RealGM

Does 94 pippen have a case over 93 jordan??

Some facts;

Bulls had a better defense -4ppg less without jordan the following season

5 Bulls player who played in 93 shot better fg% in 94

Pippen led that team to 55 wins despite negative players in bpm like Pete myers,Bill cartwright,luc longley in starting lineup[Pete myers wasn't even in the league in 93]

Who better,give ur reasons in the comments

Whiffyemperor wrote:Does 94 pippen have a case over 93 jordan??

Some facts;

Bulls had a better defense -4ppg less without jordan the following season

5 Bulls player who played in 93 shot better fg% in 94

Pippen led that team to 55 wins despite negative players in bpm like Pete myers,Bill cartwright,luc longley in starting lineup[Pete myers wasn't even in the league in 93]

Who better,give ur reasons in the comments

I think if you buy into a drop-off/situational fluctuations you can make an rs case akin to dwight vs lebron circa 2011 or kd vs lebron circa 2014. I think it gets tougher once you consider the postseason where the 93 Bulls played closer to how the 92 team played.

I would also be cautious using BPM to rate a cast that slanted towards defense and the little things(though I guess that may be more jackson than the personell). IIRC the Bulls were .500 without Pippen that year. Taking an average team to contention is very good but I wouldn't consider it a crazy carry-job.

Fwiw if you use relative defensive rating it was only about a 2-point drop(though that doesn't account for Pippen missing games)

Short of some argument involving the maximum possible uncertainty bars possible (e.g. saying Pippen's highest possible uncertainty band has him competing for a top 10 peak ever), no not really.

The biggest thing people would level against Jordan in 1993 is the two-year WOWY sample, showing the team with him in 1993 vs without him in 1994. But this conveniently ignores that the *average* uncertainty on two-year WOWY is significantly more than 100%. Across all the overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 15 players, the mean uncertainty is 144%. The average uncertainty in all overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 30 players is 124%. That's the average uncertainty, not the maximum possible uncertainty, and it's based on 25 pairs of overlapping two-year WOWY samples... so a full 50 two-year WOWY samples (source: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=108693994#p108693994).

And of course, this misses all of the context that changed from 1993 to 1994, which would support that Jordan's two-year WOWY would be quite uncertain (with the uncertainty pointing to Jordan being better than the two-year WOWY sample would suggest). Citing trex here (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107591289#p107591289), the Bulls add the following players in 1994:
-Toni Kukoc: is replacing "mostly the last legs of Rodney McCray that he's replacing (plus some misc of last legs Trent Tucker, maybe scattered minutes of their various bigs). He's a clear upgrade from that."
-Steve Kerr: who definitely had a good year, and "compared to the '93 team, it's the last legs of John Paxson and Darrell Walker that he replaces........a clear upgrade."
-Bill Wennington: who returned to the NBA in 1994 and had his best year due to age, and " he's a slight upgrade over the minutes he's replacing on the '93 team [washed up Cartwright and bloated and undermotivated Stacey King, primarily]."
... and Pippen and Grant both have their worst regular season in 1993 and a bounce back season in 1994:

trex_8063 wrote:Inasmuch as the "Jordan holding them down" implication.....
Well, obviously their offensive loads are going to go up in his absence. As to efficiency, this isn't the best year, for either of them.

Looking at Pippen's prime seasons in Chicago, ranked by rTS%:

'91: +2.7%
'92: +2.4%
'97: +1.8%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.64%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): +1.61%
'96: +0.9%
'98: +0.9%
'93: -2.6%

So '93 is just a complete outlier amid the rest of his prime in Chicago (not only does it rank 8th of 8 seasons, but the gap between it and 7th place is nearly TWICE as large as the gap between 7th and 1st).
I say again: it was a "down" year (which doesn't appear to have a lot to due with Jordan, given Pippen's three BEST in terms of shooting efficiency all happened while playing alongside him).

As far as turnover economy is concerned, TOV% is a near-useless stat, imo, as it only considers tov and TSA (according to TOV%, John Stockton has a horrendous turnover economy). Pippen [naturally] had to shift slightly to less playmaking and more scoring in the absense of Jordan (which has repercussions where TOV% is concerned).
My Modified TOV% factors in other responsibilities and production endeavours that may result in a turnover (most notably: playmaking for others [and general ball-handling repsonsibilities]).
Here are his best Chicago seasons by mTOV%:

'98: 7.27%
'97: 7.60%
'96: 7.85%
'92: 8.00%
'93: 8.39%
'91: 8.44%
'94 (without Jordan): 8.74%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): 9.81%

^^He mostly appears to just get better with age (with '93 again being a slight blip in the trend)......except, that is, for years where he's playing without Jordan and has to shoulder more offensive responsibility: those two years playing without [or mostly without] Jordan are the two worst seasons of his prime in Chicago in terms of turnover economy ('95 actually rates out as worst by a solid margin).



For Grant, here are his prime Chicago seasons ranked by rTS%.....

'92: +8.7%
'91: +5.1%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.2%
'93: -0.2%
(and fwiw, he bounces right back up in '95 playing with a talent-laden Orlando team)

'93 is a clear outlier ("down") year within this part of his prime. While '94 is solidly better than that down year, it's even "more solidly" behind '91, and laughably behind '92.

In terms of mTOV% (this is one of the underappreciated aspects of Horace Grant: how good he was at ball-control and playing within his limitations on offense).....

