All-time great players PO opponents avg SRS

[SpreeS]

I will write here all time TOP30 players PO opponents avarage RS SRS. It will show us what kind of resistance to win it all had all players. Lets start from 5 players and I will add other 5 in short period and so on.

1. Kobe 4.86 (1 team over 8 SRS, 0 teams with negative SRS)
2. Curry 3.94 (1 team over 8 SRS, 1 team with negative SRS)
3. Lebron 3.33 (6 teams over 8 SRS, 12 teams with negative SRS)
4. Bird 2.90 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 6 teams with negative SRS)
5. Magic 2.72 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 7 teams with negative SRS)

[ceoofkobefans]

Is this for a career their best PO run or a multi year run?

[penbeast0]

With the following two threads open currently and on this page, do we really need a third?

 NBA Superstars production in playoffs based on faced defenses

NBA Superstars Playoffs Production Based On Quality Of Opposition

Please differentiate this or I will just merge the 3.

[SpreeS]

Is this for a career their best PO run or a multi year run?

for a whole career

[SpreeS]

With the following two threads open currently and on this page, do we really need a third?

 NBA Superstars production in playoffs based on faced defenses

NBA Superstars Playoffs Production Based On Quality Of Opposition

Please differentiate this or I will just merge the 3.

The idea is very simple, to have one number that defines the level of strength of PO opponents for whole players career's. Other two threads shows players stats against different quality of opponents. And I see some issue here, what's the point to separate players stats, when one team playing in way stronger conference than other team from opp. conference. How would look KD stats against Lebron Cavs in 2016 Finals, if OKC beat GSW? (SRS SAN 10.28 GSW 10.38 CAV 5.45). He was already gassed in 6th/7th games against GSW. Now Tatum. Will we use stats from the Finals agaisnt him? Guy defended KD, played 14 physical games agaisnt MIL/MIA and was w/o legs in last 3 games against GSW...on other hand players like Magic/Lebron played a lot against negative SRS teams and were fresh in the Finals.

[Dutchball97]

I will write here all time TOP30 players PO opponents avarage RS SRS. It will show us what kind of resistance to win it all had all players. Lets start from 5 players and I will add other 5 in short period and so on.

1. Kobe 4.86 (1 team over 8 SRS, 0 teams with negative SRS)
2. Curry 3.94 (1 team over 8 SRS, 1 team with negative SRS)
3. Lebron 3.33 (6 teams over 8 SRS, 12 teams with negative SRS)
4. Bird 2.90 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 6 teams with negative SRS)
5. Magic 2.72 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 7 teams with negative SRS)

LeBron really got both sides of the coin here. Lots of easy 1st/2nd round series in a weak east but he also had to face an ungodly amount of all-time great teams. He lost to 5 of them (07 Spurs, 08 Celtics, 14 Spurs, 15 Warriors and 17 Warriors) and of course won against the 16 Warriors.

MJ faced 1 team over 8 SRS (86 Celtics) and 5 negative SRS team (90 Bucks, 91 Knicks, 91 Sixers, 92 Heat, 93 Hawks) with an average opp SRS of 4.25. Although it did make me wonder why you went with 8+ SRS teams as a benchmark. MJ beat a ton of teams with an SRS over 5, 6 and even 7 including the +7.95 1989 Cavs and the +7.97 1997 Jazz who both don't count, while the exactly +8 2014 Spurs do count for LeBron.

I also took a look at Wilt because like half the series he played were against the Celtics but on the other hand even really good teams could have underwhelming or even negative SRS those days due to there being only so few teams. He faced 4 8+ SRS teams (62 Celtics, 70 Knicks, 71 Bucks, 72 Bucks) and 3 negative SRS teams (67 Royals, 69 Warriors, 70 Suns) with an average opp SRS of 4.28. Surprising he faced 4 8+ SRS teams and only 1 of them was a Celtics team.

[G35]

I will write here all time TOP30 players PO opponents avarage RS SRS. It will show us what kind of resistance to win it all had all players. Lets start from 5 players and I will add other 5 in short period and so on.

1. Kobe 4.86 (1 team over 8 SRS, 0 teams with negative SRS)
2. Curry 3.94 (1 team over 8 SRS, 1 team with negative SRS)
3. Lebron 3.33 (6 teams over 8 SRS, 12 teams with negative SRS)
4. Bird 2.90 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 6 teams with negative SRS)
5. Magic 2.72 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 7 teams with negative SRS)

LeBron really got both sides of the coin here. Lots of easy 1st/2nd round series in a weak east but he also had to face an ungodly amount of all-time great teams. He lost to 5 of them (07 Spurs, 08 Celtics, 14 Spurs, 15 Warriors and 17 Warriors) and of course won against the 16 Warriors.

MJ faced 1 team over 8 SRS (86 Celtics) and 5 negative SRS team (90 Bucks, 91 Knicks, 91 Sixers, 92 Heat, 93 Hawks) with an average opp SRS of 4.25. Although it did make me wonder why you went with 8+ SRS teams as a benchmark. MJ beat a ton of teams with an SRS over 5, 6 and even 7 including the +7.95 1989 Cavs and the +7.97 1997 Jazz who both don't count, while the exactly +8 2014 Spurs do count for LeBron.

