Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #13 - 2020-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo

LA Bird · Post #1 » by **LA Bird** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 1:20 pm

RealGM Greatest Peaks List (2022)
1. 1990-91 Michael Jordan
2. 2012-13 LeBron James
3. 1999-00 Shaquille O'Neal
4. 1976-77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
5. 1966-67 Wilt Chamberlain
6. 2002-03 Tim Duncan
7. 1993-94 Hakeem Olajuwon
8. 1963-64 Bill Russell
9. 1985-86 Larry Bird
10. 1986-87 Magic Johnson
11. 2016-17 Stephen Curry
12. 2003-04 Kevin Garnett
13. ?

Spoiler:

Please vote for your 3 highest player peaks and at least one line of reasoning for each of them.

Vote example 1
1. 1991 Jordan: Explanation
2. 2013 LeBron: Explanation
3. 2000 Shaq: Explanation

In addition, you can also list other peak season candidates from those three players. This extra step is entirely optional

Vote example 2
1. 1991 Jordan: Explanation
(1990 Jordan)
2. 2013 LeBron: Explanation
(2012 LeBron)
(2009 LeBron)
3. 2000 Shaq: Explanation

You can visit the project thread for further information on why this makes a difference and how the votes will be counted at the end of the round.

Voting for this round will close on Friday July 29, 9am ET.

CharityStripe34 · Post #2 » by **CharityStripe34** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:35 pm

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo (2021): Had another awesome season with 1st Team All-Defense and historic levels of efficiency offensively, only this was the season he made the mini-leap in the playoffs to put it all together with a phenomenal post-season run, capping it with one of the most dominant Finals series ever. Morphed his style of play in the middle of the playoffs from "Point-SF" to "PF/C-Point".

Honorable mention: Giannis Antetokounmpo (2020, 2022)

2. Bob Pettit (1959) : A man much forgotten in the annals of NBA lore, but who's entire career was almost one extended peak. He had an awesome season the year before, even leading the Hawks to their lone title over the vaunted Russell/Cousy Celtics. But his following year was his second MVP season with ridiculous averages of 29-16-4. He's the guy who essentially created/defined the PF position once he bulked up and added a long-distance jumpshot when mostly everyone was shooting hook-shots and set shots. 1959 he also led the league with 14.8 WS.

Honorable mention: (1958, 1962)

3. Oscar Robertson (1964): Basically averaged a triple-double (31-11-9.9) and the Royals had their best season with 55 wins and went toe-to-toe with Russell's Celtics in the second round. Was basically the league's greatest PG in its first 35 years, leading the league in assists as well as FT%. Was efficient from the field for a G (48%) and won the league MVP award in the middle of Wilt and Russell's primes, which is no easy feat.

Honorable mention: (1962, 1965)

Rinse, lather, repeat.

I actually really enjoyed watching Big Ticket and that's a tremendous ranking for his MVP season, btw.

Dutchball97 · Post #3 » by **Dutchball97** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 3:00 pm

I didn't have KG on my ballot so same as last time:

1. 1976 Julius Erving - Dr J had one of the most dominant years ever in North American pro basketball in the final year of the ABA. Where you rank him mostly depends on how good you think the ABA was towards its end. I'd say I'm probably somewhere in the middle. With the likes of Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, Bobby Jones and George Gervin the ABA had become a serious competitor to the NBA but it didn't become on the same level just yet and since even the mid-70s NBA is generally considered as a relatively weak era, the mid-70s ABA isn't one of the strongest eras either. Overall though this is still a very complete season and it remains a fact you can only beat who is put in front of you. What especially helps him out here is the Nets roster besides Dr J himself wasn't particularly special, which is a huge contrast to the other guys I'm considering around this spot.

2. 1983 Moses Malone - Moses wasn't the best defender but in 83 he does look pretty impressive on that end, while his offense has always been strong. He's hurt somewhat by playing on a historically stacked team but it's hard to go against him winning MVP by a landslide and leading the 76ers to a dominant title. I might be somewhat influenced by winning bias here but we have rather incomplete advanced stats for the early 80s so I'd rather not put too much emphasis on Moses not having an overwhelmingly high BPM.

3. 2021 Giannis Antetokounmpo - It was a close call between Giannis and Steph for my #3 spot last round so it's a nobrainer to move Giannis up now. Giannis is elite on both sides of the ball and I expect him to be higher up the next time we do a peaks project. What hurts Giannis somewhat is that his title run didn't line up with his best regular season. While 2021 wasn't his best regular season and was a step down from 2019 and 2020, it was still a MVP-level campaign. Giannis missed the last 2 games of the ECF, which the Bucks both won. Despite that slight knock, his post-season run was incredible. At his worst he was still good and at his best he was absolutely demolishing the competition. Especially his performance against the Suns might be one of the best individual series in a finals ever.

f4p · Post #4 » by **f4p** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 3:02 pm

1. 2017 Kawhi

This is an excellent regular season with a monster playoffs where he showed that his playoff resilience didn't even care about facing the greatest roster ever, only to be taken out on one of the more famous cheap shots in recent memory. A full WCF would make people like this season more and I can't blame him for a cheap shot injury. 2017 Kawhi wins on lots of teams that had guys who will be listed above him here:

Kawhi's 31.5 PER is 13th all time based on 100 MP and 8th all time for multi-series playoffs. His WS/48 of .314 is 9th all time based on 100 MP and 6th all time for multi-series playoffs. And that's with 1954 mikan included above him. Even with very generous 100 MP and 20 PPG limits, his TS% of 67.2% is 24th all-time. For 200 MP and 24 PPG, it jumps to 6th, and one of the people ahead of him is himself.

If this was a one year phenomenom, I might understand the hesitancy. But "Kawhi puts up huge playoff performance" is not a one year phenomenom. If we are truly talking about peaks, there aren't many higher than 2017 playoffs Kawhi.