'92: 6.26%
'94 (no Jordan): 6.53%
'91: 6.63%
'93: 7.05%

Again, '93 just a bit of an outlier within his prime years in Chicago. '94 holds its own against other prime Chicago years, but is not the best of them.


'93 is just flatly an outlier down [within their primes as a whole] for both of them in terms of offensive efficiency. It's the clear worst by a country mile for Grant, and is either worst all-around or basically tied with '95 [a mostly sans-Jordan year] as worst all-around for Pippen.
But while '94 is better [than '93] for each of them, it is also very clearly NOT the most-efficient [nor even one of the most efficient] Chicago season for either of them.

... and I haven't seen any sort of film based argument that puts the blame on their down year on 93 Jordan.

This also doesn't account for the fact that their playoffs were boosted by opposing injuries in 1994:
-"'94 series against Cleveland was a Cav team whose frontcourt was utterly decimated by injury: Nance, Daugherty, and HR Williams were ALL out for the series. The closest thing the Cavs had to defensive anchor were the Williams/Nance minutes."
-Against 1994 Knicks, the Bulls benefited from facing a team without their starting point guard, Doc Rivers, who missed the end of the regular season and the full playoffs.

Looking at overall team results,
-In Sansterre's Top 100 teams ever by Overall (RS + PS) SRS, the 1993 Bulls are the 54th best team of all time, and Jordan posted the #1 Heliocentrism rating of all time (i.e 1993 was a massive carry job, due to the aging cast and down years from the players still in their primes). Meanwhile the 1994 Bulls are... *significantly* below the Top 100.
-In Fivethirtyeght's best teams ever by Overall ELO (pre-2016), the 1993 Bulls are the 31st best team of all time, while the 1994 Bulls are the 199th best team of all time. A pretty massive drop.

So I'm not sure any team-level two year WOWY argument against Jordan for Pippen really stands up to any actual detailed analysis.

...

And basically every stat we have favors Jordan significantly:
WOWY stats:
-Prime WOWY
-Prime WOWYR (adjusted WOWY)
-Prime GPM (another adjusted WOWY metric)
-RWOWY (another adjusted WOWY metric)
Plus minus stats:
-on/off favors Jordan
-Squared2020 RAPM favors Jordan > Pippen generally, although we do not have 1994
Box stats:
-BPM favors Jordan
-PIPM estimate favors Jordan
-RAPTOR favors Jordan

I'm not even sure how I'd begin to believe an argument for Pippen > Jordan, again unless we're really hyper-focusing on some massive uncertainty argument like "what's the 0.01th percentile worst evaluation I could make of 1993 Jordan, and the 99.99th percentile best evaluation I could make for 1994 Pippen". But that seems like a stretch.

Pippen is unreliable as a playoff scorer. He could never compare to any version of MJ in his prime. It's not even close.

Pippen vs. John Stockton or Reggie Miller should be the comparison. That's a good one.

I'm looking right now, Pippen averages 23 PPG on 52 TS% in those playoffs. Give me a break.

Pippen's weaknesses were overlooked because MJ was there to make up for it.

And he doesn't get compared to any other similar level player so nobody picks at his career and notices his shortcomings aside fom some MJ fans.

DraymondGold wrote:Short of some argument involving the maximum possible uncertainty bars possible (e.g. saying Pippen's highest possible uncertainty band has him competing for a top 10 peak ever), no not really.

The biggest thing people would level against Jordan in 1993 is the two-year WOWY sample, showing the team with him in 1993 vs without him in 1994. But this conveniently ignores that the *average* uncertainty on two-year WOWY is significantly more than 100%. Across all the overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 15 players, the mean uncertainty is 144%. The average uncertainty in all overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 30 players is 124%. That's the average uncertainty, not the maximum possible uncertainty, and it's based on 25 pairs of overlapping two-year WOWY samples... so a full 50 two-year WOWY samples (source: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=108693994#p108693994).

And of course, this misses all of the context that changed from 1993 to 1994, which would support that Jordan's two-year WOWY would be quite uncertain (with the uncertainty pointing to Jordan being better than the two-year WOWY sample would suggest). Citing trex here (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107591289#p107591289), the Bulls add the following players in 1994:
-Toni Kukoc: is replacing "mostly the last legs of Rodney McCray that he's replacing (plus some misc of last legs Trent Tucker, maybe scattered minutes of their various bigs). He's a clear upgrade from that."
-Steve Kerr: who definitely had a good year, and "compared to the '93 team, it's the last legs of John Paxson and Darrell Walker that he replaces........a clear upgrade."
-Bill Wennington: who returned to the NBA in 1994 and had his best year due to age, and " he's a slight upgrade over the minutes he's replacing on the '93 team [washed up Cartwright and bloated and undermotivated Stacey King, primarily]."
... and Pippen and Grant both have their worst regular season in 1993 and a bounce back season in 1994:

trex_8063 wrote:Inasmuch as the "Jordan holding them down" implication.....
Well, obviously their offensive loads are going to go up in his absence. As to efficiency, this isn't the best year, for either of them.

Looking at Pippen's prime seasons in Chicago, ranked by rTS%:

'91: +2.7%
'92: +2.4%
'97: +1.8%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.64%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): +1.61%
'96: +0.9%
'98: +0.9%
'93: -2.6%

So '93 is just a complete outlier amid the rest of his prime in Chicago (not only does it rank 8th of 8 seasons, but the gap between it and 7th place is nearly TWICE as large as the gap between 7th and 1st).
I say again: it was a "down" year (which doesn't appear to have a lot to due with Jordan, given Pippen's three BEST in terms of shooting efficiency all happened while playing alongside him).

