New Impact Metric: MAMBA

[lessthanjake]

I’m sure some people here are already aware of this (and the author may well be a poster here for all I know), but there’s an interesting new impact metric that was released a few months ago, called MAMBA.

There is an initial write up of the methodology and general discussion of the metric here: https://www.teemohoop.com/mamba/Blog%20Post%20Title%20One-mm8gk-cy9wh. That describes the original version of the metric, but the metric was updated, and a description of the updates can be found here: https://www.teemohoop.com/mamba/mamba-reworked-updated#Ser.

I’ll let the description of the metric speak for itself rather than trying to paraphrase what the above two links provide regarding the methodology. The main description of the methodology is in the initial write up, but obviously updates/changes were made for the updated version. Based on the write-up, the updated version sounds like it was changed in part to deal with results the author thought seemed wrong, including changes made in order to improve the standing of LeBron and Giannis—who the author felt the original version had underrated. In any event, in both write-ups, the author details how this metric outperforms both EPM and LEBRON in out-of-sample years.

The results of the updated version can be found here: https://timotaij.github.io/LepookTable/

Here is a list of the top 10 in each season:

2014-15

1. Stephen Curry: 11.067
2. Chris Paul: 9.71
3. LeBron James: 9.239
4. James Harden: 8.473
5. George Hill: 8.261
6. Kevin Durant: 8.043
7. Anthony Davis: 8.009
8. Kawhi Leonard: 7.564
9. Russell Westbrook: 7.285
10. Kyle Lowry: 6.565

2015-16

1. Stephen Curry: 12.404
2. LeBron James: 10.385
3. Kawhi Leonard: 9.748
4. Chris Paul: 9.078
5. Russell Westbrook: 8.617
6. Kevin Durant: 8.268
7. Kyle Lowry: 7.776
8. Draymond Green: 7.706
9. James Harden: 6.967
10. Ricky Rubio: 6.556

2016-17

1. LeBron James: 10.174
2. Stephen Curry: 10.034
3. Chris Paul: 9.693
4. Kawhi Leonard: 9.372
5. Kyle Lowry: 8.907
6. Russell Westbrook: 8.533
7. Jimmy Butler: 7.845
8. James Harden: 7.588
9. Kevin Durant: 7.536
10. Draymond Green: 7.279

2017-18

1. Stephen Curry: 10.167
2. LeBron James: 8.825
3. Chris Paul: 8.573
4. James Harden: 8.290
5. Kyle Lowry: 8.265
6. Kemba Walker: 8.022
7. Kawhi Leonard: 7.855
8. Damian Lillard: 7.699
9. Anthony Davis: 7.438
10. Jimmy Butler: 7.350

2018-19

1. James Harden: 9.871
2. Stephen Curry: 9.050
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 8.626
4. Paul George: 8.205
5. Anthony Davis: 8.005
6. LeBron James: 7.653
7. Damian Lillard: 7.601
8. Rudy Gobert: 7.304
9. Joel Embiid: 7.127
10. Kyle Lowry: 7.063

2019-20

1. James Harden: 10.650
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 10.181
3. LeBron James: 9.295
4. Damian Lillard: 9.060
5. Kawhi Leonard: 8.519
6. Anthony Davis: 7.244
7. Karl-Anthony Towns: 6.985
8. Jimmy Butler: 6.936
9. Paul George: 6.916
10. Chris Paul: 6.669

2020-21

1. Stephen Curry: 9.510
2. LeBron James: 9.289
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 9.177
4. Kawhi Leonard: 9.104
5. Nikola Jokic: 8.218
6. Kevin Durant: 8.086
7. Jimmy Butler: 8.026
8. Rudy Gobert: 7.997
9. Damian Lillard: 7.974
10. James Harden: 7.767

2021-22

1. Nikola Jokic: 10.891
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 9.401
3. Stephen Curry: 8.949
4. LeBron James: 8.835
5. Kevin Durant: 8.374
6. Jayson Tatum: 8.327
7. Joel Embiid: 7.976
8. Rudy Gobert: 7.92
9. Jrue Holiday: 6.928
10. Kyrie Irving: 6.678

2022-23

1. Nikola Jokic: 10.642
2. Kawhi Leonard: 8.657
3. Joel Embiid: 8.624
4. Damian Lillard: 8.313
5. Stephen Curry: 8.257
6. Kevin Durant: 8.256
7. Jimmy Butler: 7.877
8. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 7.715
9. Jayson Tatum: 7.712
10. LeBron James: 7.621