2. 1983 Moses Malone

Fo' Fo' Fo'. Led the league in regular season PER and WS48 while putting up 24.5 ppg and 15.3 rpg and winning MVP. Then led the playoffs in PER (25.7) and WS48 (0.260) while putting up 26 ppg and 15.8 rpg on 58.7 TS%. In the Finals, he demolished (35 year old) Kareem with 25.8 ppg and 18.0 rpg in a sweep. I was actually just looking at this season to see where I might put it and then convinced myself when I looked at the rest of the Sixers in the playoffs. After Moses at 25.7 PER and 0.260 WS48, the next highest was Maurice Cheeks at 17.3 PER and Bobby Jones at 0.164 WS48 (Dr J really fell off in the playoffs). That puts Moses as far and away the best player in arguably the most dominant playoff run ever. One that he called before it happened just to make it more impressive. This isn't Shaq with Kobe or KD/Steph all having each other's backs in dominant 1-loss runs. Here are 6 dominant title runs I could think of off the top of my head and the separation between the #1 and #2 player on those teams, sorted by WS48 differential:

We can see that for the 2001 Lakers, 2017 Warriors, and 1999 Spurs, the #1 and #2 were practically identical. Except for BPM, Moses ends up there with MJ as being easily the best player on his team. And for what it's worth, BPM had Moses as the 4th best Sixer in the regular season, almost 3 behind the team leader, so that shows how much more it liked him in the postseason that he led the team. This may have been a guy who joined a stacked team, but it ended up a one man wrecking crew.

Moses gets disrespected enough on all-time lists, a 3-time MVP with a side hustle of smacking Kareem around in the playoffs shouldn't get the same on peak lists.

3. 2006 Dwyane Wade (alternate 2009 Wade)

I'm a floor raising kind of guy I guess, which doesn't seem typical on this board. People who have everything put on them and come up big in the biggest moments with little to no margin of error impress me more than ceiling raisers putting the finishing touches on an already great team. It just seems like a more common problem to solve throughout NBA history than what to do with all this extra talent. Wade had a very good 27/7/6 regular season as a 3rd year player but obviously this is about the playoffs. On one of the jankiest looking title rosters you'll ever see, on a team where Antoine Walker played the 2nd most playoff minutes and White Chocolate played the 4th most, and Shaq was often getting outplayed by Zo, Wade saved his best moments for the biggest series.

Shot 61.7% in the ECF (68.4 TS%!!) against a still very good Detroit team that had just held Lebron to 81 ppg in the previous series. 26.7/5.5/5.2 looks even better when you realize the pace was 83.8. And then of course there are the Finals. Did he shoot 2 to 3 to 40 more free throws than he should have? Sure, but free throw totals were pretty elevated that year so his totals are only sort of absurd. Put up 34.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg, and 2.7 spg on 57.2 TS% while maybe leading the best overall Finals comeback ever. Weirdly, the only team that has probably come closer to losing the Finals before winning is also a team with Wade in the 2013 Finals (with 3rd probably also including Wade in the 2011 Finals). The Heat were down 2-0 and down 13 in the 4th quarter of Game 3. That's dangerously close to "1, 2, 3 Cancun!" time and instead Wade just went crazy and put up 42, 36, 43, and 36 in the next 4 games. In a series with a pace of 90! With 3 of the games decided by 1, 2, and 3. In other words, turn those 42/43 games into just 39 point games and the Mavs are celebrating. Efficiency may not be crazy but on that volume with such a weird, offensively limited roster around him against a very solid defense, this is perhaps the best Finals performance ever by anybody not named Lebron or Jordan. It's a title snatched out of thin air that very few players can say they would have been able to pull off. This is a peaks project and it's hard to peak much higher.

Questions about 2021 Giannis

Since 2021 Giannis seems likely to be big in this thread. Are people really convinced this was much better than 2019 or 2020? It seems like the only difference is that Giannis injured Kyrie to get past the Nets, similar to Zaza with Kawhi, otherwise Bud was going to be fired and it would be another summer of questions for Giannis. I didn't expect him to beat the full power Nets, that's not fair, but after Harden got hurt, I don't think it would be crazy to expect that Bucks team to be better than the Nets. Plenty of people thought it would be a good series before Harden got hurt and given that the Nets were 33-8 with Harden and 19-17 without, it's not unreasonable for Giannis to be expected to win. And yet they looked awful in games 1 and 2 and then game 4 was close when Kyrie was taken out. And even then, a hobbled Harden came back and was enough to win game 5, even guarding Giannis on the biggest possession, and then the Bucks needed every last bit of game 7 to beat a very injured Nets team. Before moving on to a weak Hawks team and a Suns team that only faced injured opponents in all 3 rounds. If anything, it feels like 2022 Giannis was the most unstoppable version of him. The Celtics had to build a crazy amount of walls to stop Giannis, even with no Middleton around and who know what happens in game 7 if his teammates aren't historically awful from 3.

Questions about 1976 Dr J

Is there any reason to be so high on Dr J compared to Moses? Moses won 3 NBA MVP's. Maybe voting was worse than it is today, but 3 bad votes? 2 in a row in a league with Bird, Magic, Kareem, and Dr J? Getting a 40 win team to the Finals? Taking over Dr J's own team and getting him his title? Feels like people are discounting Moses too much. I would get if 1977 Dr J dominated the NBA right away, but he fell off quite a bit, though he did recover in 1980-82.

Dutchball97 · Post #5 » by **Dutchball97** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 3:17 pm

f4p wrote:Questions about 1976 Dr J

Is there any reason to be so high on Dr J compared to Moses? Moses won 3 NBA MVP's. Maybe voting was worse than it is today, but 3 bad votes? 2 in a row in a league with Bird, Magic, Kareem, and Dr J? Getting a 40 win team to the Finals? Taking over Dr J's own team and getting him his title? Feels like people are discounting Moses too much. I would get if 1977 Dr J dominated the NBA right away, but he fell off quite a bit, though he did recover in 1980-82.

The amount of MVPs someone has isn't the most impactful thing to how good someone was at their peak. Even then Dr J was a 3x ABA MVP and won MVP the year before Moses won the back to back MVPs. Dr J won his 81 MVP in the same league with Bird, Magic, Kareem and Moses. And since you have 2017 Kawhi as you're #1 here I'm surprised you do seem to value the award so much in your evaluations, when Kawhi never won one.