As far as turnover economy is concerned, TOV% is a near-useless stat, imo, as it only considers tov and TSA (according to TOV%, John Stockton has a horrendous turnover economy). Pippen [naturally] had to shift slightly to less playmaking and more scoring in the absense of Jordan (which has repercussions where TOV% is concerned).
My Modified TOV% factors in other responsibilities and production endeavours that may result in a turnover (most notably: playmaking for others [and general ball-handling repsonsibilities]).
Here are his best Chicago seasons by mTOV%:

'98: 7.27%
'97: 7.60%
'96: 7.85%
'92: 8.00%
'93: 8.39%
'91: 8.44%
'94 (without Jordan): 8.74%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): 9.81%

^^He mostly appears to just get better with age (with '93 again being a slight blip in the trend)......except, that is, for years where he's playing without Jordan and has to shoulder more offensive responsibility: those two years playing without [or mostly without] Jordan are the two worst seasons of his prime in Chicago in terms of turnover economy ('95 actually rates out as worst by a solid margin).



For Grant, here are his prime Chicago seasons ranked by rTS%.....

'92: +8.7%
'91: +5.1%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.2%
'93: -0.2%
(and fwiw, he bounces right back up in '95 playing with a talent-laden Orlando team)

'93 is a clear outlier ("down") year within this part of his prime. While '94 is solidly better than that down year, it's even "more solidly" behind '91, and laughably behind '92.

In terms of mTOV% (this is one of the underappreciated aspects of Horace Grant: how good he was at ball-control and playing within his limitations on offense).....

'92: 6.26%
'94 (no Jordan): 6.53%
'91: 6.63%
'93: 7.05%

Again, '93 just a bit of an outlier within his prime years in Chicago. '94 holds its own against other prime Chicago years, but is not the best of them.


'93 is just flatly an outlier down [within their primes as a whole] for both of them in terms of offensive efficiency. It's the clear worst by a country mile for Grant, and is either worst all-around or basically tied with '95 [a mostly sans-Jordan year] as worst all-around for Pippen.
But while '94 is better [than '93] for each of them, it is also very clearly NOT the most-efficient [nor even one of the most efficient] Chicago season for either of them.

... and I haven't seen any sort of film based argument that puts the blame on their down year on 93 Jordan.

This also doesn't account for the fact that their playoffs were boosted by opposing injuries in 1994:
-"'94 series against Cleveland was a Cav team whose frontcourt was utterly decimated by injury: Nance, Daugherty, and HR Williams were ALL out for the series. The closest thing the Cavs had to defensive anchor were the Williams/Nance minutes."
-Against 1994 Knicks, the Bulls benefited from facing a team without their starting point guard, Doc Rivers, who missed the end of the regular season and the full playoffs.

Looking at overall team results,
-In Sansterre's Top 100 teams ever by Overall (RS + PS) SRS, the 1993 Bulls are the 54th best team of all time, and Jordan posted the #1 Heliocentrism rating of all time (i.e 1993 was a massive carry job, due to the aging cast and down years from the players still in their primes). Meanwhile the 1994 Bulls are... *significantly* below the Top 100.
-In Fivethirtyeght's best teams ever by Overall ELO (pre-2016), the 1993 Bulls are the 31st best team of all time, while the 1994 Bulls are the 199th best team of all time. A pretty massive drop.

So I'm not sure any team-level two year WOWY argument against Jordan for Pippen really stands up to any actual detailed analysis.

...

And basically every stat we have favors Jordan significantly:
WOWY stats:
-Prime WOWY
-Prime WOWYR (adjusted WOWY)
-Prime GPM (another adjusted WOWY metric)
-RWOWY (another adjusted WOWY metric)
Plus minus stats:
-on/off favors Jordan
-Squared2020 RAPM favors Jordan > Pippen generally, although we do not have 1994
Box stats:
-BPM favors Jordan
-PIPM estimate favors Jordan
-RAPTOR favors Jordan

I'm not even sure how I'd begin to believe an argument for Pippen > Jordan, again unless we're really hyper-focusing on some massive uncertainty argument like "what's the 0.01th percentile worst evaluation I could make of 1993 Jordan, and the 99.99th percentile best evaluation I could make for 1994 Pippen". But that seems like a stretch.

Can u summarise that essay u linked for me ?

Can u link those stats u say favour 93 mj over 94 pippen ? anyways u ignored the negative bpm the starters had even bj Armstrong had a negative bpm yet pippen took them to 55 wins despite him missing 12 games

,kukoc was an inefficient player,5 of the bulls player saw an increase in fg percentage also I never mentioned wowy in my post

Lost92Bricks wrote:I'm looking right now, Pippen averages 23 PPG on 52 TS% in those playoffs. Give me a break.

Pippen's weaknesses were overlooked because MJ was there to make up for it.

And he doesn't get compared to any other similar level player so nobody picks at his career and notices his shortcomings aside fom some MJ fans.

Pippen shot better without mj than with mj tho so did 5 of the bulls player than played in 93

,pippen faced one of the best defensive teams of all time with players with negative bpm on his team and despite that took them to 7

Mj also shot bad against the knicks in 93 and pippen and his supporting cast bailed him out

@DraymondGold Steve kerr had a negative bpm and a 0.0 vorp his previous season he certainly wasn't an upgrade

Since you like using BPM so much:
93’ Jordan 11.2 BPM (11.6 in the playoffs)
94’ Pippen 7.7 BPM (5.6 in the playoffs)


Also worth mentioning is that the Bulls were +11.9 with Jordan on court in the sampled games in 93.

