Ringless GOAT - Paul vs Malone

[Dr Positivity]

On last RealGM list (Oct 2020) Malone finished 16, Barkley 21 and Paul 23. Paul had a great 21 and 22 so I'd figure he's favored over Barkley, and Malone normally ranks over Barkley for being more reliable.

Are you ready to put Paul over Malone on GOAT list? Personally I like Paul's game more however he did get injured more.

[dygaction]

No, Malone still has much better longevity and winning a lot more, 19 vs 11 post season series wins, 3 vs 1 trips to the finals, and 2 vs 0 MVPs.

[Dr Positivity]

No, Malone still has much better longevity

Not really. Paul's draft is 20 years after Malone's. Therefore Suns Paul is like 01-03 Malone for the stage of his career. Paul had a few more injury throwaway seasons though.

2018 WCF is clearly the real finals. So it's like Paul is in two.

[migya]

Malone but Paul was really good.

[dygaction]

No, Malone still has much better longevity

Not really. Paul's draft is 20 years after Malone's. Therefore Suns Paul is like 01-03 Malone for the stage of his career. Paul had a few more injury throwaway seasons though.

2018 WCF is clearly the real finals. So it's like Paul is in two.

I consider injury as part of lack of longevity, especially compared to mailman.
Malone: 1476 regular season games, 54852min played; 193 playoff games, 7907min
CP3: 1178 regular season games, 40622min played; 142 playoff games, 5192min

[70sFan]

No, I wouldn't pick Paul over Malone on my all-time list. Paul didn't catch up Malone longevity either.

[No-more-rings]

I don’t think there’s a good argument for Paul over Malone all time.

[trex_8063]

No, Malone still has much better longevity

Not really. Paul's draft is 20 years after Malone's. Therefore Suns Paul is like 01-03 Malone for the stage of his career. Paul had a few more injury throwaway seasons though.

2018 WCF is clearly the real finals. So it's like Paul is in two.

I consider injury as part of lack of longevity,

I do too. I'll often even state it as "longevity/durability", just for clarity of what I'm talking about.

I can see the case for taking Paul peak vs peak, or best 5-10 prime years, or something similar. But for full careers, I still have Mailman higher. Paul's career is winding down enough that I doubt he'll catch him for me, either (though not impossible).

[OhayoKD]

injuries make it plausible there's a big enough longetvity gap here for this to not matter, but paul's vastly better off-court intangibles is a pretty clear tiebreaker if its close.

Peak wise I think paul is clearly better if we assume health.

[The Master]

- injured in 2009 1st round;
- injured in 2012 playoffs;
- missed couple of games in 2015 WCSF;
- injured in 2016 1st round;
- injured in 2018 WCF;
- allegedly injured in 2022 WCSF.

Paul is clearly a better playoff performance if healthy, but him not being healthy so often makes me think the difference here is clearly not enough to diminish fully KMs longevity advantage. Better player limited by lack of durability is my take and I don't think anything will happen here to change this outlook considering CP3s this season's shape.

I'd go with healthy Paul easily tho for postseason.

[Colbinii]

I don’t think there’s a good argument for Paul over Malone all time.

Emphasis on Peak play and shorter prime play [5 or 10 year] really gives CP3 an edge.

Longevity and Career value favor Malone.

Good arguments can be made.

[LukaTheGOAT]

CP3's ahead of both to me. The argument might be that people like me don't ding enough for PS injuries/unavailability, but yeah I still would take him over both.

5-year PS BPM Peak

CP3-9.6
Karl Malone-5.9

5-year PS Backpicks BPM Peak All-Time Ranking

CP3-3rd
Malone-26th


I also think the length of time CP3 has been doing this thing is underrated. For instance, Paul has the 2nd most postseason runs over +4 in AuPM per game (goes back to 97) with 7, trailing only Lebron. That means he has hit that mark more times than KG, Duncan, Kobe, Curry, etc. Keep in mind a +4 is around the area of what you would expect for a top 5 guy, so that is significant added value.