I also wouldn't be so hard on Dr J's 1977 season. He joined a new team, in a new league with different rules and twice the talent as the year before. Even then his production only went down due to shooting less and having less playmaking duties, he was still almost just as efficient as the year before. Then you have to take into account how he stepped up in the play-offs. He even led the play-offs in both WS and VORP in the same year as our #4 peak Kareem and another guy who is already getting votes in Walton. I have Moses and Dr J right next to each other as you can see so I wouldn't call that discounting Moses but saying Moses is on another tier as Dr J seems to me like you're the one discounting Julius Erving.

capfan33 · Post #6 » by **capfan33** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 3:44 pm

1. 1994 Robinson
Similar to KG in many ways, I ultimately have him a bit below KG largely because I like KG's skillset more overall and think he's a bit more portable. I also think KG's absurd horizontal defense is the best overall skill either of them have and is a bit more of an outlier, which tips things in his direction. I also am not a huge fan of how basic Robinson's scoring game seems to be, I think it makes him more predictable and easier to gameplan against. While I have reservations about KG's playoff scoring, his superior mid-range game and passing makes me more comfortable with him in the playoffs in various situations, specifically in regards to his baseline impact level on offense. It is close however, and I can see arguments both ways.

2. 1966 West
The best scorer before Kareem and arguably one of the 5 best scorers ever if you give more weight to the postseason (which I do), West was ahead of his time to say the least. To me he still has the great pull-up jumper ever and had an incredible bag of tricks, especially relative to other players of his era. He was also an excellent passer and while his passing and scoring peak didn't coincide, he was still excellent in that regard in 66 (according to elgee's passing rating metric, he actually peaked a bit higher than Oscar). Excellent rebounding guard due to him being the same height as Kobe/MJ with a 6'9 wingspan and a reported max vertical in the neighborhood of ~36 inches, he was also an underrated athlete. Finally, from most available evidence he is one of the greatest defensive guards ever. He was a menace in the passing lanes as well as being an excellent shotblocker and man defender.

3. 1964 Robertson
Probably the best offensive player of the pre-3point line era, Robertson was an elite combo of volume scoring, efficiency and playmaking. I do think that his offensive reputation is somewhat overstated due to the fact that his teams were oriented towards offense which cut into their defense, specifically at Center, but his offensive results are still impressive. Marginal defense keeps him from going higher, but I think this is a good place for him.

My next 3 will probably be Giannis, Jokic and Walton.

f4p · Post #7 » by **f4p** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 4:20 pm

Dutchball97 wrote:
f4p wrote:Questions about 1976 Dr J

Is there any reason to be so high on Dr J compared to Moses? Moses won 3 NBA MVP's. Maybe voting was worse than it is today, but 3 bad votes? 2 in a row in a league with Bird, Magic, Kareem, and Dr J? Getting a 40 win team to the Finals? Taking over Dr J's own team and getting him his title? Feels like people are discounting Moses too much. I would get if 1977 Dr J dominated the NBA right away, but he fell off quite a bit, though he did recover in 1980-82.

The amount of MVPs someone has isn't the most impactful thing to how good someone was at their peak. Even then Dr J was a 3x ABA MVP and won MVP the year before Moses won the back to back MVPs. Dr J won his 81 MVP in the same league with Bird, Magic, Kareem and Moses. And since you have 2017 Kawhi as you're #1 here I'm surprised you do seem to value the award so much in your evaluations, when Kawhi never won one.

I also wouldn't be so hard on Dr J's 1977 season. He joined a new team, in a new league with different rules and twice the talent as the year before. Even then his production only went down due to shooting less and having less playmaking duties, he was still almost just as efficient as the year before. Then you have to take into account how he stepped up in the play-offs. He even led the play-offs in both WS and VORP in the same year as our #4 peak Kareem and another guy who is already getting votes in Walton. I have Moses and Dr J right next to each other as you can see so I wouldn't call that discounting Moses but saying Moses is on another tier as Dr J seems to me like you're the one discounting Julius Erving.

To some degree, I still don't know that much about Moses and I feel like I've probably always underrated him. The MVP's aren't the end all, be all of the conversation but they definitely make me think I've been missing something if his contemporaries thought so highly of him. Sure, not all MVP's are equal. Steve Nash has 2, but I think we can all agree at least a little of that had to do with him being uhh...Canadian. And Moses was definitely quite uhh...non-Canadian, and still got 3 of them. Won 2 playoff series against Magic and Kareem, outplaying Kareem in both, made the Finals on a 40 win team, then seemingly dominated the playoffs for a dominant playoff team. His relentlessness seems to have had an effect on both winning and on voters.

And maybe I underrate Dr J. Admittedly, most of the games I've ever seen of him are from the 80's, and frankly they are usually underwhelming. Defenders backing off of him at almost Lebron 2013 Finals levels, not really taking over the games, his jumper usually looks shaky. It doesn't paint a great picture, so maybe I have trouble translating it to a younger Julius in a different league. He did lead the playoffs in WS in 1977 and even again in 1982 (amazingly leading a playoffs in PER at 22.5, late 70s/early 80s stats are so weird), so he certainly wasn't doing nothing. It's probably fair to say I have them on a different tier since I didn't have much of a plan to vote for Dr J for at least a few more rounds and Moses has already been on my ballot for a while, but 1976 Dr J definitely seems to have a great case.

No-more-rings · Post #8 » by **No-more-rings** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 4:26 pm

For those interested in floor raising title run seasons, I'm not sure there's many if any better than 2006 Wade left at this juncture.

Key numbers:
+15.2 on/off
1st in NPI RAPM
1st(tied) in RAPM
Very strong in standard box scores, 27.6 PER(only marginally below league high at 28.1), 7.7 BPM, 7.1 Vorp, 5th in scoring, 7th in steals, 11th in apg at the 2-guard position

Overrated supporting cast: Shaq was still very impactful when he played, but this is still a far cry from peak Shaq, and didn't really even have the conditioning to play superstar minutes. In the regular season missed 23 games and only played 30.6 mpg. I would argue Shaq was worse than say Pau Gasol was for Kobe when he went back to back, especially in the playoffs. Honestly the 3-8 rotation is not something you'd expect from a team winning a title, and that only got worse in the playoffs which I'll get to. They had no real point guard, don't talk to me about white chocolate who was completely average by most measures, and was 2 seasons away from being totally washed, or Gary Payton who was already washed offensively. Haslem? Good defensive player, that's about it. Antoine Walker, Mourning...i mean these aren't offensive stunners at all. A lot of these guys could play defense, and knock down some shots when needed, but there isn't a high level of playmaking going on other than from Wade. There was no DPOY guy like a Draymond, the defense was more a collective effort. There was no Klay Thompson to get hot and shoot the other team out of the gym. These things just get worse in the playoffs, where everyone's level of play aside from Wade's decreased. People will be quick to put some of that blame on Wade for not helping his teammate's efficiency, but I think that comes down to that team not being the perfect fit for Wade even if he did manage to win. Wade's best strength is his scoring, not passing. I think expecting him to drop an efficient 28-30 every night plus raise everyone else's game seems a bit unfair to me. He's no Nash or Lebron, or Magic Johnson. He's not even Curry on offense either, but we also seen what a Curry led offense looks like when he doesn't have good support(2021).