Whiffyemperor wrote:

DraymondGold wrote:Short of some argument involving the maximum possible uncertainty bars possible (e.g. saying Pippen's highest possible uncertainty band has him competing for a top 10 peak ever), no not really.

The biggest thing people would level against Jordan in 1993 is the two-year WOWY sample, showing the team with him in 1993 vs without him in 1994. But this conveniently ignores that the *average* uncertainty on two-year WOWY is significantly more than 100%. Across all the overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 15 players, the mean uncertainty is 144%. The average uncertainty in all overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 30 players is 124%. That's the average uncertainty, not the maximum possible uncertainty, and it's based on 25 pairs of overlapping two-year WOWY samples... so a full 50 two-year WOWY samples (source: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=108693994#p108693994).

And of course, this misses all of the context that changed from 1993 to 1994, which would support that Jordan's two-year WOWY would be quite uncertain (with the uncertainty pointing to Jordan being better than the two-year WOWY sample would suggest). Citing trex here (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107591289#p107591289), the Bulls add the following players in 1994:
-Toni Kukoc: is replacing "mostly the last legs of Rodney McCray that he's replacing (plus some misc of last legs Trent Tucker, maybe scattered minutes of their various bigs). He's a clear upgrade from that."
-Steve Kerr: who definitely had a good year, and "compared to the '93 team, it's the last legs of John Paxson and Darrell Walker that he replaces........a clear upgrade."
-Bill Wennington: who returned to the NBA in 1994 and had his best year due to age, and " he's a slight upgrade over the minutes he's replacing on the '93 team [washed up Cartwright and bloated and undermotivated Stacey King, primarily]."
... and Pippen and Grant both have their worst regular season in 1993 and a bounce back season in 1994:

trex_8063 wrote:Inasmuch as the "Jordan holding them down" implication.....
Well, obviously their offensive loads are going to go up in his absence. As to efficiency, this isn't the best year, for either of them.

Looking at Pippen's prime seasons in Chicago, ranked by rTS%:

'91: +2.7%
'92: +2.4%
'97: +1.8%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.64%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): +1.61%
'96: +0.9%
'98: +0.9%
'93: -2.6%

So '93 is just a complete outlier amid the rest of his prime in Chicago (not only does it rank 8th of 8 seasons, but the gap between it and 7th place is nearly TWICE as large as the gap between 7th and 1st).
I say again: it was a "down" year (which doesn't appear to have a lot to due with Jordan, given Pippen's three BEST in terms of shooting efficiency all happened while playing alongside him).

As far as turnover economy is concerned, TOV% is a near-useless stat, imo, as it only considers tov and TSA (according to TOV%, John Stockton has a horrendous turnover economy). Pippen [naturally] had to shift slightly to less playmaking and more scoring in the absense of Jordan (which has repercussions where TOV% is concerned).
My Modified TOV% factors in other responsibilities and production endeavours that may result in a turnover (most notably: playmaking for others [and general ball-handling repsonsibilities]).
Here are his best Chicago seasons by mTOV%:

'98: 7.27%
'97: 7.60%
'96: 7.85%
'92: 8.00%
'93: 8.39%
'91: 8.44%
'94 (without Jordan): 8.74%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): 9.81%

^^He mostly appears to just get better with age (with '93 again being a slight blip in the trend)......except, that is, for years where he's playing without Jordan and has to shoulder more offensive responsibility: those two years playing without [or mostly without] Jordan are the two worst seasons of his prime in Chicago in terms of turnover economy ('95 actually rates out as worst by a solid margin).



For Grant, here are his prime Chicago seasons ranked by rTS%.....

'92: +8.7%
'91: +5.1%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.2%
'93: -0.2%
(and fwiw, he bounces right back up in '95 playing with a talent-laden Orlando team)

'93 is a clear outlier ("down") year within this part of his prime. While '94 is solidly better than that down year, it's even "more solidly" behind '91, and laughably behind '92.

In terms of mTOV% (this is one of the underappreciated aspects of Horace Grant: how good he was at ball-control and playing within his limitations on offense).....

'92: 6.26%
'94 (no Jordan): 6.53%
'91: 6.63%
'93: 7.05%

Again, '93 just a bit of an outlier within his prime years in Chicago. '94 holds its own against other prime Chicago years, but is not the best of them.


'93 is just flatly an outlier down [within their primes as a whole] for both of them in terms of offensive efficiency. It's the clear worst by a country mile for Grant, and is either worst all-around or basically tied with '95 [a mostly sans-Jordan year] as worst all-around for Pippen.
But while '94 is better [than '93] for each of them, it is also very clearly NOT the most-efficient [nor even one of the most efficient] Chicago season for either of them.

... and I haven't seen any sort of film based argument that puts the blame on their down year on 93 Jordan.

This also doesn't account for the fact that their playoffs were boosted by opposing injuries in 1994:
-"'94 series against Cleveland was a Cav team whose frontcourt was utterly decimated by injury: Nance, Daugherty, and HR Williams were ALL out for the series. The closest thing the Cavs had to defensive anchor were the Williams/Nance minutes."
-Against 1994 Knicks, the Bulls benefited from facing a team without their starting point guard, Doc Rivers, who missed the end of the regular season and the full playoffs.

