward for no reason, which made slasher open. Again, it could look like a random play, but Shaq's discipline in such situations was always very questionable and in next situations, I will show you what I mean by "poor fundamentals".

Spoiler:

- you can see here Shaq helping at the rim reasonably well, but watch the way he tried to contest the shot. Again, it may look subtle that he simply missed his contest due to Pacers player going for reverse, but it's really not the case. Shaq had a lot of moments like these, when he missed the ball with his hand not by inches, but by feets. His positioning was horrible in many of these situations and it often led to hard fouls we see on highlight reels. Shaq simply lacked fundamentals to position himself in right position and he lacked patinece and discipline to contest shots at the right moment. Here is another example from the same game:

Spoiler:

Again, these subtle things, along with his poor mobility and lack of motor made him considerably worse defender than Kareem. Jabbar wasn't at his absolute peak defensively in 1977, but he was still much more active. Although his fundamentals weren't on Bill Walton level (Kareem had a bad habit of positioning himself sideways to driving player at times, though it was more pronounced around 1979), he was levels above Shaq in terms of anticipation and ability to contest shots.

I know that these examples are not drastic, but they show Shaq at his absolute apex (2000 finals) doing very basic mistakes. I don't want to include his poor P&R coverages or lack of mobilty, as these things are well known here.

-Creation and other offensive skills: I think here's where we might disagree? At least as far as I can tell (though I'm not film expert on Kareem -- feel free to let me know if I'm wrong here!), I see Shaq's overall offensive creation as above Kareem's. 2000 Shaq has a higher box creation and passer rating than 1977 Kareem in the regular season, and although Kareem's box creation overcomes Shaq's in the playoffs, his passer rating stays behind. While Kareem is certainly underrated as far as gravity goes, Shaq is usually considered the gold standard for big man rim gravity, drawing the double team and kicking back out to three pointers. I see this as a major driver of Shaq's offensive value, and something he has over Kareem (at least in my eye). Perhaps Shaq's benefited from his era, gaining more value than Kareem with his rim gravity and kickout passes simply because he was passing to 3 point shooters?

Well, for once we have to remember that players and teams in the 2000s post considerably higher box creation numbers due to the nature of game. I don't like comparing creation numbers across 30 years, because someone like Shaq had much more opportunities to create something with improved spacing and slower game.

If you compare both BC and PR from team perspective in 1977 and 2000, you'll see that the difference is quite drastic - more so than the difference between Kareem and Shaq. The fact that Kareem is somehow close to Shaq actually proves me with the idea that he's a better passer and playmaker than Shaq.

About Shaq's gravity - this one is a massive game changer, but I wonder how much different it was compared to Kareem. I mean, this is how Kareem was guarded in 1977 playoffs:

Spoiler:

This are not highly selected screens - I picked them from one quarter of game 3 vs Warriors. Kareem absorbed ridiculous amount of defensive attention and he had a harder time beating it without the three point line.

I also like Shaq's compatibility with perimeter teammates. You mentioned his superior offensive rebounding, which allows him to work well off of teammates' misses. I also like Shaq's offball movement and his ability to fight for position while teammates work on the perimeter.

I agree here, I think these things are the biggest advantages for Shaq over Kareem.

Let me know what areas you disagree on! These peaks are all very close, so even though I've initially stated my preference for 2000 Shaq > 1977 Kareem, I'm definitely open to discussing more (chances are, we'll have at least 1 more round to discuss before either get voted in, given the number of people in favor of MJ/Lebron...)

Sure thing, by no means I want to sound like it's a closed debate. We're talking here about the greatest of the greatest after all

Now Wilt Chamberlain. This choice is more controversial to me, as I think both Jordan and James have very reasonable cases over him.

Wilt did something nobody ever did before - in huge help of Alex Hannum he anchored the greatest offense in NBA history (up to that point) as a post playmaker. A lot of people think it was a fluke and I may suggest second thought on that - it's true that it's quite unusual way to run your offense but it doesn't mean it can't be done. In different thread, I made a calculation for 1967/68 season that suggests it wasn't a fluke and Sixers were on their way to another dominant offensive season next year after Wilt's early scoring slump:

viewtopic.php?t=2159841

To understand how it was done, it's necessary to understand how Sixers offense worked. It was mostly built around triangle fundamentals, but Hannum introduced many Wilt-specific plays. He had a nose for finding cutters and he loved two-man game with Greer, focused mostly on hand-off actions and short P&Rs. Philly played a lot of isolation ball when Wilt didn't have the ball in his hand, but when he had they made anything to make someone open, with Jackson and Walker setting screens and guards moving around all night long.