With the goat level offensive players off the table(minus Nash), Wade's offense certainly belongs in the convo with anyone else left. West and Oscar are hard to compare, but I don't think they're clearly better for peak. Giannis is kind of a weird place, where his offense is below the elite guards like Wade/Kobe/Cp3 etc, and his defense is below the all time bigs like Duncan, KD etc. I'm not sure I really even consider Giannis a floor raiser the way some others are, I think he's taken some decent or good supporting casts to pretty great levels. His 202 regular season was some truly elite stuff, but the way he went out in the playoffs was pretty bad stuff, basically comparable to a 2007 Dirk type of exit. It'd be strange for that season to be on anyone's radar.

Wade's offensive on/off split was basically the same as Curry in his 2016 season +13.3 to 13.6, and the best in Wade's career 2010 +16 was almost as good as Curry's best of +16.3. Wade's ORAPM in 2010 surpassed Lebron and anyone else other than Nash's best during that era. Fluky, maybe. But there isn't much to suggest Curry is wayyy better than Wade on offense. It would've taken Curry's career best lift in on/off to get the 2006 Heat to the 2nd ranked offense from 7th.

Giannis is a comparably bad 3-point shooter to Wade and is overall worse offensively and just led the 3rd ranked offense, there's not objective reason Wade would be held back today. And no "Giannis is 6'10!" isn't a legit argument. If you want to point to his defense as why he might be better fine that's fair.

Small sample but interesting fact, Wade in the playoffs from 2009-2011 averaged 4.1 3PA on 33.8 fg%, Miami Lebron was comparable to that at 4.0 3PA at 34.9 fg%. I didn't hear anyone at the time claim Lebron's 3 held them back from achieving great offensive results. If someone wants to make that claim, go right ahead.

Super resilient against playoff defenses/opponents: Relative to opposing defense, the 2006 Heat's offense actually did very well outside of the finals:

vs Chicago: +4.5
Vs New Jersey: +10.5(Wade's individual numbers 27.6/6/6.6 59.8 ts%)
Vs Detroit: +4.2(Wade's numbers 26.7/5.2/5.5 68.4 ts%, 61.7 fg%)

How do you explain away a Wade led offense be able to tear to shreds two of the best defenses in the league?

You got to love how the Heat ORTGs in 2005 and 2011 don't matter since Lebron and Shaq were supposedly better. Well no, for one thing, Wade had a better O on/off and ORAPM in 2011 than did Lebron. It's not clear at all there.

The 2006 finals are pretty controversial, but I will just say Wade scored over 22ppg on field goals alone which is actually a good bit more than what he averaged over his playoff prime. If people say he didn't deserve to win because of the free throws then who did deserve to? Did Dirk averaging 23 on 53 ts% deserve it more? Like cut me a break. The best player in the series performed the best and deserved to win, deal with it.

I also don't think people should just assume that all of Wade's impact came from offense either, all it takes is to watch some of the games to see that.

I'd argue that Wade peaked slightly higher than KD on both ends...Dr J has a carry job of his own but it being in the ABA makes me uncertain of how great it was. Wade's playoff offense I think is comparably resilient to Kobe, though I'm doubtful his O+D was quite as valuable as Wade's best. West and Oscar are just too hard to compare, but they might be better. I don't think the rest of the field looks all that great...I'd maybe actually take Jokic over Wade's peak. As an offensive floor raiser, he's almost surely better based on what he did this year, still there's questions about him as your center defensively in the playoffs. It's also hard for me to grant him that without actually going all the way like a lot of other players did. I don't think it's unfair, or at the very least we need to see 3 straight resilient series. I don't think he quite did that in 2020, and definitely not in 2021. 2022 he didn't get that chance.

Anyway this is not a vote, and I am not voting. I'm not sure I'd even put Wade first here. I do think we're at a point in the project, where no one is clearly better than him so it will be interesting to see how people compare him to others and whether or not the arguments against him will be fair and reasonable.

One other thing I mentioned in the other thread is, it's weird to me for a guy to have so many similarities to young Jordan and Lebron in his game to get sometimes viewed as..well worse than Steve Nash or Cp3 just to name a few.

Samurai · Post #9 » by **Samurai** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 5:57 pm

1. Doctor J 1976. Yes, it was in the ABA. The final year of that league before the merger in 77 and at that point, the ABA was loaded with future Hall of Famers such as David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, Bobby Jones and Dan Issel. No plumbers or milkmen in that group. And Dr J put up one of the best all-around seasons ever. Led the league in scoring at 29.3 ppg. Fifth in rebounding at 11.0 rpg. Seventh in assists at 5.0 apg. Third in steal at 2.5 spg. Seventh in blocks at 1.9 bpg. Tenth in field goal percentage at .507% and sixth in 3-point % at 33%. And led the league in PER, Win Shares, Offensive Win Shares, Defensive Win Shares, WS/48, Box Plus/Minus, VORP, and Usage %. Off the top of my head, the only other player who dominated across that many aspects of the game might be 51 Mikan but we don't have any idea what his blocks or steal numbers were and I'd guess that the competition level in the 76 ABA was higher than the 51 NBA.