I also took a look at Wilt because like half the series he played were against the Celtics but on the other hand even really good teams could have underwhelming or even negative SRS those days due to there being only so few teams. He faced 4 8+ SRS teams (62 Celtics, 70 Knicks, 71 Bucks, 72 Bucks) and 3 negative SRS teams (67 Royals, 69 Warriors, 70 Suns) with an average opp SRS of 4.28. Surprising he faced 4 8+ SRS teams and only 1 of them was a Celtics team.

This this this.

Lebron's teams got to play a lot of weak teams in the East from 2011-18:
- 12-2 vs the Raptors
- 4-1 vs the Sixers
- 12-3 vs the Bulls
- 8-0 vs the Hawks

That is four different teams where it was basically, stack stats time for Lebron...his teams were 36-6 vs those four teams. That's ridiculous.

One of the worst series I can remember was the 2015 ECF's where the #1 seed Atlanta Hawks got swept and it wasn't even close, the closeout game the Cavs won by 30 points...in a closeout game! This is a #1 seed. That series actually changed Lebron's approach to the playoffs imo. After he saw how much he dominated the conference, he realized he didn't have to go all out in the RS. He knew there was no real competition in the East.

The only other time that a conference was so lopsided was the 1980's western conference. But even then Houston was able to upset the Lakers in 1986...who knows what would have happened if Ralph Sampson could have stayed healthy.

But from 2000-2018 who would be the best player outside of Lebron in the Eastern Conference?

Wade
Pierce
Garnett (old)
George
Iverson
Ben Wallace
Derozan
Arenas
Bosh
Kyrie
Howard
Rose

Compare that to the players in the Western Conference during the same time:
Shaq (top 25 AT)
Kobe (top 25 AT)
Dirk (top 25 AT)
Duncan (top 25 AT)
Garnett (prime) (top 25 AT)
Nash
Durant (top 25 AT)
Curry (top 25 AT)
Harden
CP3

This isn't including players like Pau Gasol, Blake Griffin, Amare Stoudemire, Damian Lillard, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, Manu Ginobli.

It was two different levels of competition.....

[LAL1947]

With the following two threads open currently and on this page, do we really need a third?

NBA Superstars production in playoffs based on faced defenses

NBA Superstars Playoffs Production Based On Quality Of Opposition

Please differentiate this or I will just merge the 3.

Please don't merge the 3 threads, penbeast0. There is a valid difference between comparing the SRS, Defensive Rating and Net Rating of opponents... so I think each topic is worthy of having it's own thread, as the differences can be highlighted and referred to for future use or projects too. Another member, f4p, also had some nice PLayoff Opponent SRS tables that he posted in a thread, which could be posted here for more discussion related solely to SRS.

One example of how these threads can add meaning to discussion or even in how we view players... Karl Malone is often demoted in all-time rankings for the reason of poor performance in playoffs. I think these threads show that if there was any deterioration in his playoff numbers, then one of the reasons is because he played more games against better opponents than those he is being compared to.

[f4p]

I have the values for the following people. Or I could take it down if you wanted to show it yourself over time.

[f4p]

This this this.

Lebron's teams got to play a lot of weak teams in the East from 2011-18:
- 12-2 vs the Raptors
- 4-1 vs the Sixers
- 12-3 vs the Bulls
- 8-0 vs the Hawks

That is four different teams where it was basically, stack stats time for Lebron...his teams were 36-6 vs those four teams. That's ridiculous.

Lebron's eastern opponents have certainly been weak as overall teams, but stacking stats is best done against weak defensive teams, and Lebron has faced among the best (the best?) defensive group of teams of anyone ever. The eastern teams could never keep up with Lebron because they usually had weak offenses, but teams like the 2011 bulls and 2014 pacers and those celtics teams were very good and often elite at defense.

[Owly]

I will write here all time TOP30 players PO opponents avarage RS SRS. It will show us what kind of resistance to win it all had all players. Lets start from 5 players and I will add other 5 in short period and so on.

1. Kobe 4.86 (1 team over 8 SRS, 0 teams with negative SRS)
2. Curry 3.94 (1 team over 8 SRS, 1 team with negative SRS)
3. Lebron 3.33 (6 teams over 8 SRS, 12 teams with negative SRS)
4. Bird 2.90 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 6 teams with negative SRS)
5. Magic 2.72 (2 teams over 8 SRS, 7 teams with negative SRS)

I have the values for the following people. Or I could take it down if you wanted to show it yourself over time.

These differ slightly (but are the same enough to think the same intended/core methodology).
Kobe 4.86 on both
Magic 2.72 on both
LeBron 3.33 on both
Curry 3.94 - 3.98 (theoretically could be when updated to? he's active at least)
Bird 2.90 - 2.82 (can't be a timing issue)

[SpreeS]

I have the values for the following people. Or I could take it down if you wanted to show it yourself over time.

I will add other players

[Colbinii]

I have the values for the following people. Or I could take it down if you wanted to show it yourself over time.

