f4p wrote:i guess i don't understand picking Curry 2017. it's literally a season with a degree of difficulty of 0. a super easy regular season where the warriors were just on cruise control, limiting minutes, and not taking any chances with injuries and still won 67. and then the easiest playoff run ever thanks to adding durant to a 73 win team. and even when it seemingly might get hard, a goon took out kawhi and turned what could have been their one challenge into a joke series. having your best statistical playoffs in the playoffs where you had by far the least pressure doesn't say much to me. the impact metrics always love curry no matter how he looks so i don't see how this season is any different in the metrics overrating his actual impact. it feels like people want to have a curry season but know the 2016 playoffs make that season impossible, so they just pick the "way too easy to matter" 2017 season.
Yeah, 2014-15 is the easy peak Curry season for me.
Kicked off the GSW dynasty, had a major impact on style of play across the league, best combination of regular & postseason numbers, no Durant.
1967 Wilt. Played differently than in previous year to devastating effect. He changed shot selection, played more of a power game, scored or was fouled, FT% wasn’t good or he’d be even more effective offensively, dominated defensively and was a very good playmaker. (1964 Wilt) (1968 Wilt)
2003 Duncan — great regular and post season in which he shouldered a heavy load and didn’t falter. Impact metrics look great, especially in the playoffs. Defense is replicable in many different eras while his offense was continuously resilient throughout the playoffs.
1965 Russell — best combination of regular season and post season for a player whose team could not be defeated in a playoff series (though came very close to losing often) other than by a GOAT type player playing at GOAT levels, i.e., Wilt. (1964) (1962)
lessthanjake wrote:Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court.
lessthanjake wrote: By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect…
Im gonna make a case for Hakeem as the #4 here by arguing he was clearly the best floor raiser of the 80's/90's.
Let's start with 86 where the rockets were 7-7 without him and were 40-20 without him in the rs before they smashed a 62 win team and then took the gsw of the 80's to 6 with hakeem upping all his box-stuff. That's jordan-level regular szn impact+elite playoff elevation as a 3rd year player.
In 88, Rockets were a 45 win team with him and a 10 win team without him and hakeem broke nba statistics in a first round exit before lebron rebroke them in 09.
In 92 the rockets went 2-10 without him and 40-30 with him, missed the playoffs because he missed team.
(That's a similar drop off to the cleveland cavs without lebron from 08-11 albeit on a worse team.)
Finally in 93 with basically the same team and some improvement from a rookie, The rockets won 55 GAMES with Hakeem playing every game. For comparison jordan's bulls won 27 games before they drafted him and won at a 25 win pace withtout him when he hurt his foot. But jordan could never get that team to more than 50 wins until pippen/phil jackson/rodman arrived.
For most of his prime hakeem was roughly a +14 plus/minus player and he elevated massively in the playoffs. In 94 and 95 he led teams that played like a 60 win team agaisnt playoff opponents. Hakeem's skillset may not have lent itself to 72 win teams or the like, but he was probably the best floor raiser of his era and he was still able to lead dominant teams when provided with spacing. Given that Hakeem seems to have been this crazily impactful player for most of his prime i'm going to vote multiple hakeem seasons here. Even 2nd year hakeem was probably on the same tier as peak shaq or jordan imo, I think from 92-95 his passing improved and he was capable of also leading dominant title teams so those three will be my picks here.
1. 93 Hakeem 7-7 team to 55 wins and elevated in the playoffs 2. 94 Hakeem 3. 95 Hakeem I think u could probably also push for 86, 88, or 95 hakeem.
65 wilt warriors were horrible without wilt but with wilt they often did marginally worse than the uber dominant celtics in the playoffs. Then he had a career year with the sixers and won. Also took bill's celts to 7 with his co-stars hurt the following season.
I'm considering 2017 curry replacing hakeem due to draymond gold's arguments but i'm not decided yet.
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
f4p wrote:i guess i don't understand picking Curry 2017. it's literally a season with a degree of difficulty of 0. a super easy regular season where the warriors were just on cruise control, limiting minutes, and not taking any chances with injuries and still won 67. and then the easiest playoff run ever thanks to adding durant to a 73 win team. and even when it seemingly might get hard, a goon took out kawhi and turned what could have been their one challenge into a joke series. having your best statistical playoffs in the playoffs where you had by far the least pressure doesn't say much to me. the impact metrics always love curry no matter how he looks so i don't see how this season is any different in the metrics overrating his actual impact. it feels like people want to have a curry season but know the 2016 playoffs make that season impossible, so they just pick the "way too easy to matter" 2017 season.