In 1997-2021 RAPM, CP3 is 4th in Career RAPM, behind Lebron, Embiid, and Curry

https://www.thespax.com/nba/calculating-regularized-adjusted-plus-minus-for-25-years-of-nba-basketball/


In 97-2022 RAPM by Englemann, CP3 is 3rd in RAPM, behind Lebron and KG.

Considering the RAPM studies are based on per-possession impact, and CP3 still rates so highly in the Twighlight of his career, I find that a really intriguing sample. He's in his 18th season now. He's been an all-star level guy since at least 07 (think you could make an argument he was around that level in his rookie season). This year is still unfolding, but this might be the first year where I would say he doesn't have star equity if it were to continue.

The point is he has been really good for a long time and ranks ahead of some all-time greats who entire careers took place in the plus-minus era.

[The Master]

CP3's ahead of both to me. The argument might be that people like me don't ding enough for PS injuries/unavailability, but yeah I still would take him over both.

5-year PS BPM Peak

CP3-9.6
Karl Malone-5.9

5-year PS Backpicks BPM Peak All-Time Ranking

CP3-3rd
Malone-26th

This is CP3 conundrum - if he's not penalized for unavailability, he looks like top15 player of all-time.

His 9.6 BPM 5-year peak looks amazing - but he missed decisive games in 2014 and couple of games in 2015 in a lost series against Rockets (Clippers then went to 3-1 lead with CP3 playing 20 minutes or so and lost from 3-1 lead with CP3 playing his regular role), so what's a real value here? Two other years are 1st round losses as well.

You can give him benefit of a doubt in regular season as well, but missed games here and there limited his chances for regular season hardware.

So it's not true that there are no good arguments for CP3 (I believe his peak was slightly higher and his playoff performances were better), but shouldn't we go hard line for unavailability? It may be cruel, but getting injured in 2018 was actually wasting his team a very realistic title shot.

He had once (!) strong b2b playoff performances without injury (and he played 3 series at that span, who knows what would have happened if he's asked to go full run knowing his lack of luck), so you can realistically wonder if he'd have been capable of repeating Jazz 97-98 results under similar circumstances. Obviously, you can hypothetically argue that he was so much better that in previous years under similar circumstances he would've achieved more, but solely in terms of availability, this is so tricky to evaluate with these injury-prone guys.

[migya]

CP3's ahead of both to me. The argument might be that people like me don't ding enough for PS injuries/unavailability, but yeah I still would take him over both.

5-year PS BPM Peak

CP3-9.6
Karl Malone-5.9

5-year PS Backpicks BPM Peak All-Time Ranking

CP3-3rd
Malone-26th


I also think the length of time CP3 has been doing this thing is underrated. For instance, Paul has the 2nd most postseason runs over +4 in AuPM per game (goes back to 97) with 7, trailing only Lebron. That means he has hit that mark more times than KG, Duncan, Kobe, Curry, etc. Keep in mind a +4 is around the area of what you would expect for a top 5 guy, so that is significant added value.


In 1997-2021 RAPM, CP3 is 4th in Career RAPM, behind Lebron, Embiid, and Curry

https://www.thespax.com/nba/calculating-regularized-adjusted-plus-minus-for-25-years-of-nba-basketball/


In 97-2022 RAPM by Englemann, CP3 is 3rd in RAPM, behind Lebron and KG.

Considering the RAPM studies are based on per-possession impact, and CP3 still rates so highly in the Twighlight of his career, I find that a really intriguing sample. He's in his 18th season now. He's been an all-star level guy since at least 07 (think you could make an argument he was around that level in his rookie season). This year is still unfolding, but this might be the first year where I would say he doesn't have star equity if it were to continue.

The point is he has been really good for a long time and ranks ahead of some all-time greats who entire careers took place in the plus-minus era.

Malone 1997-2004, age 33-40:
RS - ​on court +7.2, +10.3 on/off. PS - + 0.8, +13.6

CP career:
RS - on court +7.0, +9.8 on/off
PS - +0.5, +5.6

Old man Malone had better number in this then CP for career.

[Owly]

CP3's ahead of both to me. The argument might be that people like me don't ding enough for PS injuries/unavailability, but yeah I still would take him over both.