2023-24

1. Nikola Jokic: 10.199
2. Joel Embiid: 10.181
3. Shaq Gilgeous-Alexander: 9.663
4. Luka Doncic: 9.615
5. LeBron James: 8.543
6. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 8.464
7. Jalen Brunson: 8.107
8. Donovan Mitchell: 7.958
9. Paul George: 7.777
10. Kawhi Leonard: 7.656

Just so people are aware, the website https://www.nbarapm.com/ seems to include MAMBA rankings from the original version of the model. So, for instance, that website shows LeBron ranking 6th, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 4th, 4th, 5th, 13th, and 10th in MAMBA (in chronological order starting at 2015), instead of 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 6th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 10th, and 5th. As noted above and in the update write-up, that reflects the updated version of the model making changes to improve LeBron’s standing. There are, of course, subtle changes abound for other players as well, as we’d expect for an updated model. So if you want to see what the original model said too, you can find that output on the nbarapm website (at least for now—I assume eventually this will get updated there).

Overall, looking at this data, we unsurprisingly have the usual suspects near the top of these rankings. As with most impact data during this timeframe, Steph Curry generally comes out looking the best, until Jokic comes to the fore in the last few years. Like with RAPTOR, Harden did have a period in 2019 and 2020 where he’s at the top too. LeBron looks consistently good, of course. The model also definitely likes Kyle Lowry a lot.

[prolific passer]

White Mamba or Black mamba?

[OhayoKD]

I’m sure some people here are already aware of this (and the author may well be a poster here for all I know), but there’s an interesting new impact metric that was released a few months ago, called MAMBA

They are actually. Though I think they prefer I leave it ambiguous.

Overall, looking at this data, we unsurprisingly have the usual suspects near the top of these rankings. As with most impact data during this timeframe, Steph Curry generally comes out looking the best, until Jokic comes to the fore in the last few years. Like with RAPTOR, Harden did have a period in 2019 and 2020 where he’s at the top too. LeBron looks consistently good, of course. The model also definitely likes Kyle Lowry a lot.

Creator made a comment some might find interesting on this a couple months ago:

when I didn’t weight box scores heavily bron was better than curry, weighting box scores more helped the model be higher in testing but imo that’s more it being more stable for most stars than everyone

They expound on this in the original explanation as well (though they had a longer section on lebron specifically they cut out)

Note(2015 to 2017 was interesting because Lebron shot up the less I weighed the box score, so kind of the “This type of stuff undersells him” vibe, he was overall #1 taking the 3 years together in the impact part of it by alot (Curry 15-17 was the #2 stretch from 2014 to 2024 I think too, or something like that. Also it gets AD very wrong, its very low on AD for some reason which I disagree with).

Similar with what we see with LEBRON and RAPTOR where 15-17 Steph vs Lebron generally depends on to the degree available box-scores are weighed.

[NBA4Lyfe]

more evidence that harden was robbed of mvp in 2019.. almost like averaging 36ppg and being 8 points ahead of the second place scorer means something

[penbeast0]

Next rating metric will be named WEMBY

[tsherkin]

more evidence that harden was robbed of mvp in 2019.. almost like averaging 36ppg and being 8 points ahead of the second place scorer means something

Volume alone means only so much. And defense is a thing.

Also, the 2019 Bucks won 7 more games than the Rockets, and Giannis WAS a 28/12/5/6 guy on 64.4% TS himself, 2nd in the DPOY race and all that.

"Robbed" is a big word, which is violently inappropriate. One can make an argument that Harden should have won the MVP that year, but "robbed" is very much not an accurate description.

[homecourtloss]

Bron in top 5 in multiple impact data sets at age 39 is beyond wild.

[lessthanjake]

Bron in top 5 in multiple impact data sets at age 39 is beyond wild.

