NBA Superstars Playoffs Production Based On Quality Of Opposition

[ty 4191]

Hey, next up, were you thinking Big O, Mailman, Shaq, or KG?

Shaq, since people here now put him on par with Wilt, which, IMO...is ridiculous.

That said, quality of playoff opposition always deserves a closer look.

[Ginoboleee]

Hey, next up, were you thinking Big O, Mailman, Shaq, or KG?

Shaq, since people here now put him on par with Wilt, which, IMO...is ridiculous.

That said, quality of playoff opposition always deserves a closer look.

You are preaching to the (noob) choir regarding Shaq over-rating. I don't mind questioning the fine distinctions between Dream, Shaq, Moses, even Robinson, but they are all a tier (or two) below The Big Three. (Ewing would factor in after ALL those cats.)

Orlando Shaq was incredible, though a bit raw.
But most of the time after that golden phase Shaq was out of shape and would phone in some of the regular season waiting to tune up for real by the playoffs.
For some reason this seemed to bug his notorious high-flying young co-star.
And he was so bad at free throws he was not relied upon at the end of games (historic highlights notwithstanding).
The Best of Shaq was awesome.
But there was way too much Rest of Shaq for me to get too excited about him challenging The Big Three.

[ceiling raiser]

Interesting topic OP, thanks for putting this together.

Would you be interested in adding Shaq, KG, Oscar, KD, Robinson, Dirk, Nash when you have a chance? Would be interested in seeing how they stack up.

[ty 4191]

Interesting topic OP, thanks for putting this together.

Would you be interested in adding Shaq, KG, Oscar, KD, Robinson, Dirk, Nash when you have a chance? Would be interested in seeing how they stack up.

You're welcome!!

Do you have a preference? (I ask because each player takes at least a few hours.)

[ceiling raiser]

Interesting topic OP, thanks for putting this together.

Would you be interested in adding Shaq, KG, Oscar, KD, Robinson, Dirk, Nash when you have a chance? Would be interested in seeing how they stack up.

You're welcome!!

Do you have a preference? (I ask because each player takes at least a few hours.)

Maybe Nash? Thanks

[ty 4191]

Interesting topic OP, thanks for putting this together.

Would you be interested in adding Shaq, KG, Oscar, KD, Robinson, Dirk, Nash when you have a chance? Would be interested in seeing how they stack up.

You're welcome!!

Do you have a preference? (I ask because each player takes at least a few hours.)

Maybe Nash? Thanks

Added Karl Malone, everyone.

(I always intuitively knew he faced awesome teams, overall; turns out, I was spot on!!)

[Ginoboleee]

You're welcome!!

Do you have a preference? (I ask because each player takes at least a few hours.)

Maybe Nash? Thanks

Added Karl Malone, everyone.

(I always intuitively knew he faced awesome teams, overall; turns out, I was spot on!!)

Some of us keep trying to say "the 90s ruled" - and it's starting to look like that with these newly enhanced results.

[f4p]

I don't know if this is worth a new thread, but this is a thread about playoff competition and i just recently did a bunch of work on great players and the level of competition they faced relative to how great their own team was. I took the SRS of their own team and compared it to their opponent in every playoff series they played to get a feeling for who was most favorited in their series and who faced the biggest uphill climbs. Positive numbers mean you are the favorite, negative you are the underdog.

The following is just the average series differential over a player's career.



The top of the list isn't crazy, as it's basically the guys who played with the most talented teammates in nba history. Their average series was as a 3-4 SRS favorite, which is a huge advantage. Shaq shows up in the middle as probably the biggest regular season switch-flipper in history, regularly slacking off in the regular season before dropping 30/15 in the playoffs. And at the bottom, being a complete playoff outlier as usual is Hakeem. As a Rockets fan, I figured he would look impressive for overcoming the odds, but I didn't expect him to be this far down the list. He's wedged between guys like Wilkins and Melo, who each won 3 total playoff series in their entire careers. Hakeem made the finals 3 times and won an incredible 10 series as an underdog.

Maybe not that different, but the following shows the average differential in series a player won or lost.



We see once again what charmed lives guys like Curry, Bird, Magic, and Duncan lived, being huge favorites when they won and being near even or even having the advantage in their average series loss (Bird especially, who's biggest underdog series of -1.71 isn't even as bad as some players' average series). Harder to get a feel for Russell since he only lost 2 series and he was a huge favorite in the 1958 finals.

Jordan kind of went from underdog to favorite very quickly in his career and it shows. With him being a big favorite when he won and a massive underdog when he lost. Also he was 25-0 as a favorite.

Some of it is the Shaq effect obviously, but Kobe comes off looking good by this measure, with 5 titles and not a huge advantage when winning.

Hakeem stands out again for literally being an underdog in his average series victory. Only Jimmy Butler can say that, and he was basically even at -0.09. Oh, and poor Tracy McGrady, whose Spurs series I did not include since he didn't really play.

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

[LAL1947]

I don't know if this is worth a new thread, but this is a thread about playoff competition and i just recently did a bunch of work on great players and the level of competition they faced relative to how great their own team was. I took the SRS of their own team and compared it to their opponent in every playoff series they played to get a feeling for who was most favorited in their series and who faced the biggest uphill climbs. Positive numbers mean you are the favorite, negative you are the underdog.