2. Oscar Robertson 1964. Averaged a near triple double with 31.4/9.9/11.0 at a time when no one was specifically trying for a triple double (I never even heard of the term in that era). But for context, we have to remember it was an era with very high pace and the big stars played far more minutes than in later eras so his counting stats would be less impressive in a later era. But context works both ways and it was much more difficult for a non-big to dominate in that era than in later eras as well. And for a guard, Oscar dominated like no other then. The Big O was 2nd in scoring, 16th in rebounds/game (the only guard to finish in the top 25), 2nd in TS%, 2nd in minutes/game, 2nd in both PER and WS (only Wilt was higher), first in Offensive WS, 10th in Defensive WS, and led the league in FT% and assists. Plus that one-handed push shot he used for free throws just looked so cool that I have to give him style points for that!

3. Jerry West 1966. Since I listed Oscar, I have to include West; they just kinda go together like peanut butter and jelly. Aside from MJ, West may be the best combination of offense and defense of any guard in history. He was the complete package on offense - tremendous jump shooter from the outside, excellent driving to the basket (his .564 free throw rate rivaled some of Harden's top 5 seasons), was fifth in assists/game (led the league in 72), and led the league in TS% at .573 (without a 3-point line!). No question in my mind that he would have been on the All-Defensive team if such an award were around; the year after Russell retired, he stated that West was not just the best defensive guard in the league but the best defensive player. Granted, his comment may have been a swipe at his rival Wilt, but in a league where Thurmond, DeBusschere, and Frazier were running around it is still quite a compliment. His only real knock career-wise is his durability, but he played 79 games in 66 and his 3,218 minutes were good for 7th best in the league. And as good as West was in his time, he played in arguably the worst era for his particular skillset; he would have been even more spectacular if he were playing in today's game where players are raised to spam as many 3's as possible. But since I can only rank players based on what they actually accomplished and not what they might have accomplished if they were born in a different year, I have him listed 3rd here.

AEnigma · Post #10 » by **AEnigma** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:02 pm

So I was going to hold off on posting until I had something really substantive, but this takes precedence.

f4p wrote:Sure, not all MVP's are equal. Steve Nash has 2, but I think we can all agree at least a little of that had to do with him being uhh...Canadian. And Moses was definitely quite uhh...non-Canadian, and still got 3 of them. Won 2 playoff series against Magic and Kareem, outplaying Kareem in both, made the Finals on a 40 win team, then seemingly dominated the playoffs for a dominant playoff team. His relentlessness seems to have had an effect on both winning and on voters.

Yeah Steve Nash won two of the only three MVPs awarded to white players from 1987-2020 because the voting bloc just loves white guys that much.

If the priority is to vote for players with an MVP and Finals MVP, what puts Moses above Willis Reed or Bill Walton (or Mikan or Pettit, for the older school voters)? Why put so much stock into Moses winning a three game series and then going “fo’ [five] fo’” on a team that had been to two of the past three finals (and probably would have won a championship in the year they missed if they had made one more basket in Game 7)?

Based on voting patterns so far, Moses will likely be admitted before I consider voting for him (see beginning of post), and that is fine, but it would be nice if the rationale given were a little more comparative. Especially if the one comparison made is that well “obviously” it was harder for Moses to win multiple MVPs than it was for white Steve Nash.

Maybe Moses should have been ranked higher than Larry Bird: after all, Moses was just so much better that he not only made up for Bird’s team winning seventeen more games and a head-to-head Finals, but he also overcame the innate voting bias toward Bird’s whiteness!

SickMother · Post #11 » by **SickMother** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 8:10 pm

01 Erving 75-76: 28.7 PER | .569 TS% | 110 TS+ | 17.7 WS | .262 WS/48
01 Erving 75-76 Playoffs?!?: 32.0 PER | .610 TS% | 3.7 WS | .321 WS/48
[a peak so high the NBA absorbed a whole other league to get this guy under their banner. Doctor turned in a top tier do it all regular season, then followed it up with one of thee largest postseason efficiency increases of all time.]

02 Hawkins 67-68: 28.8 PER | .597 TS% | 124 TS+ | 17.5 WS | .273 WS/48
02 Hawkins 67-68 Playoffs?!?: 30.0 PER | .651 TS% | 4.0 WS | .310 WS/48
[for what amounts to spot #13 on my ballot I'll go with maybe thee unluckiest player in basketball history, robbed of his collegiate & early NBA career by completely spurious gambling allegations, then derailed by a knee injury which occurred amidst the ABA Championship in this very season.

but there was never any doubt Connie could ball from the outset as one of the original NYC greats at Rucker Park & being named the best high school player in the country in 1960. As for his 67-68 peak, the Hawk simply did everything. Topped the brand new ABA in PPG on monster efficiency, 2nd in the league in RPG, 3rd in the league in APG. Then took his game to a whole other level in the playoffs, hurting his knee during the Championship series & returning to lead his team to the top in heroic fashion even before Willis Reed (or Giannis) did it.

I get it, the 67-68 ABA is probably the 2nd weakest competition level to receive a vote so far besides 49-50 Mikan, but Hawkins had no alternative, it was the best league available to him due to his illegal blacklisting from the NBA & he thoroughly dominated it across the board. Also think that Connie's peak game works in any era with his mix of size, athleticism and all around skillset.]

***I have a tier break here which goes from #14 to #25 with the following seasons under consideration (in chrono order) 63-64 Oscar, 65-66 West, 82-83 Moses, 94-95 Admiral, 03-04 Garnett, 05-06 Wade, 05-06 Nowitzki, 08-09 Kobe, 16-17 Kawhi, 16-17 Durant, 20-21 Giannis and 21-22 Jokic.***

03 Kawhi 16-17: 27.6 PER | .610 TS% | 111 TS+ | 13.6 WS | .264 WS/48
03 Kawhi 16-17 Playoffs?!?: 31.5 PER | .672 TS% | 2.8 WS | .314 WS/48
[ultimately going with Kawhi for two main reasons, his elite defense as a wing defender is unique among the remaining contenders, and that postseason was shaping up as a best ever candidate with Leonard posting absolutely insane efficiency before Zaza stepped in.]

trelos6 · Post #12 » by **trelos6** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:50 pm

Pretty solid top 12. I can’t really argue anyone else should be in there.

13. Jerry West. Hard to pick a season. So many great ones. Maybe 1968. He was 21 pp75 and +9rTS%. Team offence was good and he was his usual demon self in the playoffs.