LeBron is almost certainly the best age-39 player we’ve seen (Kareem and Karl Malone have arguments, but not very good ones IMO), but where are you getting the “top 5 in multiple impact data sets” thing? Last year was LeBron’s age-39 year, and he was 5th last year in this data set (though worth noting he was 10th until the model was updated in part to improve LeBron’s standing). I’m not aware of any other impact data set that has LeBron that high last year though. He was 10th in EPM, 19th in LEBRON, 11th in DPM, and 62nd in BasketballDatabase’s pure RAPM. There’s several metrics that didn’t exist last year (RAPTOR and RPM, for instance), so obviously those don’t have any ranking for LeBron last year at all. I’m not sure where you’re getting the “multiple” part here, but maybe I’m missing something. Anyways, I think the above-mentioned stuff is definitely still impressive given LeBron’s age, but besides this measure it’s all well off top 5. What metric besides this one has LeBron that high last year? To me, this measure seems like a bit of an outlier in how high it rates old LeBron—which is not a surprise given that it was updated with an eye towards making LeBron do better. And that’s fine, since different models make different choices that end up being good or bad for different players, which is part of why I often say we should look at all available data rather than indexing heavily on any one specific thing (though even that doesn’t eliminate noise, since there’s significant noise inherent to the RAPM or RAPM-like data that all these models utilize).

[EmpireFalls]

Just from the Kemba rating alone I love this metric.

[lessthanjake]

I’m sure some people here are already aware of this (and the author may well be a poster here for all I know), but there’s an interesting new impact metric that was released a few months ago, called MAMBA

They are actually. Though I think they prefer I leave it ambiguous.

Overall, looking at this data, we unsurprisingly have the usual suspects near the top of these rankings. As with most impact data during this timeframe, Steph Curry generally comes out looking the best, until Jokic comes to the fore in the last few years. Like with RAPTOR, Harden did have a period in 2019 and 2020 where he’s at the top too. LeBron looks consistently good, of course. The model also definitely likes Kyle Lowry a lot.

Creator made a comment some might find interesting on this a couple months ago:

when I didn’t weight box scores heavily bron was better than curry, weighting box scores more helped the model be higher in testing but imo that’s more it being more stable for most stars than everyone

They expound on this in the original explanation as well (though they had a longer section on lebron specifically they cut out)

Note(2015 to 2017 was interesting because Lebron shot up the less I weighed the box score, so kind of the “This type of stuff undersells him” vibe, he was overall #1 taking the 3 years together in the impact part of it by alot (Curry 15-17 was the #2 stretch from 2014 to 2024 I think too, or something like that. Also it gets AD very wrong, its very low on AD for some reason which I disagree with).

Similar with what we see with LEBRON and RAPTOR where 15-17 Steph vs Lebron generally depends on to the degree available box-scores are weighed.

What you’re quoting there effectively just amounts to saying that, while Steph did better than LeBron in this metric, LeBron did better than Steph specifically in the RAPM component of the metric from 2015-2017. But the RAPM component isn’t the entire model, and the reason it isn’t is because using a box component demonstrably improves the data, as the above quote acknowledges. Of course, one might take the position that box-components don’t improve RAPM if the RAPM sample is big enough. That gets to some difficult judgment calls, but it might be a valid position to prefer three-year RAPM to individual-year metrics that have a box component. In that sense, the quote from the original explanation for MAMBA *maybe* suggests the author had LeBron ahead in three-year RAPM in 2015-17 (not clear whether the reference to 2015-17 is referring to analysis of three different one-year RAPMs or of one three-year RAPM, though—the former being less useful). But even that would definitely by no means be a uniform result, with Steph being ahead of LeBron in the BasketballDatabase’s pure RAPM for the 2015-17 time period, as well as the old NBAshotcharts three-year RAPM for that time period. So I don’t really know that there’s any takeaway from what you posted beyond just “it is possible to run RAPM in a way that has LeBron ahead of Steph in 2015-17.” But, of course, as mentioned, we also have multiple RAPM measures that have Steph ahead of LeBron in 2015-17 (not to mention other timeframes as well), as well as hybrid impact metrics (including this one) that overwhelmingly favor Curry during the period of Curry’s prime, as I’ve repeatedly shown. As usual, you can choose to index on what you want—which, for you, often ends up involving indexing on the data found in one favorable component of a metric that doesn’t actually have results you like overall.