Looking at overall team results,
-In Sansterre's Top 100 teams ever by Overall (RS + PS) SRS, the 1993 Bulls are the 54th best team of all time, and Jordan posted the #1 Heliocentrism rating of all time (i.e 1993 was a massive carry job, due to the aging cast and down years from the players still in their primes). Meanwhile the 1994 Bulls are... *significantly* below the Top 100.
-In Fivethirtyeght's best teams ever by Overall ELO (pre-2016), the 1993 Bulls are the 31st best team of all time, while the 1994 Bulls are the 199th best team of all time. A pretty massive drop.

So I'm not sure any team-level two year WOWY argument against Jordan for Pippen really stands up to any actual detailed analysis.

...

And basically every stat we have favors Jordan significantly:
WOWY stats:
-Prime WOWY
-Prime WOWYR (adjusted WOWY)
-Prime GPM (another adjusted WOWY metric)
-RWOWY (another adjusted WOWY metric)
Plus minus stats:
-on/off favors Jordan
-Squared2020 RAPM favors Jordan > Pippen generally, although we do not have 1994
Box stats:
-BPM favors Jordan
-PIPM estimate favors Jordan
-RAPTOR favors Jordan

I'm not even sure how I'd begin to believe an argument for Pippen > Jordan, again unless we're really hyper-focusing on some massive uncertainty argument like "what's the 0.01th percentile worst evaluation I could make of 1993 Jordan, and the 99.99th percentile best evaluation I could make for 1994 Pippen". But that seems like a stretch.

Can u summarise that essay u linked for me ?

You're welcome to read it and let me know if you have questions! Happy to answer any questions you have

Can u link those stats u say favour 93 mj over 94 pippen ?

WOWY stats are from Thinking Basketball.
RWOWY is from Moonbeam's thread on this forum. (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2311737#p107821446)
Plus minus stats: https://squared2020.com, viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2323051
-BPM: basketball reference and Thinking Basketball.
-RAPTOR you can just google, or it's from fivethirtyeight here https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-our-raptor-metric-works/. PIPM is from a database, here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EIZvj_3-9SZULWomHz54V1CPL092j70u_0vUhoEEaIk/edit#gid=90945325

anyways u ignored the negative bpm the starters had even bj Armstrong had a negative bpm yet pippen took them to 55 wins despite him missing 12 games

,kukoc was an inefficient player,5 of the bulls player saw an increase in fg percentage also I never mentioned wowy in my post

Whiffyemperor wrote:@DraymondGold Steve kerr had a negative bpm and a 0.0 vorp his previous season he certainly wasn't an upgrade

I didn't ignore your points. I provided more context and counter stats!

"I never mentioned wowy in my post", not by name, but you did by method. Saying "Bulls had a better defense -4ppg less without jordan the following season" is a defensive WOWY measurement. It's looking at *team* performance with and without a player. That's a WOWY, and a kind of measurement that has ~130% uncertainty on average! (see my linked post above). That amount of uncertainty is far too wide to say that Jordan looking slightly worse in a single sample (that doesn't correct for other changes) actually means 94 Pippen > 93 Jordan.

And I didn't "ignore the negative bpm the starters had", you igored who they were replacing, Whiffyemperor.

"kukoc was an inefficient player": Kukoc was +1.0 BPM replacing -4.3 BPM Rodney McCray and +0.7 Trent Tuckere. I.e. +1.4 VORP (total BPM over season) replacing 0.0 net VORP, that's a +1.4 VORP improvement.

"Steve kerr had a negative bpm and a 0.0 vorp his previous season he certainly wasn't an upgrade". Steve Kerr had a +0.8 Basketball Reference BPM (*not negative*) and a +1.5 VORP in 1994, replacing -2.8 BPM and -0.2 VORP John Paxson and -1.9 BPM +0.0 VORP Darrell Walker. That's a +1.7 VORP improvement.

-Bill Wennington was a -0.1 VORP in 1994, replacing a -0.9 VORP Cartwright and a -0.3 Stacey King, that's a +1.1 VORP improvement.

In these three switches alone, the Bulls improved +4.2 VORP improvement going from 1993 to 1994, ignoring Jordan and Pippen! The roster was much better in 1994 based on the trades they made, according to the metric you suggested using in BPM and VORP.

This is Jordan by a long-shot. We’ve lost the script with such a comparison. I’d entertain peak Pippen over 85 Jordan, perhaps 1987 (who I’m not as high on as the stats are) but even that year is questionable. Anything after that, I just can’t see. Obviously excluding his Wizards year.

DraymondGold wrote:

Whiffyemperor wrote:

DraymondGold wrote:Short of some argument involving the maximum possible uncertainty bars possible (e.g. saying Pippen's highest possible uncertainty band has him competing for a top 10 peak ever), no not really.

The biggest thing people would level against Jordan in 1993 is the two-year WOWY sample, showing the team with him in 1993 vs without him in 1994. But this conveniently ignores that the *average* uncertainty on two-year WOWY is significantly more than 100%. Across all the overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 15 players, the mean uncertainty is 144%. The average uncertainty in all overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 30 players is 124%. That's the average uncertainty, not the maximum possible uncertainty, and it's based on 25 pairs of overlapping two-year WOWY samples... so a full 50 two-year WOWY samples (source: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=108693994#p108693994).