When it didn't work, Wilt always could turn into post up scorer himself and he was quite deadly when he tried to score, as we all know. Other than that, based on footage I've seen it's fair to say that Wilt might be the best offensive rebounder ever - at least in terms of volume and ability to turn them into points.

I haven't finished tracking 1967 Wilt games, but I will try to do it as quickly as possible (assuming that he won't get in within next few days, which is very likely). When I will, I post similar numbers to the ones I did with Kareem.

Wilt wasn't the most active defender ever, but his sheer dominance at the rim is unmatched. I haven't finished my tracking, as noted above, but he contested absurd amount of shots. The part of that is era related - but the truth is that I have never seen anyone that was capable of doing things Wilt did regulary as a rim protector. His immense size and athleticism made him possibly the most intimidating inside shotblocker in NBA history. I think he also has a strong case for the best rebounder ever despite that, although I don't love his defensive rebounding style. He didn't box out his opponents and instead he relied on his instinct a lot.

Still, despite ridiculous combination of two way play and team success, I struggle to put him clearly ahead of MJ/LBJ because he had one huge weakness in his game which was FT shooting. This season was especially bad for him in that aspect, although in the end it didn't stop him from dominating the league and extremely tough matchups in the playoffs.

If anyone wants to analyze 1966/67 Sixers footage, I can provide all I have for you.

Duncan is my third choice, because I think his offensive game is more portable across various roles and schemes than Hakeem's. I find Olajuwon to be extremely good at carrying decent, but highly specialized teams but I'm afraid he wouldn't be able to work in different schemes nearly as well.

[LA Bird]

Here are the results for round 3

Winner: 00 O'Neal

There were 18 voters in this round: ceoofkobefans, SickMother, homecourtloss, JordansBulls, OhayoKD, Dutchball97, Djoker, Proxy, capfan33, Lou Fan, E-Balla, cupcakesnake, Dr Positivity, ardee, DraymondGold, Doctor MJ, Blazers-1977, 70sFan

A total of 27 seasons received at least 1 vote: 00 O'Neal, 01 O'Neal, 02 Duncan, 02 O'Neal, 03 Duncan, 03 Garnett, 04 Garnett, 16 Curry, 17 Curry, 62 Russell, 63 Russell, 64 Chamberlain, 64 Russell, 65 Chamberlain, 65 Russell, 67 Chamberlain, 68 Chamberlain, 71 Abdul-Jabbar, 72 Abdul-Jabbar, 74 Abdul-Jabbar, 77 Abdul-Jabbar, 80 Abdul-Jabbar, 86 Bird, 93 Olajuwon, 94 Olajuwon, 95 Olajuwon, 98 O'Neal

Top 5 seasons
00 O'Neal: 1.000 (26-0)
77 Abdul-Jabbar: 0.962 (25-1), loses to 00 O'Neal
74 Abdul-Jabbar: 0.920 (23-2), loses to 00 O'Neal, 77 Abdul-Jabbar
03 Duncan: 0.875 (21-3), loses to 00 O'Neal, 67 Chamberlain, 77 Abdul-Jabbar
67 Chamberlain: 0.875 (21-3), loses to 00 O'Neal, 74 Abdul-Jabbar, 77 Abdul-Jabbar

H2H record
00 O'Neal vs 77 Abdul-Jabbar: 8-6
00 O'Neal vs 74 Abdul-Jabbar: 10-5
00 O'Neal vs 03 Duncan: 11-4
00 O'Neal vs 67 Chamberlain: 12-3
77 Abdul-Jabbar vs 74 Abdul-Jabbar: 9-1
77 Abdul-Jabbar vs 03 Duncan: 9-6
77 Abdul-Jabbar vs 67 Chamberlain: 7-4
74 Abdul-Jabbar vs 03 Duncan: 7-7
74 Abdul-Jabbar vs 67 Chamberlain: 5-4
03 Duncan vs 67 Chamberlain: 5-7

[OhayoKD]

1. 1977 Kareem
2. 2000 Shaq
3. 2003 Duncan

I also considered 1962 Bill Russell in this group and think there's so many coin flips between the offensive dominance of Shaq/Kareem, the defense of Russell, and the 2-way play of Duncan.

It's hard to let go of the memories of Shaq's dominance. The completely unnegotiable nature of his deep post scoring, how on fire he was from hook shot range that year, how he mowed over every front court and foul them out in the process. There's always a big bonus when you "prove" your effectiveness with a championship. But Kareem wins in the detail. He was the more efficient scorer, and carried a meh Lakers team into the second round where he dropped 30ppg on elite efficiency on prime Bill Walton and Maurice Lucas and the championship Blazers (who did sweep them but ehhhhh team success in the face of the individual!). Kareem was the more versatile defender, the more versatile passer (though Shaq was a great passer in the triangle). Too many metrics tilt Kareem.