On a related issue, I’ll also note that it is definitely true that a measure can both be accurate in general but inaccurate regarding a particular player. That’s to be expected to some degree, since what different box/tracking info tends to mean in general isn’t necessarily what it means for a specific player. I’ve made an argument in the past about that regarding Moses Malone—who I think is idiosyncratically hurt by how little weight offensive rebounds get for big men in BPM, since, even though the measure is probably generally improving accuracy with its weighting, I think his offensive rebounding was more impactful than offensive rebounding is in general. And that’s why I prefer to look at lots of different metrics, because we can assume that some metrics idiosyncratically help or hurt different players, and getting an overall picture will minimize the effect of that (albeit not eliminate it). To take it back to this metric, is it the case that the box component idiosyncratically hurts LeBron? Maybe. The author of the metric suggested he thought so for the original version, but the metric has since been updated to improve LeBron’s standing for that reason, and also the author’s view on whether LeBron is rated too low is basically entirely subjective anyways.

In any event, I think we can put this in the pile of metrics we have—while maybe giving it *a little* more weight than other models because it seems to have tested pretty well. I also think the original version of the model could be given some weight too (like how I tend to look at both of JE’s career RAPM outputs), since it’s basically just a different way of doing the prior and the author acknowledged that many of the changes in the updated version were done to align with subjective views (and even indicated that things were taken out that had improved accuracy and things were added that didn’t improve testing results), so I don’t know that the updated version is inherently better. That said, we don’t have access to the output of the original model (except indirectly for the moment, as mentioned in my OP), so it’s not something I’d insist on doing.

[lessthanjake]

I think the following is probably flawed by different years potentially not being scaled the same, but FWIW, here’s a list of the top 20 seasons by MAMBA:

1. 2016 Curry: 12.404
2. 2015 Curry: 11.067
3. 2022 Jokic: 10.891
4. 2020 Harden: 10.650
5. 2023 Jokic: 10.642
6. 2016 LeBron: 10.385
7. 2024 Jokic: 10.199
8. 2020 Giannis: 10.181
9. 2024 Embiid: 10.181
10. 2017 LeBron: 10.174
11. 2018 Curry: 10.167
12. 2017 Curry: 10.034
13. 2019 Harden: 9.871
14. 2016 Kawhi: 9.748
15. 2015 CP3: 9.710
16. 2017 CP3: 9.693
17. 2024 SGA: 9.663
18. 2024 Luka: 9.615
19. 2021 Curry: 9.510
20. 2022 Giannis: 9.401

[OhayoKD]

I’m sure some people here are already aware of this (and the author may well be a poster here for all I know), but there’s an interesting new impact metric that was released a few months ago, called MAMBA

They are actually. Though I think they prefer I leave it ambiguous.

Overall, looking at this data, we unsurprisingly have the usual suspects near the top of these rankings. As with most impact data during this timeframe, Steph Curry generally comes out looking the best, until Jokic comes to the fore in the last few years. Like with RAPTOR, Harden did have a period in 2019 and 2020 where he’s at the top too. LeBron looks consistently good, of course. The model also definitely likes Kyle Lowry a lot.

Creator made a comment some might find interesting on this a couple months ago:

when I didn’t weight box scores heavily bron was better than curry, weighting box scores more helped the model be higher in testing but imo that’s more it being more stable for most stars than everyone

They expound on this in the original explanation as well (though they had a longer section on lebron specifically they cut out)

Note(2015 to 2017 was interesting because Lebron shot up the less I weighed the box score, so kind of the “This type of stuff undersells him” vibe, he was overall #1 taking the 3 years together in the impact part of it by alot (Curry 15-17 was the #2 stretch from 2014 to 2024 I think too, or something like that. Also it gets AD very wrong, its very low on AD for some reason which I disagree with).

Similar with what we see with LEBRON and RAPTOR where 15-17 Steph vs Lebron generally depends on to the degree available box-scores are weighed.

What you’re quoting there effectively just amounts to saying that, while Steph did better than LeBron in this metric, LeBron did better than Steph specifically in the RAPM component of the metric from 2015-2017.

And your statement effectively amounts to saying "Lebron looks better by results, steph looks better by a box-score", as we've seen with every one of these so far. it improving the data for 400 players doesn't change that. Box-scores are still sophisticated eye-tests at the end of the day. Validity of that for specific comparisons has been legislated plenty and will be legislated more. but the impact component is the only part relevant for titles like "impact king".

Fwiw, creator made an argument for lebron much like yours for Moses. Emphasis mine.