And of course, this misses all of the context that changed from 1993 to 1994, which would support that Jordan's two-year WOWY would be quite uncertain (with the uncertainty pointing to Jordan being better than the two-year WOWY sample would suggest). Citing trex here (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107591289#p107591289), the Bulls add the following players in 1994:
-Toni Kukoc: is replacing "mostly the last legs of Rodney McCray that he's replacing (plus some misc of last legs Trent Tucker, maybe scattered minutes of their various bigs). He's a clear upgrade from that."
-Steve Kerr: who definitely had a good year, and "compared to the '93 team, it's the last legs of John Paxson and Darrell Walker that he replaces........a clear upgrade."
-Bill Wennington: who returned to the NBA in 1994 and had his best year due to age, and " he's a slight upgrade over the minutes he's replacing on the '93 team [washed up Cartwright and bloated and undermotivated Stacey King, primarily]."
... and Pippen and Grant both have their worst regular season in 1993 and a bounce back season in 1994:

... and I haven't seen any sort of film based argument that puts the blame on their down year on 93 Jordan.

This also doesn't account for the fact that their playoffs were boosted by opposing injuries in 1994:
-"'94 series against Cleveland was a Cav team whose frontcourt was utterly decimated by injury: Nance, Daugherty, and HR Williams were ALL out for the series. The closest thing the Cavs had to defensive anchor were the Williams/Nance minutes."
-Against 1994 Knicks, the Bulls benefited from facing a team without their starting point guard, Doc Rivers, who missed the end of the regular season and the full playoffs.

Looking at overall team results,
-In Sansterre's Top 100 teams ever by Overall (RS + PS) SRS, the 1993 Bulls are the 54th best team of all time, and Jordan posted the #1 Heliocentrism rating of all time (i.e 1993 was a massive carry job, due to the aging cast and down years from the players still in their primes). Meanwhile the 1994 Bulls are... *significantly* below the Top 100.
-In Fivethirtyeght's best teams ever by Overall ELO (pre-2016), the 1993 Bulls are the 31st best team of all time, while the 1994 Bulls are the 199th best team of all time. A pretty massive drop.

So I'm not sure any team-level two year WOWY argument against Jordan for Pippen really stands up to any actual detailed analysis.

...

And basically every stat we have favors Jordan significantly:
WOWY stats:
-Prime WOWY
-Prime WOWYR (adjusted WOWY)
-Prime GPM (another adjusted WOWY metric)
-RWOWY (another adjusted WOWY metric)
Plus minus stats:
-on/off favors Jordan
-Squared2020 RAPM favors Jordan > Pippen generally, although we do not have 1994
Box stats:
-BPM favors Jordan
-PIPM estimate favors Jordan
-RAPTOR favors Jordan

I'm not even sure how I'd begin to believe an argument for Pippen > Jordan, again unless we're really hyper-focusing on some massive uncertainty argument like "what's the 0.01th percentile worst evaluation I could make of 1993 Jordan, and the 99.99th percentile best evaluation I could make for 1994 Pippen". But that seems like a stretch.

Can u summarise that essay u linked for me ?

You're welcome to read it and let me know if you have questions! Happy to answer any questions you have

Can u link those stats u say favour 93 mj over 94 pippen ?

WOWY stats are from Thinking Basketball.
RWOWY is from Moonbeam's thread on this forum. (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2311737#p107821446)
Plus minus stats: https://squared2020.com, viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2323051
-BPM: basketball reference and Thinking Basketball.
-RAPTOR you can just google, or it's from fivethirtyeight here https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-our-raptor-metric-works/. PIPM is from a database, here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EIZvj_3-9SZULWomHz54V1CPL092j70u_0vUhoEEaIk/edit#gid=90945325

anyways u ignored the negative bpm the starters had even bj Armstrong had a negative bpm yet pippen took them to 55 wins despite him missing 12 games

,kukoc was an inefficient player,5 of the bulls player saw an increase in fg percentage also I never mentioned wowy in my post

Whiffyemperor wrote:@DraymondGold Steve kerr had a negative bpm and a 0.0 vorp his previous season he certainly wasn't an upgrade

I didn't ignore your points. I provided more context and counter stats!

"I never mentioned wowy in my post", not by name, but you did by method. Saying "Bulls had a better defense -4ppg less without jordan the following season" is a defensive WOWY measurement. It's looking at *team* performance with and without a player. That's a WOWY, and a kind of measurement that has ~130% uncertainty on average! (see my linked post above). That amount of uncertainty is far too wide to say that Jordan looking slightly worse in a single sample (that doesn't correct for other changes) actually means 94 Pippen > 93 Jordan.

And I didn't "ignore the negative bpm the starters had", you igored who they were replacing, Whiffyemperor.

"kukoc was an inefficient player": Kukoc was +1.0 BPM replacing -4.3 BPM Rodney McCray and +0.7 Trent Tuckere. I.e. +1.4 VORP (total BPM over season) replacing 0.0 net VORP, that's a +1.4 VORP improvement.

"Steve kerr had a negative bpm and a 0.0 vorp his previous season he certainly wasn't an upgrade". Steve Kerr had a +0.8 Basketball Reference BPM (*not negative*) and a +1.5 VORP in 1994, replacing -2.8 BPM and -0.2 VORP John Paxson and -1.9 BPM +0.0 VORP Darrell Walker. That's a +1.7 VORP improvement.

-Bill Wennington was a -0.1 VORP in 1994, replacing a -0.9 VORP Cartwright and a -0.3 Stacey King, that's a +1.1 VORP improvement.

In these three switches alone, the Bulls improved +4.2 VORP improvement going from 1993 to 1994, ignoring Jordan and Pippen! The roster was much better in 1994 based on the trades they made, according to the metric you suggested using in BPM and VORP.