14. David Robinson. 1994. Not his defensive best, but pretty close to it. And definitely his offensive peak. 29.4 pp75 at +4.9rTS%

15. Comes down to Kawhi v Jokic. And I think I’m going Kawhi. 2016-17. He took a big step up to the offensive machine he is today. And his defence took a small step back from its stratospheric levels, but it was still there on key possessions. 29 pp75 at +5.7 rTS%

mdonnelly1989 · Post #13 » by **mdonnelly1989** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:14 pm

1.) Oscar Robertson (1964) His numbers were outstanding for any era he played in. 3rd best player for that ERA behind Wilt and Bill

2.) Jerry West 1968 -> Top 10 shooter of all time. Excellent defense.

3.) David Robinson. 1994 -> Perfect Combination of Offense / defense

DraymondGold · Post #14 » by **DraymondGold** » Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:21 pm

I also thought I'd re-post my tiers according to the data. Of course, there's more to do than just look at the data (e.g. film analysis, skill comparisons, philosophical discussions, etc.), but it might help people start to group players or form arguments. Without further ado, Here's the Stat Box for the next tier: Robinson > Giannis, Jokic, Durant, Kobe, Wade > Oscar, Walton, West > Moses, Erving:

Spoiler:

Ballpark Rank according to the data:
Tier 1 (good in almost all stats, better in more-trusted stats): KG ~ Robinson
Tier 2 (good in most stats, better in less-trusted stats): Giannis ~ Jokic >~ KD ~ Kobe ~ Wade
Tier 3 (incomplete data, less good in stats we have): Oscar ~ Walton ~ West [Wade's around here if we take larger samples seriously]
Tier 4 (pretty poor in the data): Moses > Erving (see below)

__________
A Case for Robinson > Giannis:

1) Impact metrics: Robinson > Giannis. Robinson wins in 5 of the metrics, while Giannis wins in only 1. They're tied in 1 more. In the stats we don't have for each of them, Robinson is 1st while Giannis is 2nd. Robinson wins in the "true" plus minus metrics like AuPM/RAPM/PIPM/WOWY while Giannis only looks comparable or better in the box-stats.

2) Scalability: Robinson > Giannis, at least personally. Like Garnett, Robinson is also more scalable than Giannis. On the 2021 Bucks, Giannis already faced diminishing returns on offense, despite a fantastic fit.

3) Resilience: ? Giannis has a reputation of being more resilient, but I’ve argued otherwise. Giannis had all-time level scoring/offensive declines in 19-20. Even if he improved in 2021 as a player, he still showed some playoff-decline, and this decline increased against better teams (he declines even after adjusting for opponent defense). I’m not sure Giannis has the true resilience advantage, and it’s certainly not much if so. More details here if anyone wants to debate this more: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100653211#p100653211

4) Health: N/A. Giannis got injured in the playoffs more (in 2/4 prime playoffs), but I don't see this as a major factor personally.

5) Fit limiting value: Robinson >> Giannis. Robinson had a terribly fitting team. Not as bad as Garnett, but as bad as most other peaks in this tier. I'd argue much of Robinson's perceived lack of resilience is actually just from being on a worse team, which allowed opponent defenses to focus on him on offense, and forced him to run out of motor making up work on the defensive end. Why else would his resilience "suddenly" improve when the Spurs got better teammates in '99 onward?
Giannis on the other hand had a great fitting offensive and defensive team in 21. 3-point Spacers at all the positions and even at the 5. On defense, he had an All-nba point-of-attack/perimeter defender and a twin tower to help protect the rim

6) Defense: Robinson > Giannis, at least personally. Robinson's absolutely better rim protector, and a fantastic overall help defender. With Duncan, Robinson helped lead the greatest defensive dynasty of the modern era. I see this as part of the reason BPM underrates Robinson.

7) Time machine: I see Robinson doing well in today's era, but like I've mentioned before, I'm worried about Giannis in an earlier era. His defense would do great of course. But on offense, so much of it relies on spacing and loose dribbling rules. His spacing would decrease in the half court, and his transition scoring game (the single best part of his offense) would be dented by so much in an earlier era like the 90s, when basically every euro-step / modern gather-step was called a travel.

I still see Giannis as a great player, but I just don't think it's his round yet. For what it's worth, I'd also sooner take Jokic as a big man over Giannis. I'd also be tempted to take one of the guards over him too. West/Oscar are limited in the stats we have and by their era, but from a "goodness" perspective, I like them a lot. Kobe/KD/Wade also have arguments if we value resilience/scalability.

Hopefully I'm not harping on this too much! But... Are we sure we're not just over-indexing on Giannis' eye test (which might overrate athleticism and miss skill/BBIQ) and his single best playoff-series alone (forgetting his career-long playoff struggles)?

ardee · Post #15 » by **ardee** » Wed Jul 27, 2022 4:53 am

1. 1977 Bill Walton

Has everyone forgotten about him? In 1977 and 1978, here's the Blazers' record with and without him:

1977 Walton healthy: 44-21
1977 Walton hurt: 5-12

1978 Walton healthy: 48-10
1978 Walton hurt: 10-14

74.7% win rate while he's healthy, and 36.5% while he's hurt. And that's over a pretty big sample size.

Quite honestly I see him on a similar level to Russell, whom I have at 9. Just incredible defensive impact, if you watch the Finals against the Sixers he has the defensive equivalent of a scorer having a 20 point quarter. The commentators were freaking out and screaming "they cannot find a way to score on Bill Walton!"

I think him and Steph are pretty debatable.

2. 2008 Kobe Bryant (HM: 2006)

I've spoken about Kobe's raw impact quite a bit in different threads. In this season specifically, he led the Lakers to a 7.34 SRS with just 27 games of Pau and 35 games of Bynum. Odom was the only other player on that team who could generate much of his own offense. The rest of the rotation consisting of Fisher, Vladimir Radmanovic, Farmar, Vujacic and Turiaf doesn't exactly scream a 7.3 SRS cast.

On top of that, he put together a Jordan-esque Playoff run. 32-6-6 on 60% TS against 3 50 win teams in the Western conference, including a 6.9 SRS Jazz team and a -5.7 defensively Spurs team. His Finals weren't anything to write home about but honestly were not any worse than Jordan against similarly good defensive teams (the '93 Knicks for example).