5-year PS BPM Peak

CP3-9.6
Karl Malone-5.9

5-year PS Backpicks BPM Peak All-Time Ranking

CP3-3rd
Malone-26th


I also think the length of time CP3 has been doing this thing is underrated. For instance, Paul has the 2nd most postseason runs over +4 in AuPM per game (goes back to 97) with 7, trailing only Lebron. That means he has hit that mark more times than KG, Duncan, Kobe, Curry, etc. Keep in mind a +4 is around the area of what you would expect for a top 5 guy, so that is significant added value.


In 1997-2021 RAPM, CP3 is 4th in Career RAPM, behind Lebron, Embiid, and Curry

https://www.thespax.com/nba/calculating-regularized-adjusted-plus-minus-for-25-years-of-nba-basketball/


In 97-2022 RAPM by Englemann, CP3 is 3rd in RAPM, behind Lebron and KG.

Considering the RAPM studies are based on per-possession impact, and CP3 still rates so highly in the Twighlight of his career, I find that a really intriguing sample. He's in his 18th season now. He's been an all-star level guy since at least 07 (think you could make an argument he was around that level in his rookie season). This year is still unfolding, but this might be the first year where I would say he doesn't have star equity if it were to continue.

The point is he has been really good for a long time and ranks ahead of some all-time greats who entire careers took place in the plus-minus era.

Malone 1997-2004, age 33-40:
RS - ​on court +7.2, +10.3 on/off. PS - + 0.8, +13.6

CP career:
RS - on court +7.0, +9.8 on/off
PS - +0.5, +5.6

Old man Malone had better number in this then CP for career.

"Old man Malone" includes his top 3 MVP finishes (by rank and by MVP shares, two firsts and a second, all above 0.700 career next best in his career is 0.507) over half his career MVP shares, 3 of his top 4 PERs, his top 4 WS/48s and his top 3 BPMs. In each of the box composites (and yearly average MVP shares) he is above his career average and further above "young man Malone". That phrasing therefore could seem a touch misleading, especially if they are intended to be read in a comparison (as the layout and final wording might suggest?) rather than merely support for Malone also being someone who aged superbly well.

Also, teammate Stockton has a slightly better on-off (RS) 97-03 (so as not to include the Lakers down year) whilst with the Jazz, whilst Paul clearly outpaces his main star teammate in this regard (Clippers Paul +14.5, Griffin same span +9.9). Whilst one can get into the weeds and different angles on Stockton-Malone year-to-year and looking at other samples (94-96 otoh looks pro-Malone; versus 76ers, off a smaller sample tilts heavily pro-Stockton), raw on-off is noisy so such contextual factors would want exploring before any strong conclusions were drawn.

[HeartBreakKid]

Saying you're comparing their career on/off is dubious considering the majority of Karl's career is very much not there. As Owl said you arguably cited 3 of Karl's best season in an already shortened sample size.

Not the first time you cherry picked the best seasons from Karl Malone.

[Owly]

CP3's ahead of both to me. The argument might be that people like me don't ding enough for PS injuries/unavailability, but yeah I still would take him over both.

5-year PS BPM Peak

CP3-9.6
Karl Malone-5.9

5-year PS Backpicks BPM Peak All-Time Ranking

CP3-3rd
Malone-26th

This is CP3 conundrum - if he's not penalized for unavailability, he looks like top15 player of all-time.

His 9.6 BPM 5-year peak looks amazing - but he missed decisive games in 2014 and couple of games in 2015 in a lost series against Rockets (Clippers then went to 3-1 lead with CP3 playing 20 minutes or so and lost from 3-1 lead with CP3 playing his regular role), so what's a real value here? Two other years are 1st round losses as well.

You can give him benefit of a doubt in regular season as well, but missed games here and there limited his chances for regular season hardware.

So it's not true that there are no good arguments for CP3 (I believe his peak was slightly higher and his playoff performances were better), but shouldn't we go hard line for unavailability? It may be cruel, but getting injured in 2018 was actually wasting his team a very realistic title shot.

He had once (!) strong b2b playoff performances without injury (and he played 3 series at that span, who knows what would have happened if he's asked to go full run knowing his lack of luck), so you can realistically wonder if he'd have been capable of repeating Jazz 97-98 results under similar circumstances. Obviously, you can hypothetically argue that he was so much better that in previous years under similar circumstances he would've achieved more, but solely in terms of availability, this is so tricky to evaluate with these injury-prone guys.