Fair point how do I contact u I can't dm messages here do u have any socials I can contact u with

No case. Noteworthy additions and the major changes in production from BJ Armstrong and Ho Grant are the consequential changes. Simple enough to see.

As was the offensive change.

Whiffyemperor wrote:Fair point how do I contact u I can't dm messages here do u have any socials I can contact u with

Cheers! I'm happy to discuss more in the thread, or DM here on realgm once you're able to DM here!

Whiffyemperor wrote:

DraymondGold wrote:Short of some argument involving the maximum possible uncertainty bars possible (e.g. saying Pippen's highest possible uncertainty band has him competing for a top 10 peak ever), no not really.

The biggest thing people would level against Jordan in 1993 is the two-year WOWY sample, showing the team with him in 1993 vs without him in 1994. But this conveniently ignores that the *average* uncertainty on two-year WOWY is significantly more than 100%. Across all the overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 15 players, the mean uncertainty is 144%. The average uncertainty in all overlapping two-year WOWY samples in this board's top 30 players is 124%. That's the average uncertainty, not the maximum possible uncertainty, and it's based on 25 pairs of overlapping two-year WOWY samples... so a full 50 two-year WOWY samples (source: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=108693994#p108693994).

And of course, this misses all of the context that changed from 1993 to 1994, which would support that Jordan's two-year WOWY would be quite uncertain (with the uncertainty pointing to Jordan being better than the two-year WOWY sample would suggest). Citing trex here (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107591289#p107591289), the Bulls add the following players in 1994:
-Toni Kukoc: is replacing "mostly the last legs of Rodney McCray that he's replacing (plus some misc of last legs Trent Tucker, maybe scattered minutes of their various bigs). He's a clear upgrade from that."
-Steve Kerr: who definitely had a good year, and "compared to the '93 team, it's the last legs of John Paxson and Darrell Walker that he replaces........a clear upgrade."
-Bill Wennington: who returned to the NBA in 1994 and had his best year due to age, and " he's a slight upgrade over the minutes he's replacing on the '93 team [washed up Cartwright and bloated and undermotivated Stacey King, primarily]."
... and Pippen and Grant both have their worst regular season in 1993 and a bounce back season in 1994:

trex_8063 wrote:Inasmuch as the "Jordan holding them down" implication.....
Well, obviously their offensive loads are going to go up in his absence. As to efficiency, this isn't the best year, for either of them.

Looking at Pippen's prime seasons in Chicago, ranked by rTS%:

'91: +2.7%
'92: +2.4%
'97: +1.8%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.64%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): +1.61%
'96: +0.9%
'98: +0.9%
'93: -2.6%

So '93 is just a complete outlier amid the rest of his prime in Chicago (not only does it rank 8th of 8 seasons, but the gap between it and 7th place is nearly TWICE as large as the gap between 7th and 1st).
I say again: it was a "down" year (which doesn't appear to have a lot to due with Jordan, given Pippen's three BEST in terms of shooting efficiency all happened while playing alongside him).

As far as turnover economy is concerned, TOV% is a near-useless stat, imo, as it only considers tov and TSA (according to TOV%, John Stockton has a horrendous turnover economy). Pippen [naturally] had to shift slightly to less playmaking and more scoring in the absense of Jordan (which has repercussions where TOV% is concerned).
My Modified TOV% factors in other responsibilities and production endeavours that may result in a turnover (most notably: playmaking for others [and general ball-handling repsonsibilities]).
Here are his best Chicago seasons by mTOV%:

'98: 7.27%
'97: 7.60%
'96: 7.85%
'92: 8.00%
'93: 8.39%
'91: 8.44%
'94 (without Jordan): 8.74%
'95 (mostly without Jordan, and without Grant): 9.81%

^^He mostly appears to just get better with age (with '93 again being a slight blip in the trend)......except, that is, for years where he's playing without Jordan and has to shoulder more offensive responsibility: those two years playing without [or mostly without] Jordan are the two worst seasons of his prime in Chicago in terms of turnover economy ('95 actually rates out as worst by a solid margin).



For Grant, here are his prime Chicago seasons ranked by rTS%.....

'92: +8.7%
'91: +5.1%
'94 (no Jordan): +1.2%
'93: -0.2%
(and fwiw, he bounces right back up in '95 playing with a talent-laden Orlando team)

'93 is a clear outlier ("down") year within this part of his prime. While '94 is solidly better than that down year, it's even "more solidly" behind '91, and laughably behind '92.

In terms of mTOV% (this is one of the underappreciated aspects of Horace Grant: how good he was at ball-control and playing within his limitations on offense).....

'92: 6.26%
'94 (no Jordan): 6.53%
'91: 6.63%
'93: 7.05%

Again, '93 just a bit of an outlier within his prime years in Chicago. '94 holds its own against other prime Chicago years, but is not the best of them.


'93 is just flatly an outlier down [within their primes as a whole] for both of them in terms of offensive efficiency. It's the clear worst by a country mile for Grant, and is either worst all-around or basically tied with '95 [a mostly sans-Jordan year] as worst all-around for Pippen.
But while '94 is better [than '93] for each of them, it is also very clearly NOT the most-efficient [nor even one of the most efficient] Chicago season for either of them.

... and I haven't seen any sort of film based argument that puts the blame on their down year on 93 Jordan.