3. 2009 Dwyane Wade (HM: 2006)

Him and Kobe at their peaks are fairly close as players. I do think Kobe was more impactful though, when you look at the 2006 Lakers vs the 2009 Heat by SRS given the similar supporting casts. Wade was likely better defensively but that's canceled out by Kobe's superior portability given shooting and off-ball play.

Next would be Dirk, KG and Robinson for me, then we get into Oscar and West.

DraymondGold · Post #16 » by **DraymondGold** » Wed Jul 27, 2022 5:54 am

Just to prompt a bit more back-and-forth debate, it seems to me like we have a tier of:
-Bigs: Robinson vs Walton vs Garnett vs Jokic
-Guards/Wings: Kobe vs Wade vs Oscar vs West vs KD
[with occasional arguments for others like Erving, Moses, Kawhi, though the impact metrics have them much lower]

I've been voicing why I'm lower on Garnett. Does anyone else want to voice counters to/for other players? It feels like now that the tiers are getting closer, there's slightly less activity and we're talking past each other more.

Any thoughts on Robinson vs Walton (and how Jokic fits into the mix)?
Any thoughts on Kobe v Wade vs Oscar v West (and how KD fits into the mix]?
or how the bigs/smalls compare as archetypes?

For more context, here's a few previous Greatest Peak lists:
-2015 RealGM: Robinson > Walton > Erving (I'd argue too high) > Robertson > Wade > ... West > Durant > ... Kobe (I'd argue too low) > Moses [no Giannis/Jokic yet]
-2019 RealGM: Erving (I'd definitely argue too high) > Walton > Robertson > Wade > West > Robinson > ... Kobe > ... Moses > Durant >> ... Giannis [no 21/22 Giannis/Jokic yet]
-Thinking Basketball (my interpretation of Greatest Peaks series?): Kobe >= Durant >= West >= Oscar >= Robinson ~= Walton (though higher with health) > Wade >? Giannis ? >... Erving > Moses [no Jokic yet but I'd guess higher than Erving at least]

Some observations:
-Guards: RealGM votes Robertson > Wade > West > KD/Kobe, while Thinking Basketball is perfectly flipped (except having Oscar over Wade)
-Bigs: Robinson and Walton are close in all. Giannis/Jokic are lower, though they've peaked since these projects.
-Other exceptions: Erving is consistently over Moses, and Moses is consistently near the bottom. Strong disagreement between RealGM and Thinking Basketball on Erving. Agreement from both on Kawhi -- way down the list.
-Cross-positional comparison: RealGM tends to favor the bigs, while Thinking Basketball tends to favor guards/wings. We seem to be following this trend currently, with our current RealGM project voting 6 bigs over Curry/Bird/Magic.

iggymcfrack · Post #17 » by **iggymcfrack** » Wed Jul 27, 2022 8:33 am

So originally I had Giannis ahead of the remaining group because of his incredible Finals run in 2021, but when DraymondGold pointed out that he was still technically underperforming his regular season stats in both of his last 2 playoff runs, it made it hard not to take 2022 Jokic ahead of him. Here are their advanced one number impact-based stats that you can compare both the last 2 seasons on with how they rank in both seasons combined:

LEBRON
2022 Jokic 7.80 (#1 overall)
2021 Jokic 6.83 (#2 overall)
2022 Giannis 6.54 (#3 overall)
2021 Giannis 5.55 (#7 overall)

RAPTOR
2022 Jokic +14.6 (#1 overall)
2021 Jokic +9.2 (#2 overall)
2022 Giannis +8.1 (#4 overall)
2021 Giannis +6.6 (#12 overall)

RAPM
2022 Jokic 3.57 (#7 overall)
2022 Giannis 2.42 (#26 overall)
2021 Giannis 2.17 (#40 overall)
2021 Jokic 1.77 (#74 overall)

Considering that over the course of his career, Jokic has been one of the most clutch playoff performers of all-time and put up historic playoff numbers even last year, I see no reason to punish him for having a short run. I think it's fair to assume he would have continued at a similar level to what he did in the regular season if he'd had a team capable of going the distance with him. Thus I'm now voting:

1. 2021/22 Nikola Jokic- Best regular season ever by PER and BPM, 5th best postseason ever by PER with impact numbers that dominate the competition much more than the box score metrics. Incredible playmaking as Jokic combines the best passing from a big man ever with a surprisingly low amount of time holding the ball for such an offensive hub.

2. 2020-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo- Some of the biggest performances ever when it mattered most. 40/13/5 on .663 TS% in a Game 7 to close out KD and the Nets, then 3 more 40/10 games in the Finals including a ridiculous 50/14 game with 5 blocks on .749 TS% to close out the Suns.

3. 1995-96 David Robinson- Led the league in PER in both the regular season AND postseason while anchoring the 3rd best defense in the league. Early impact metrics had him neck and neck with Michael Jordan for best player in the league. When Robinson missed the vast majority of the following season, the Spurs defense went from 3rd/29 to 29th/29. They were 9 points worse per 100 possessions. The following season when he returned, the defense improved 13 points per 100 possessions. His defensive impact vastly outpaced his box score value and you can argue that at this point in his career, he was right there with anyone else in the history of the league for most valuable defensive players. I have a hard time believing that Bill Russell ever peaked higher than David Robinson for instance since Robinson had such a strong offensive game while providing at least 95% of the same value on defense.

iggymcfrack · Post #18 » by **iggymcfrack** » Wed Jul 27, 2022 8:56 am

ardee wrote:1. 1977 Bill Walton

Has everyone forgotten about him? In 1977 and 1978, here's the Blazers' record with and without him:

1977 Walton healthy: 44-21
1977 Walton hurt: 5-12

1978 Walton healthy: 48-10
1978 Walton hurt: 10-14

74.7% win rate while he's healthy, and 36.5% while he's hurt. And that's over a pretty big sample size.

Quite honestly I see him on a similar level to Russell, whom I have at 9. Just incredible defensive impact, if you watch the Finals against the Sixers he has the defensive equivalent of a scorer having a 20 point quarter. The commentators were freaking out and screaming "they cannot find a way to score on Bill Walton!"

I think him and Steph are pretty debatable.