I dislike the phrasing here because
1) "Wasting his team ..." as a phrasing doesn't seem to credit him for generating the team that shot yet ...
2) If his absence "waste[s]" the opportunity then that seems to me to imply they have no chance without him.

In this particular argument he's more playoff productive, more [in prime] clearly his teams best player (though for one team this is a shorter span and versus a lower level bar, but more for on-off type stuff). I think there's an argument that if he has a Stockton equivalent and a Hornacek (or another cast if we are to be more general) there's a chance other casts hold the fort down better and he returns and goes on deeper runs. I'm not into the weeds on exactly what percentage of time he missed, my impression was it wasn't that high, but I don't know. Regardless I do think his absences being costly cuts both ways, reiterates all the data as to how much his teams needed him.

Nit-picky ...

he missed decisive games

All the games are decisive. It's first to 4. You can take any 4 of them. They all go in to deciding the result.

[migya]

Saying you're comparing their career on/off is dubious considering the majority of Karl's career is very much not there. As Owl said you arguably cited 3 of Karl's best season in an already shortened sample size.

Not the first time you cherry picked the best seasons from Karl Malone.

They're the only seasons available. With entire prime he'd look better.

[70sFan]

Saying you're comparing their career on/off is dubious considering the majority of Karl's career is very much not there. As Owl said you arguably cited 3 of Karl's best season in an already shortened sample size.

Not the first time you cherry picked the best seasons from Karl Malone.

They're the only seasons available. With entire prime he'd look better.

I think we have more mid-90s +/- numbers, though I don't have the time to find them now. I hope someone will post them here.

[Bad Gatorade]

Malone 1997-2004, age 33-40:
RS - ​on court +7.2, +10.3 on/off. PS - + 0.8, +13.6

CP career:
RS - on court +7.0, +9.8 on/off
PS - +0.5, +5.6

I'd note that Malone played in an era with far less "staggering" of players and that his minutes are more likely to coincide with other starting players - age adjusted RAPM from 1997-2022 places CP3 3rd amongst all players with +8.1 (LeBron +9.1, KG +8.4), and Malone at +3.1. Isolate 1997-2001 (a 5 year block containing 2 MVP awards and finishing 2nd, 4th and 7th in the others seasons) and Malone actually finishes 18th in the league in jalengreen's dataset with +2.97.

Note that whilst Doc didn't stagger his lineups as much as he probably should have (which is partially why he's +11.0 on, and +14.5 on/off with the Clippers), CP3 also played in very guard-oriented lineups as he aged - he was staggered with Harden in Houston for 2 years, staggered with Booker in Phoenix and was in an incredibly perimeter heavy lineup in OKC. This affects the numbers.

Entirely possible that Malone finishes better in the early/mid 90s, even if his "accolade" peak was already captured by RAPM. But even then, playing the "post-prime" game, CP3 still ranks 3rd in RAPM over the past 5 years, all of which are his post-Clipper years, with only Curry and Giannis ahead.

FWIW, although I do fancy CP3 the better player in terms of pure basketball playing prowess and I think that whilst his durability issues are present, they're often overstated in comparison to other players (e.g. he has played more games than Curry since Curry has been in the league, more games than Durant since Durant has been in the league etc)... I do acknowledge that if I were to actually sit down and compile a "value added" style list, there's a good chance Karl Malone would be ahead for me thanks to his durability. I do feel like Malone's general excellence has become somewhat underappreciated over time.

I think we have more mid-90s +/- numbers, though I don't have the time to find them now. I hope someone will post them here.

I think we did, for 1994, 95 and 96? Were these the numbers you were thinking of?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12wBquVtyX4RKXDFtFMLt2QvqfICO_6SCKwm3s_dkb-Q/edit#gid=0

Interestingly, Malone actually has quite a bit of (positive) separation from Stockton in 1994. Looks really good in 1994 and 1996, although Stockton was a bit higher in 1996. Also... wow, David Robinson truly was a plus minus deity, wasn't he?