A case example. Awhile ago, I saw a pretty bad Article on BBall index.com. Now, I do really enjoy the site and like what it stands for, and to be clear, this WAS NOT WRITTEN BY TIM (also known as Cranjis Mcbasketball). Tims a smart guy and he’s pretty chill to talk to so he wouldnt write something like this, but the gist of the article was basically one of the other writers clickbaiting off of the olympics doing a “Lebrons not top 10 and I’ll tell you why with FACTS and STATS” and it just being a guy pulling out the LEBRON metric…

But it actually is relevant to this, because Lebron represents probably the clearest example (That I know of) of a high profile player that represents a bias. While I don’t want to go on a 10 page tangent defending Lebrons honor from LEBRON on a spreadsheet in Capslock, what I’ll say is that, especially on the defensive end, for pretty much his entire post Miami career (at the very least),any available “Box Score” component for an all in one of Lebron’s data severely undershoots him defensively. The 2 exceptions, 2018 and 2022, are the only years where his actual adjusted defensive impact data wasn’t good (according to RAPM). This is the case for LEBRON, DPM, and Mine (I’ll release the overall numbers, I can give the priors to anyone who asks but this is a first draft still so need to do some tuning) etc. . On a deeper level though, despite his great box scores, what you end up seeing fairly consistently is the more you weight box scores, the less impressive his All-in-One data can be. This doesn’t mean “Hey maybe his impact data overrates him” because that’s really not how it works if it’s this consistent for long periods of time for a high production player, it means Lebron is better than his box score production indicates. To be clear, Lebron’s career age adjusted impact data is by far the greatest in history, and if you only get playoff RAPM (there are caveats to doing it that way beyond the scope of this post), he’s basically a lone dot at the top even without adjusting for age, and that’s with him being in LeCoast mode in the Regular Season since 2014. All in one data ironically shrouds the case here, but for his Career Lebron is pretty much the Undisputed king in the realm of impact data (Although obviously now he’s no longer undisputed #1 there). I’[b]m sure there are other examples (I feel KG would be another guy?)

Bron in top 5 in multiple impact data sets at age 39 is beyond wild.

Seems plausible he'd be #1 for 2021 on the impact side of things. It would be nice if we could see what the rapm-only component looks like.

more evidence that harden was robbed of mvp in 2019.. almost like averaging 36ppg and being 8 points ahead of the second place scorer means something

Volume alone means only so much. And defense is a thing.

Also, the 2019 Bucks won 7 more games than the Rockets, and Giannis WAS a 28/12/5/6 guy on 64.4% TS himself, 2nd in the DPOY race and all that.

"Robbed" is a big word, which is violently inappropriate. One can make an argument that Harden should have won the MVP that year, but "robbed" is very much not an accurate description.

Also should go without saying this metric doesn't work as evidence for anything regarding a one-way guy vs a two-way one lol. Harden barely being ahead of Giannis in this stat for 2020 if anything makes his argument weaker for that year if anything

[OhayoKD]

Next rating metric will be named WEMBY

Wins
Emanating
out
of
Magnificently
Tall
Yankers

[NBA4Lyfe]

more evidence that harden was robbed of mvp in 2019.. almost like averaging 36ppg and being 8 points ahead of the second place scorer means something

Volume alone means only so much. And defense is a thing.

Also, the 2019 Bucks won 7 more games than the Rockets, and Giannis WAS a 28/12/5/6 guy on 64.4% TS himself, 2nd in the DPOY race and all that.

"Robbed" is a big word, which is violently inappropriate. One can make an argument that Harden should have won the MVP that year, but "robbed" is very much not an accurate description.

60 wins is nothing special historically. Im old enough to remember when there were about 4 or 5 60 win teams in a season. Those suns/mavs/spurs teams of the early 2000's regularly reached those win totals

What harden did on the other hand was historic

As for defense, for what it's worth harden averaged 2.1 steals a game that season

Rockets finished with 54 wins after starting 13-15 at one point that season

Not even gonna mention that Giannis in 2019 strategically load managed againist teams that could somewhat contain him and limit his efficiency... you know teams like the raptors and Miami heat. Avoid those teams to keep his PER inflated beating up on garbage teams


Also peeped that harden was top 10 in this metric in 2015-2016 the same season harden didnt make a single all-nba team smh

[Blame Rasho]

I need to see a RASHO ranking now…

[OhayoKD]

more evidence that harden was robbed of mvp in 2019.. almost like averaging 36ppg and being 8 points ahead of the second place scorer means something

Volume alone means only so much. And defense is a thing.

Also, the 2019 Bucks won 7 more games than the Rockets, and Giannis WAS a 28/12/5/6 guy on 64.4% TS himself, 2nd in the DPOY race and all that.