The following is just the average series differential over a player's career.

Spoiler:

The top of the list isn't crazy, as it's basically the guys who played with the most talented teammates in nba history. Their average series was as a 3-4 SRS favorite, which is a huge advantage. Shaq shows up in the middle as probably the biggest regular season switch-flipper in history, regularly slacking off in the regular season before dropping 30/15 in the playoffs. And at the bottom, being a complete playoff outlier as usual is Hakeem. As a Rockets fan, I figured he would look impressive for overcoming the odds, but I didn't expect him to be this far down the list. He's wedged between guys like Wilkins and Melo, who each won 3 total playoff series in their entire careers. Hakeem made the finals 3 times and won an incredible 10 series as an underdog.

Maybe not that different, but the following shows the average differential in series a player won or lost.



We see once again what charmed lives guys like Curry, Bird, Magic, and Duncan lived, being huge favorites when they won and being near even or even having the advantage in their average series loss (Bird especially, who's biggest underdog series of -1.71 isn't even as bad as some players' average series). Harder to get a feel for Russell since he only lost 2 series and he was a huge favorite in the 1958 finals.

Jordan kind of went from underdog to favorite very quickly in his career and it shows. With him being a big favorite when he won and a massive underdog when he lost. Also he was 25-0 as a favorite.

Some of it is the Shaq effect obviously, but Kobe comes off looking good by this measure, with 5 titles and not a huge advantage when winning.

Hakeem stands out again for literally being an underdog in his average series victory. Only Jimmy Butler can say that, and he was basically even at -0.09. Oh, and poor Tracy McGrady, whose Spurs series I did not include since he didn't really play.

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

Excellent work and thanks for sharing. You should probably put this whole post over in the thread that SpreeS opened, "All-time great players PO opponents avg SRS".

My only suggestion would be to separate the table for "average differential in series a player won or lost"... so that you have two tables, one for wins and another for losses. The way you have it now, Losses column is not ordered, which makes that column lose meaning.

Btw, these numbers don't look good for Duncan, as the Spurs had a higher SRS than opponents even for his losses... but they look really good for Kobe, as he has the most titles among those at the lower end of the Average Differential list and his losses came against teams with substantially higher SRS. Could this be a good indicator that after his excellent 2002-03 season, Duncan went from being more of a ceiling-raiser to more of a floor-raiser? I think yes.

[feyki]

Curry's being so much efficient than West in the playoffs really interesting.

[Texas Chuck]

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

This will get lost in here because you know Lebron, but.... That's more impressive than 25-0 as a heavy favorite.

[Homer38]

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

This will get lost in here because you know Lebron, but.... That's more impressive than 25-0 as a heavy favorite.

WOW!

[JordansBulls]

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

This will get lost in here because you know Lebron, but.... That's more impressive than 25-0 as a heavy favorite.

WOW!

Well He lost 3 series with HCA from 2009-2011 as the favorite each time. Also didn't realize Cleveland actually outscored Boston by 5 points in that series.

[Homer38]

This will get lost in here because you know Lebron, but.... That's more impressive than 25-0 as a heavy favorite.

WOW!

Well He lost 3 series with HCA from 2009-2011 as the favorite each time. Also didn't realize Cleveland actually outscored Boston by 5 points in that series.

Jordan is 1-9 in the playoffs with 5 losing season in 5 seasons without the great Scottie Pippen

[ty 4191]

Added Kevin Garnett, Ladies and Gents.

(He played against brutal playoff teams, as I expected. Especially on the Wolves).

[ty 4191]

Thoughts, everyone?

Thank you for your input!!!

[Bklynborn682]

Thoughts, everyone?

Thank you for your input!!!

Was really hoping you’d add Shaq in this write up

[ty 4191]

Thoughts, everyone?

Thank you for your input!!!

Was really hoping you’d add Shaq in this write up

Added Shaq! Please see OP.

[Bklynborn682]

Thoughts, everyone?

Thank you for your input!!!

Was really hoping you’d add Shaq in this write up

Added Shaq! Please see OP.

Thanks. Quite surprising to see that shaqs worst games/averages come against bad - average teams meanwhile he excelled against elite and all time teams . I wonder if that was Shaq not giving his all due to him not feeling threatened by lesser teams or perhaps he was playing more bad/average teams at the end of his career so that dragged his numbers down.

[ty 4191]

Was really hoping you’d add Shaq in this write up

Added Shaq! Please see OP.

Thanks. Quite surprising to see that shaqs worst games/averages come against bad - average teams meanwhile he excelled against elite and all time teams . I wonder if that was Shaq not giving his all due to him not feeling threatened by lesser teams or perhaps he was playing more bad/average teams at the end of his career so that dragged his numbers down.

You're welcome!! Glad you enjoyed it!

Let's see if I can post the data legibly...

Shaq is all the way to the right. Last player as of today.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wMi7Spb6ypHAonfIt0XidIFX6kZAkokQSit_vrPtpcU/edit#gid=0

This gives you an idea of just how much work goes into each player!!!

Please let me know your thoughts, brother.