2. 2008 Kobe Bryant (HM: 2006)

I've spoken about Kobe's raw impact quite a bit in different threads. In this season specifically, he led the Lakers to a 7.34 SRS with just 27 games of Pau and 35 games of Bynum. Odom was the only other player on that team who could generate much of his own offense. The rest of the rotation consisting of Fisher, Vladimir Radmanovic, Farmar, Vujacic and Turiaf doesn't exactly scream a 7.3 SRS cast.

On top of that, he put together a Jordan-esque Playoff run. 32-6-6 on 60% TS against 3 50 win teams in the Western conference, including a 6.9 SRS Jazz team and a -5.7 defensively Spurs team. His Finals weren't anything to write home about but honestly were not any worse than Jordan against similarly good defensive teams (the '93 Knicks for example).

3. 2009 Dwyane Wade (HM: 2006)

Him and Kobe at their peaks are fairly close as players. I do think Kobe was more impactful though, when you look at the 2006 Lakers vs the 2009 Heat by SRS given the similar supporting casts. Wade was likely better defensively but that's canceled out by Kobe's superior portability given shooting and off-ball play.

Next would be Dirk, KG and Robinson for me, then we get into Oscar and West.

If you're looking at defensive centers, I don't see what argument Walton has over Robinson. Robinson played 80+ games 6 of the first 8 seasons of his career. Here are the 2 years he didn't:

1992: 42-26 with, 5-9 without
1997: 3-3 with, 17-59 without

He had every bit of the massive defensive impact Walton did while also having a MUCH better offensive game. When Walton got injured 2 seasons after his peak year, the defense was 5-6 points per 100 possessions worse. When Robinson got injured the year after his peak season, the defense got 9 points per 100 possessions worse.

Per 100 possessions, here's what they averaged in the RS and postseason in their peak years:
'77 Walton: 24/18/5 on .563 TS% (reg season)
'96 Robinson: 35/17/4 on .589 TS% (reg season)

'77 Walton: 20/17/6 on .527 TS% (postseason)
'96 Robinson: 37/16/4 on .569 TS% (postseason)

And let's not forget that even in his one "healthy" season, Walton still missed 17 games. The only real edge he has is passing, but if passing's important enough to you that you're impressed by Walton and his 4-5 APG, you have to be voting for the best passing big man of all-time Nikola Jokic and his 6-8 APG who also just put up one of the greatest scoring seasons ever by a center and dominated pretty much every impact metric.

MyUniBroDavis · Post #19 » by **MyUniBroDavis** » Wed Jul 27, 2022 9:35 am

iggymcfrack wrote:So originally I had Giannis ahead of the remaining group because of his incredible Finals run in 2021, but when DraymondGold pointed out that he was still technically underperforming his regular season stats in both of his last 2 playoff runs, it made it hard not to take 2022 Jokic ahead of him. Here are their advanced one number impact-based stats that you can compare both the last 2 seasons on with how they rank in both seasons combined:

LEBRON
2022 Jokic 7.80 (#1 overall)
2021 Jokic 6.83 (#2 overall)
2022 Giannis 6.54 (#3 overall)
2021 Giannis 5.55 (#7 overall)

RAPTOR
2022 Jokic +14.6 (#1 overall)
2021 Jokic +9.2 (#2 overall)
2022 Giannis +8.1 (#4 overall)
2021 Giannis +6.6 (#12 overall)

RAPM
2022 Jokic 3.57 (#7 overall)
2022 Giannis 2.42 (#26 overall)
2021 Giannis 2.17 (#40 overall)
2021 Jokic 1.77 (#74 overall)

Considering that over the course of his career, Jokic has been one of the most clutch playoff performers of all-time and put up historic playoff numbers even last year, I see no reason to punish him for having a short run. I think it's fair to assume he would have continued at a similar level to what he did in the regular season if he'd had a team capable of going the distance with him. Thus I'm now voting:

1. 2021/22 Nikola Jokic- Best regular season ever by PER and BPM, 5th best postseason ever by PER with impact numbers that dominate the competition much more than the box score metrics. Incredible playmaking as Jokic combines the best passing from a big man ever with a surprisingly low amount of time holding the ball for such an offensive hub.

2. 2020-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo- Some of the biggest performances ever when it mattered most. 40/13/5 on .663 TS% in a Game 7 to close out KD and the Nets, then 3 more 40/10 games in the Finals including a ridiculous 50/14 game with 5 blocks on .749 TS% to close out the Suns.

3. 1995-96 David Robinson- Led the league in PER in both the regular season AND postseason while anchoring the 3rd best defense in the league. Early impact metrics had him neck and neck with Michael Jordan for best player in the league. When Robinson missed the vast majority of the following season, the Spurs defense went from 3rd/29 to 29th/29. They were 9 points worse per 100 possessions. The following season when he returned, the defense improved 13 points per 100 possessions. His defensive impact vastly outpaced his box score value and you can argue that at this point in his career, he was right there with anyone else in the history of the league for most valuable defensive players. I have a hard time believing that Bill Russell ever peaked higher than David Robinson for instance since Robinson had such a strong offensive game while providing at least 95% of the same value on defense.

If we are going by level of play vs resellience, sure, but it’s more so his ft% going down and three point percentage going down than him being legitimately stopped, but his effeciency wasn’t far off of his 2020 season

I’m pretty sure his 2020 season has better impact data than Jokic in 2021 or 2022, and the main idea I think is that Giannis upped his defense in 2021 from elite level in RS to high tier DPOY level in the playoffs, which also makes sense from a team result standpoint as well I think

His numbers effeciency wise are pretty similar to his 2020 season offensively, higher volume taking out a first series sweep where he simply didn’t have to score that much too

CharityStripe34 · Post #20 » by **CharityStripe34** » Wed Jul 27, 2022 12:37 pm

Honestly there's a good chance that both Gianni and Jokic start having Top 10 type seasons within their next 4-5 years of their prime. So I can understand why some are hesitant to throw them on a list so soon, but I don't mind rewarding current elite superstars when they're having 25-10-5 type seasons with all-time levels of efficiency and impact. Just my two cents. I'm also a believer that if guys like Pettit, West and Robertson grew up in the last 30 years and were exposed to the same nutrition and workout regimens that they would still be supremely good players, which is why I never try too hard to cross-examine players across eras too much.