What could change your mind in an NBA debate?

[DraymondGold]

What new analysis or evidence could change your mind, in some basketball debate where you clearly fall on one side over the other?

Possible popular basketball debates might include:

Who has the better peak, prime, or career (whichever you find most compelling) for:
-Wilt vs Russell
-Oscar vs West
-Kareem vs Shaq vs Wilt
-Magic vs Bird
-Jordan vs LeBron
-Hakeem vs Robinson (RS) vs Shaq
-Duncan vs Kobe vs Garnett
-Kobe vs Wade
-Nash vs Chris Paul vs Stockton
-Curry vs Magic (overall) vs Nash (offensively)
-Durant vs Kawhi vs Erving
-Giannis vs Jokic

Meta-level player discussions:
-Best offensive player ever
-Best defensive player ever (or 2nd best after Russell)
-The value of longevity vs peak years
-Floor raising vs ceiling raising
-Whether portability/scalability is real
-The relative value of guards, wings, and bigs, either offensively/defensively
-When LeBron peaked
-The value of box stats vs plus minus stats vs wowy stats vs team stats vs hybrid/all-in-one stats
-The importance of regular season vs playoffs when evaluating a player
-The quality of different eras relative to each other

Team discussions:
-Best team of the 60s–70s (1964 Celtics vs 1967 76ers vs 1971 Bucks vs 1972 Lakers)
-Best team of the 80s (1983 76ers vs 1985 Lakers vs 1986 Celtics vs 1987 Lakers)
-Best team ever (mostly 2017 Warriors vs 1996 Bulls)
-Heliocentric offenses vs motion offenses

Feel free to consider additional debates if you prefer, of course.

-If you fall clearly on one side of any of these debates, what kind of evidence or analysis could convince you to switch sides? What kind of evidence or analysis is missing?
-Are there any kinds of trends in what would change your mind? (e.g. are you more convinced by film study, historical/contextual analysis, results, statistics, etc.)?
-What's the range of reasonable opinions you can see in your preferred debate topic? How much reasonable uncertainty is there?

[KembaWalker]

Definitely another hidden formula subscription based for-profit all-in-one metric.

[pancakes3]

a time machine

[70sFan]

I think more full game footage from pre-1985 era could still change a lot of narratives.

[f4p]

I think more full game footage from pre-1985 era could still change a lot of narratives.

that would actually probably help a lot.

the things that most change my mind are metrics that make a players look good/bad when i already trust that metric because of how it ranks other players i feel strongly about, especially if those player rankings are out of line with the consensus rankings. in other words, a metric that says lebron is good probably won't make me think much differently about another player, but if it is lower on bird and higher on hakeem (just an example of how i feel about certain players) and then it says someone else is good, i might have to reconsider what someone is saying if i was lower on that player.

[Djoker]

I think more full game footage from pre-1985 era could still change a lot of narratives.

This for sure. New footage can change a lot of things. I'd love to watch more games of Russell, Wilt, 70's Kareem but also other players like Oscar, West, Pettit etc. from whom I've seen little footage of let alone full games.

And honestly, current players gathering more team achievements can make a big difference in popular debates. The likes of Lebron or Jokic winning another title for instance...

Meta-level discussions are interesting. I think Ben Taylor's analyses for instance made me convinced that Jordan is the offensive GOAT. Particularly his very high creation and very low turnover rates that flew under the radar beforehand and combined with his GOAT scoring, his offensive GOAT case is pretty bulletproof to me. The extraordinary offensive results on a team level are a cherry on top. That's one example that comes to mind.

But anyways I think contextual analysis, new data, footage etc. can all change my mind on most or all of these debates. That's why I'm on a basketball forum!

[One_and_Done]

If the old footage showed the player was better than the current footage does sure. I find that to be unlikely.

[SNPA]

Definitely another hidden formula subscription based for-profit all-in-one metric.

Based on analytics folks this is the only way to judge. It must be reducible to a number.

[Special_Puppy]

Tracking Data before 2014 and Play by Play Data before 1997 could help us better estimate the value of basically every player in the league and thus would make the answers in a lot of debates a lot clearer

[70sFan]

If the old footage showed the player was better than the current footage does sure. I find that to be unlikely.

Of course, you don't watch old footage after all so more footage wouldn't change anything for you.

[One_and_Done]

If the old footage showed the player was better than the current footage does sure. I find that to be unlikely.

Of course, you don't watch old footage after all so more footage wouldn't change anything for you.

I've seen more than enough footage to form my own views. You insisting that anyone who disagrees with you 'must not be watching' has gotten old. I'm just not blinded by nostalgia.

[70sFan]

If the old footage showed the player was better than the current footage does sure. I find that to be unlikely.

Of course, you don't watch old footage after all so more footage wouldn't change anything for you.

I've seen more than enough footage to form my own views. You insisting that anyone who disagrees with you 'must not be watching' has gotten old. I'm just not blinded by nostalgia.

You have never provided any accurate description of old player style, strengths and weaknesses. It's not about disagreement with my opinions, plenty of people disagree with me and I don't insist they don't watch old games.

[One_and_Done]

You see things differently when you take off the nostalgia goggles.

[70sFan]

You see things differently when you take off the nostalgia goggles.

You don't have nostalgia to times you weren't alive.

[One_and_Done]

You see things differently when you take off the nostalgia goggles.

You don't have nostalgia to times you weren't alive.

I'm not the one who needs the goggles removed in this instance.

[70sFan]

You see things differently when you take off the nostalgia goggles.

You don't have nostalgia to times you weren't alive.

I'm not the one who needs the goggles removed in this instance.

I wasn't alive in the 1960s either.

[Cavsfansince84]

I think tons of things can change a person's mind including mine but at a certain point we tend to be comfortable with whatever methodology makes the most sense to us so it becomes harder to do that. For instance on the general board you see a lot of box score type metrics used(largely for pro Jokic/Luka arguments) which is ok but you have to understand what they do and do not capture and try to fill in the areas they are weak at with context or watching them play. Otoh, rapm and impact data seems to sort of rule over this board so it'd be nice if people weren't quite so reliant on it because it would allow for more complete forms of discussion imo and we might actually move some discussions forwards.

[Mazter]

Tracking (pre 2014) or shooting (pre 1997) stats for the whole league.