This also doesn't account for the fact that their playoffs were boosted by opposing injuries in 1994:
-"'94 series against Cleveland was a Cav team whose frontcourt was utterly decimated by injury: Nance, Daugherty, and HR Williams were ALL out for the series. The closest thing the Cavs had to defensive anchor were the Williams/Nance minutes."
-Against 1994 Knicks, the Bulls benefited from facing a team without their starting point guard, Doc Rivers, who missed the end of the regular season and the full playoffs.

Looking at overall team results,
-In Sansterre's Top 100 teams ever by Overall (RS + PS) SRS, the 1993 Bulls are the 54th best team of all time, and Jordan posted the #1 Heliocentrism rating of all time (i.e 1993 was a massive carry job, due to the aging cast and down years from the players still in their primes). Meanwhile the 1994 Bulls are... *significantly* below the Top 100.
-In Fivethirtyeght's best teams ever by Overall ELO (pre-2016), the 1993 Bulls are the 31st best team of all time, while the 1994 Bulls are the 199th best team of all time. A pretty massive drop.

So I'm not sure any team-level two year WOWY argument against Jordan for Pippen really stands up to any actual detailed analysis.

...

And basically every stat we have favors Jordan significantly:
WOWY stats:
-Prime WOWY
-Prime WOWYR (adjusted WOWY)
-Prime GPM (another adjusted WOWY metric)
-RWOWY (another adjusted WOWY metric)
Plus minus stats:
-on/off favors Jordan
-Squared2020 RAPM favors Jordan > Pippen generally, although we do not have 1994
Box stats:
-BPM favors Jordan
-PIPM estimate favors Jordan
-RAPTOR favors Jordan

I'm not even sure how I'd begin to believe an argument for Pippen > Jordan, again unless we're really hyper-focusing on some massive uncertainty argument like "what's the 0.01th percentile worst evaluation I could make of 1993 Jordan, and the 99.99th percentile best evaluation I could make for 1994 Pippen". But that seems like a stretch.

Can u summarise that essay u linked for me ?

Can u link those stats u say favour 93 mj over 94 pippen ? anyways u ignored the negative bpm the starters had even bj Armstrong had a negative bpm yet pippen took them to 55 wins despite him missing 12 games

,kukoc was an inefficient player,5 of the bulls player saw an increase in fg percentage also I never mentioned wowy in my post

It can basically be as summarized as

1. "why don't you use 1992 for on instead?" and we can.

Jordan clocks out at around +5 in the rs with some playoff elevation, better than the +4 for Scottie and you can expand that margin depending on how you frame the playoff comparison.

2. "here are all these reasons the 94 bulls are overrated"

not going to get deep into it though it's a bit of a tell this exercise isn't done with 1993. Nonetheless, reasons the Bulls could be underrated here(especially relative to 1992)

-> The Bulls were coming off a three-peat with escalating internal tensions(paticularly with Pippen) and probably weren't going all-out in the rs(play like +6, top 3 team vs knicks)
-> Pete Myers was a bad replacement and Scottie infamously spent minutes at shooting-guard
-> Pippen suffered his first major injury and grant missed games
-> Bulls played the knicks without home-court(may well have had it if healthy)
-> Chicago performed similarly in 1995 by net-rating despite grant leaving and pippen filing a trade-request(further supporting the regular-season wasn't the 94 team's true-level)

3. "here's all the data across several years suggesting jordan is better"

Sure. It doesn't neccesitate Jordan be better ever year, but there's cause to give Jordan benefit of the doubt regardless(Which is part of why I and most are inclined to favor Jordan strongly here).

The bigger issue is the per-season sample is much smaller, Its gets more problematic with something like wowyr and the like are working off very tiny samples and then potentially distorting them with "adjustments" set across various years. The aim here is to replicate rapm. How well it does that

4. "box-stats"

This isn't really too meaningful. If one constructed a metric that devalued scoring in favor of versatility across the other categories(there's not a particularly strong reason not to do this I can think of), Pippen could score higher even vs higher ranked mj years. Or if someone just decided to do a metric counting stuff like this instead(justification: Bill Russell):

There's an idea known as "the tyranny of the quantifiable", but I think sometimes it's more accurately to describe it as "the tyranny of what we choose to quanitfy[/b].

All said, I would have a hard time buying pippen vs any jordan besides 85, washington and maaybe 86/97, and maaybe 95(granted people will argue he was similar enough in 96 via some box-interpretations). Jordan was bailed in 93, but I think he played better for the rest of the playoffs and I'm not sure Pippen's numbers looking better in the regular-season were goodness as opposed to role. As is, Scottie's playoff peak was arguably earlier by metrics like bpm(I buy into 1991 being his best in terms of "level of play") 

BPM and WOWYR isn't really why.

Whiffyemperor wrote:Pippen shot better without mj than with mj tho so did 5 of the bulls player than played in 93

,pippen faced one of the best defensive teams of all time with players with negative bpm on his team and despite that took them to 7

Mj also shot bad against the knicks in 93 and pippen and his supporting cast bailed him out

Please. MJ was way better against the Knicks than Pippen (both years). Look at Pippen's turnovers.

Pippen is not even close to MJ at all, get it through your head. He's lucky he even got to play with Michael.

And that's not even getting into him pouting and refusing to go back in the game when Phil Jackson have Kukoc the last shot. You don't want to talk about that BS.

Jordan and it's not close.

You should be required to go back and watch at least 35 games from each of the seasons in question before being allowed to post an OP like this.

More interesting comparison:
2011 Wade vs 2012 LeBron.

02 MJ