"Robbed" is a big word, which is violently inappropriate. One can make an argument that Harden should have won the MVP that year, but "robbed" is very much not an accurate description.

60 wins is nothing special historically. Im old enough to remember when there were about 4 or 5 60 win teams in a season. Those suns/mavs/spurs teams of the early 2000's regularly reached those win totals

What harden did on the other hand was historic

As for defense, for what it's worth harden averaged 2.1 steals a game that season

Ah, that thing which barely correlates with team defensive success!

I wonder what happens if we look at actual resu--'

Oh, right. the Bucks got 7-points worse when Giannis coasted and went back to being historic in the postseason when Giannis turned up.

Harden's steals haven't stopped his teams from getting worse defensively when he plays and don't merit any mention in years Giannis was the best or 2nd most valuable defender in the league.

[OhayoKD]

more evidence that harden was robbed of mvp in 2019.. almost like averaging 36ppg and being 8 points ahead of the second place scorer means something

Volume alone means only so much. And defense is a thing.

Also, the 2019 Bucks won 7 more games than the Rockets, and Giannis WAS a 28/12/5/6 guy on 64.4% TS himself, 2nd in the DPOY race and all that.

"Robbed" is a big word, which is violently inappropriate. One can make an argument that Harden should have won the MVP that year, but "robbed" is very much not an accurate description.

60 wins is nothing special historically. Im old enough to remember when there were about 4 or 5 60 win teams in a season. Those suns/mavs/spurs teams of the early 2000's regularly reached those win totals

What harden did on the other hand was historic

As for defense, for what it's worth harden averaged 2.1 steals a game that season

Ah, that thing which barely correlates with team defensive success!

I wonder what happens if we look at actual resu--'

Oh, right. the Bucks got 7-points worse when Giannis coasted and went back to being historic in the postseason when Giannis turned up.

Harden's steals haven't stopped his teams from getting worse defensively when he plays and don't merit any mention in years Giannis was the most or 2nd most valuable defender in the league.

[NBA4Lyfe]

Volume alone means only so much. And defense is a thing.

Also, the 2019 Bucks won 7 more games than the Rockets, and Giannis WAS a 28/12/5/6 guy on 64.4% TS himself, 2nd in the DPOY race and all that.

"Robbed" is a big word, which is violently inappropriate. One can make an argument that Harden should have won the MVP that year, but "robbed" is very much not an accurate description.

60 wins is nothing special historically. Im old enough to remember when there were about 4 or 5 60 win teams in a season. Those suns/mavs/spurs teams of the early 2000's regularly reached those win totals

What harden did on the other hand was historic

As for defense, for what it's worth harden averaged 2.1 steals a game that season

Ah, that thing which barely correlates with team defensive success!

I wonder what happens if we look at actual resu--'

Oh, right. the Bucks got 7-points worse when Giannis coasted and went back to being historic in the postseason when Giannis turned up.

Harden's steals haven't stopped his teams from getting worse defensively when he plays and don't merit any mention in years Giannis was the best or 2nd most valuable defender in the league.

So I bring up a defensive stat and you move the goalpost smh

And regardless of how good/great of a defender Giannis was in 2019, he wasn't the closer or clutch finisher for the bucks that year because of his god awful free-throw shooting. It was brogdon or Middleton who finished clutch wins off for Milwaukee that season

And even then harden in 2019 was 10x the offensive player than Giannis was as a defender.

Please let's engage in civil debate. Explain your argument witout using gifs or go ghost when I stump you on a point that Im making. Dialouge and honest discussion is good, doesn't matter who wins or loses.

[tsherkin]

As for defense, for what it's worth harden averaged 2.1 steals a game that season

This is truly irrelevant.

[NBA4Lyfe]

As for defense, for what it's worth harden averaged 2.1 steals a game that season

This is truly irrelevant.

Ok let's play, in that case since steals don't matter for guards then blocks and rebounds for a 7 footer in Giannis shouldn't matter either . Deandre Jordan led the league in rebounds and blocks before was he a great defender... it was either Deandre Jordan or Andre Drummond going tit for tat with being the blocks and rebound champ. Hell didnt brook Lopez have several seasons averaging more blocks per game than Giannis. If Im 7 foot tall and remotely athletic in this era if you play enough minutes you can accidentally run into 9 rebounds a game with all of the bricked 3 pointers being launched