Duncan, Russell, early-career Kareem ('71), Hakeem, Bill Walton are all tussling in this next group of the best 2-way seasons ever. All have good cases. This just felt like THE 2-way season to me, with the Spurs needing so much out of Duncan on both ends in a year they spanked the 3-peat Lakers, going to Duncan's post game over and over again as he anchored an elite defense on the other end. 20-year old Parker and Stephen Jackson were his best offensive running mates that year with David Robinson on his last legs and Manu not yet earning Pop's trust. He topped 30pp100 on 57%ts, piled on 6.6 assists per 100 (with 3.9to). Just the load of scoring and playmaking he was doing for a team that he was also the defensive anchor of still has me shook. I look at that pile of scoring, playmaking, rebounding and defense and find myself imagining that pile looking a little bigger than the other giant piles by the names I mentioned.

I'm wondering what people voting for shaq have to say about shaq's not so impressive playoff imapct stuff





Historic pipm has him lower than all the players he's being debated vs here despite generally
a. putting less effort in the regular season
b. playing with better teammates
c. playing longer or as long in the playoffs

Hakeem, Kareem, Duncan all do better.

2000-2017 PIPM also has him below duncan and kg.(hakeem and kareem aren't included)


https://backpicks.com/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/
AUPM has him below duncan as well in terms of three year peaks and average overall.


I guess people think 2000 was a specialplayoff year for shaq due to defense, but can't that be seen as an outlier the same way 09 lebron's performance was when people argued 13 lebron was better? Shaq's defense immedialtely went back to normal the following season.

I also don't think the team results are as impressive as duncan or hakeem. Duncan basically won with d-rob's defense and spare parts. Hakeem's rockets played like a 60 win team in b2b postseasons. While Shaq's lakers basically limped their way to the title and shaq was probably saved in portland by kobe unusally performing.

What makes 2000 so impressive besides box-stats which you would obivously expect from a more offense-slanted player?

with shaq votedi in, i wonder if anyone's willing to give their thoughts on this

[Squared2020]

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[DraymondGold]

I think the effect is probably marginal to be honest

Just wanted to point out forcing a lot of fouls has more effect than just fouling out players or the free throws themselves

Your curry-lebron comparision is interesting, 2009 lebron = 2016 curry is not a bad comparision for regular season (less so for playoffs)

2010 lebron may work out better tho (was not actually much worse than 2009 in reg season, had messy playoffs)

Haha, thanks! The playoff injury was exactly the reason I was hesitant about the 2016 = 2009 comparison. Great point about 2010!

I am unsure how to compare duncan shaq, kareem wilt, russel and hakeem picks tbh

May skip this vote?

If you're still undecided for the next round, you can always just go with the players I vote for

with shaq votedi in, i wonder if anyone's willing to give their thoughts on this

Thanks for sharing the PIPM values! I used to be higher on Shaq (I originally had him 3rd GOAT peak), but his worse performance on metrics like this was one of the reasons I ended up lowering him in my ballot (along with 70sFan's film analysis).

There are other factors that might help (I've been using ~6 contextual factors: scalability/portability, resilience, health, defense being underrated in metrics, team fit, time machine). Shaq might make up progress in these margins (or others). For example, he's definitely more scalable/portable at least offensively vs Duncan. But yeah, his worse performance in metrics made me mark him down.

Still, there was enough of a majority that didn't mark him down. A few Shaq supporters responded to my previous comments about metrics, but there were definitely a few who didn't. I wish I knew what their response was too!

I wish we had better metrics for the 60s! Maybe one day we could get Squared2020 enough games (and time!) to go through and supply RAPM.

The best I can really do for Wilt (aside from a handful of games) is I have play-by-play for the entire 4th quarter of Wilt's 100 point game.

Oh wow, that's sick! Thanks for sharing! Yeah, I could see it being really hard to get access to enough games / play-by-play.

Still, that screenshot for the 100-point game is crazy cool. By my count, Wilt had 4 missed Field Goal attempts in this span plus missed free throws. Crazy to think he could have ended up with even more points! Still, there's something nice about the round number 100.

Looks like he ended up getting the last shot with less than a minute left. One of his teammates had 20 assists and the final score was 150-169. It makes sense that basically everything would have to go right (high scoring game, good assists from teammates, large minutes for Wilt, and Wilt still scoring even in the last minute) for it to be possible to score 100 points in a game, but it's still cool to see the details.

[Squared2020]

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