I will add other players

Guys I am interested in:

Havlicek, Kidd, Stockton/Malone, Westbrook, Payton

[SpreeS]

I have the values for the following people. Or I could take it down if you wanted to show it yourself over time.

I guess you have way more data with SRS. Could you show here?

[f4p]

I have the values for the following people. Or I could take it down if you wanted to show it yourself over time.

I guess you have way more data with SRS. Could you show here?

Weirdly, I literally just made a spreadsheet last week for finding a player's team vs opponent playoff SRS so yeah I have all of the seasons from NBA history listed out and then I just copy the series by series breakdown for a player that basketball-reference now has (their best added feature I can think of) and it quickly spits out a series by series SRS breakdown. So I can get a lot of data for playoff SRS but it's all spread out over a bunch of tabs so I would need to know what people wanted to know. But the list I showed was all of the players I have done so far, though adding new people isn't that hard so if people have more requests I could probably add them.

[f4p]

Guys I am interested in:

Havlicek, Kidd, Stockton/Malone, Westbrook, Payton

I updated the original post. All of these guys are in there now, along with West/Baylor/Robertson.

Amazingly, the Sonics losing to the Nuggets wasn't the biggest SRS upset of Payton's career. The Nuggets were -7.1 underdogs. But the following year, the Sonics were only a 4th seed but were actually #1 in SRS and lost to a breakeven Lakers team for -7.9 upset.

[ChartFiction]

Confirms what I knew that Harden PS comp is crazy. Arguably hardest of all time based on that list.

[ty 4191]

One example of how these threads can add meaning to discussion or even in how we view players... Karl Malone is often demoted in all-time rankings for the reason of poor performance in playoffs. I think these threads show that if there was any deterioration in his playoff numbers, then one of the reasons is because he played more games against better opponents than those he is being compared to.

100% true on Karl Malone!!

He faced the second best teams of anyone I've ever studied systematically, based on playoff opposition Net Rating....

[f4p]

I posted this in the "Quality of Opposition" playoff thread but LAL1947 mentioned posting it over here so I am.

...I just recently did a bunch of work on great players and the level of competition they faced relative to how great their own team was. I took the SRS of their own team and compared it to their opponent in every playoff series they played to get a feeling for who was most favorited in their series and who faced the biggest uphill climbs. Positive numbers mean you are the favorite, negative you are the underdog.

The following is just the average series differential over a player's career.



The top of the list isn't crazy, as it's basically the guys who played with the most talented teammates in nba history. Their average series was as a 3-4 SRS favorite, which is a huge advantage. Shaq shows up in the middle as probably the biggest regular season switch-flipper in history, regularly slacking off in the regular season before dropping 30/15 in the playoffs. And at the bottom, being a complete playoff outlier as usual is Hakeem. As a Rockets fan, I figured he would look impressive for overcoming the odds, but I didn't expect him to be this far down the list. He's wedged between guys like Wilkins and Melo, who each won 3 total playoff series in their entire careers. Hakeem made the finals 3 times and won an incredible 10 series as an underdog.

Maybe not that different, but the following shows the average differential in series a player won or lost.



We see once again what charmed lives guys like Curry, Bird, Magic, and Duncan lived, being huge favorites when they won and being near even or even having the advantage in their average series loss (Bird especially, who's biggest underdog series of -1.71 isn't even as bad as some players' average series). Harder to get a feel for Russell since he only lost 2 series and he was a huge favorite in the 1958 finals.

Jordan kind of went from underdog to favorite very quickly in his career and it shows. With him being a big favorite when he won and a massive underdog when he lost. Also he was 25-0 as a favorite.

Some of it is the Shaq effect obviously, but Kobe comes off looking good by this measure, with 5 titles and not a huge advantage when winning.

Hakeem stands out again for literally being an underdog in his average series victory. Only Jimmy Butler can say that, and he was basically even at -0.09. Oh, and poor Tracy McGrady, whose Spurs series I did not include since he didn't really play.

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

[f4p]

One example of how these threads can add meaning to discussion or even in how we view players... Karl Malone is often demoted in all-time rankings for the reason of poor performance in playoffs. I think these threads show that if there was any deterioration in his playoff numbers, then one of the reasons is because he played more games against better opponents than those he is being compared to.

100% true on Karl Malone!!

He faced the second best teams of anyone I've ever studied systematically, based on playoff opposition Net Rating....

but even accounting for his opponents, his stats fall off tremendously. this is his Playoff vs Regular Season rTS% differential adjusted for opponents rDRtg, and he is still at the very bottom of the list, and not even by a small amount.

Code: Select all

Name         PS-RS rTS%
Russell      +2.194
Hakeem       +2.19
Wade         +1.47
Nowitzki     +0.793
Duncan       +0.431
Kobe         +0.41
Jordan       +0.284
Wilt         +0.189
Shaq         -0.051
Lebron       -0.243
Kareem       -0.571
Bird         -0.728
Magic        -0.832
Moses        -1.518
Durant       -1.844
Garnett      -2.073
Ewing        -2.363
Harden       -2.562
Curry        -2.81
Barkley      -3.015
Robinson     -4.039
K Malone     -4.458