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The weird rabbit holes you go on in the morning

Just curious and seeing as how I don't have stathead, I was wondering how many teams have there been where you had two guys putting up basically MVP-tier numbers on one team. The closest I've found are LeBron (10.9) and Wade (7.9) in 2012, and KD (9.9) and Westbrook (7.8) in 2016, which are both off just decimal points, but obviously I'm looking for more teams that were top heavy to that extreme and actually pretty successful

Just checked stathead, 2020 lakers are the only ones ever in the regular season. 8.4 BPM for LeBron and 8.0 for Davis.

In the playoffs, you have the 1980 Lakers (8.9 Kareem, 8.0 magic), 2017 Warriors (9.9 Durant, 9.7 Curry), 2020 Lakers (10.7 LeBron, 8.7 Davis), and if you lower the minutes filter, the 2021 Nets (10.0 Durant, 9.1 Harden)

The only one I'm aware of is '20 LeBron/AD.

KD had a 1/3 of a season in '15 that was above 8, but unlikely both he and Westbrook would've stayed over 8 if he'd been healthy.

jalengreen wrote:Just checked stathead, 2020 lakers are the only ones ever in the regular season. 8.4 BPM for LeBron and 8.0 for Davis.

In the playoffs, you have the 1980 Lakers (8.9 Kareem, 8.0 magic), 2017 Warriors (9.9 Durant, 9.7 Curry), 2020 Lakers (10.7 LeBron, 8.7 Davis), and if you lower the minutes filter, the 2021 Nets (10.0 Durant, 9.1 Harden)

Hm, good find - I'd say from start to finish with both regular & postseason accounted for, the 2020 Lakers were probably the best frontloaded team I can think of; it was a small wonder advanced stats had them as underdogs almost every series Basically just AD, Bron, and a bunch of role players who did things that don't really show up in the box score.

In the '96 playoffs Pippen was at 9.3 and Jordan 8.1 BPM until 2020.
Then they changed the BPM formula to make Jordan look better and LeBron worse, but even with that change 1996 PS Pippen is still pretty close at 7.8 BPM (MJ now 10.7).

I think the specific question has probably been fully answered by the above posts. Another one that was sort of close was Duncan and Ginobili in 2007. Ginobili had a 7.8 BPM and Duncan had a 7.0 BPM.

parapooper wrote:In the '96 playoffs Pippen was at 9.3 and Jordan 8.1 BPM until 2020.
Then they changed the BPM formula to make Jordan look better and LeBron worse, but even with that change 1996 PS Pippen is still pretty close at 7.8 BPM (MJ now 10.7).

The BPM formula change was specifically for Westbrook and Jordan, not LeBron.

How far back do the records run? Do they include, say, Baylor and West from the 60s? Johnston and Arizin from the 50? Pre-1950 players?

penbeast0 wrote:How far back do the records run? Do they include, say, Baylor and West from the 60s? Johnston and Arizin from the 50? Pre-1950 players?

No, BPM data on basketball reference begins in 1974.

penbeast0 wrote:How far back do the records run? Do they include, say, Baylor and West from the 60s? Johnston and Arizin from the 50? Pre-1950 players?

Reference does BPM from the 1974 season forward when steals, blocks and distinct offensive and defensive rebounds were recorded.

Not all the numbers are quite the same ... leaving aside positional designations and different weightings there ... and there was suggestion of a simplified BPM estimate-y thing but at this point it's quite possible it's never coming

From the 1985 season to the present, the BPM values presented are summed-up game level values. Summing up the game-level calculations better handles strength of schedule. This improvement mostly has an impact on players that missed a significant number of games.
From 1974 through the 1984 season, the BPM values presented are the season-level values. From 1974 to 1977, turnovers are estimated using an approach given in the appendix.
From 1954 to 1974, a simplified BPM is coming soon.

via Basketball-Reference and Daniel Myers, https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm2.html


Looking at Reference though West doesn't really hit his prime production levels until '64 as Baylor drops off by the Reference metrics available there. I guess '62 is the best shot (in terms of the metrics available as a proxy) where PER and WS/48 for West are at a glance very marginally below the worst they would be for the 64-73 period.

'56 or '57 Philly do have two high production guys. Johnston is more impressive by those RS metrics. I think maybe neither being big passers (otoh) might hurt more for BPM.


Stockton and Malone do each get to 8 at some point, but they don't share a season with each being over 7. Stockton has many 8 or above seasons ('88-'95 excepting '93), Malone only '97. Malone does spike above 7 in '93 in the year Stockton drops from his perch down to 6.6. The broad patterns continue in the playoffs (JS several [though fewer] seasons above 8, Malone now 0; still no seasons of both at 7 or better).

In terms of the 7 threshold early 90s Blazers get fairly close
Porter gets to 7.4 in '91
Drexler averages 7.6 over 90-92 ... but only 6.8 in '91 specifically.

Colbinii wrote:

parapooper wrote:In the '96 playoffs Pippen was at 9.3 and Jordan 8.1 BPM until 2020.
Then they changed the BPM formula to make Jordan look better and LeBron worse, but even with that change 1996 PS Pippen is still pretty close at 7.8 BPM (MJ now 10.7).

The BPM formula change was specifically for Westbrook and Jordan, not LeBron.

I don't want to get into that and shouldn't have brought it up.

Another close one were the Spurs in the 2005 playoffs: Manu 9.2, Horry 7.6 (new BPM, both 600+ minutes)

And another sort of close one in the old BPM: the 2014 Spurs where 4 500+ minute guys had a BPM rounding to 7 in the playoffs (Kawhi, Manu, Green and Splitter).
In the new BPM they had 7!!! 350+ minute guys with bpm >3, while on the Miami "superteam" they were facing only LeBron met those criteria.

Also interesting:
The 1999 Knicks made the finals despite having noone who reached a BPM of 2 in the regular season.

parapooper wrote:In the '96 playoffs Pippen was at 9.3 and Jordan 8.1 BPM until 2020.
Then they changed the BPM formula to make Jordan look better and LeBron worse, but even with that change 1996 PS Pippen is still pretty close at 7.8 BPM (MJ now 10.7).

That was a big no-no—something had to be done.

homecourtloss wrote:

parapooper wrote:In the '96 playoffs Pippen was at 9.3 and Jordan 8.1 BPM until 2020.
Then they changed the BPM formula to make Jordan look better and LeBron worse, but even with that change 1996 PS Pippen is still pretty close at 7.8 BPM (MJ now 10.7).

That was a big no-no—something had to be done.

I mean, I'm a LeBron fan but that's really not what this thread was about. I thought people were exaggerating when they said this place got overrun by the LeBron Defense Force