Yeah, 2014-15 is the easy peak Curry season for me.
Kicked off the GSW dynasty, had a major impact on style of play across the league, best combination of regular & postseason numbers, no Durant.
I think 2017 Curry for a obvious reasons is strictly a better player than 2015 Curry, just like 2016 is. The fact that 2017 curry was in an easy situation shouldn’t discount that
f4p wrote:i guess i don't understand picking Curry 2017. it's literally a season with a degree of difficulty of 0. a super easy regular season where the warriors were just on cruise control, limiting minutes, and not taking any chances with injuries and still won 67. and then the easiest playoff run ever thanks to adding durant to a 73 win team. and even when it seemingly might get hard, a goon took out kawhi and turned what could have been their one challenge into a joke series. having your best statistical playoffs in the playoffs where you had by far the least pressure doesn't say much to me. the impact metrics always love curry no matter how he looks so i don't see how this season is any different in the metrics overrating his actual impact. it feels like people want to have a curry season but know the 2016 playoffs make that season impossible, so they just pick the "way too easy to matter" 2017 season.
Okay, so consider the assumptions built into the perspective where "Degree of Difficulty" means what it means here.
You mean it is as: How strong your supporting cast is compared to other superstars who have won championships.
Which means you're likely looking at some of the guys who won championships simply because competition was weak that year - '03 Spurs, '06 Heat, '11 Mavs, etc - as if they accomplished something greater than those who actually led better teams.
I'm not saying this to say: So you're wrong!
But I do think it should be considered that not all basketball teams that earn the title "champion" are equally good at basketball , and you're saying you're unimpressed by the most valuable player on the best team in the history of basketball. (We can of course debate that claim, but whether it's true or not seems moot to your criticism. Obviously if another team is even better, then they surely had an equally easy time of things and thus a low Degree of Difficulty.
Do you realize how counter longer basketball history this is? Do you think that the NBA just came into existence and said "Hey, anyone want to play basketball for money?". No, the NBA is the END was the end product of decades of teams stealing player from each other teams and leagues stealing teams from other leagues...to say nothing of the league-wide colluding to get players into leagues or the barnstorming that dominated the game for large swaths of time plucking the talent they ran across in the towns they went to or players playing on a different team every night to make as much money as possible.
Things change once a league secures a monopoly on the best players and makes the fanbase feel there's some kind of morality in play to give their team a chance at winning the championship of that league, and certainly truly equal team achievement with unequal supporting help does say something about individual achievement...
but if you are specifically unimpressed when you view basketball elevated to the highest form (by competitive definition), I think you need to re-examine how you're processing what's happening out there on the wood.
f4p wrote:i guess i don't understand picking Curry 2017. it's literally a season with a degree of difficulty of 0. a super easy regular season where the warriors were just on cruise control, limiting minutes, and not taking any chances with injuries and still won 67. and then the easiest playoff run ever thanks to adding durant to a 73 win team. and even when it seemingly might get hard, a goon took out kawhi and turned what could have been their one challenge into a joke series. having your best statistical playoffs in the playoffs where you had by far the least pressure doesn't say much to me. the impact metrics always love curry no matter how he looks so i don't see how this season is any different in the metrics overrating his actual impact. it feels like people want to have a curry season but know the 2016 playoffs make that season impossible, so they just pick the "way too easy to matter" 2017 season.
Yeah, 2014-15 is the easy peak Curry season for me.
Kicked off the GSW dynasty, had a major impact on style of play across the league, best combination of regular & postseason numbers, no Durant.
I think 2017 Curry for a obvious reasons is strictly a better player than 2015 Curry, just like 2016 is. The fact that 2017 curry was in an easy situation shouldn’t discount that
Curry's so hard for a project like this because if you follow rules about MVP + Chip you specifically get an answer of Curry before he got a lot better.
mdonnelly1989 wrote:Kareem shouldn't be over Wilt. That's a tragedy.
Well, you should have tried to make a case for Wilt over Kareem before he got voted in. I don't find it tragic at all, they were comparable at their bests.
mdonnelly1989 wrote:Kareem shouldn't be over Wilt. That's a tragedy.
Well, you should have tried to make a case for Wilt over Kareem before he got voted in. I don't find it tragic at all, they were comparable at their bests.
people that pop in and say “damn this was a dumb result yall tripping” and disappear and never come back is annoying as hell lol
mdonnelly1989 wrote:Kareem shouldn't be over Wilt. That's a tragedy.
Well, you should have tried to make a case for Wilt over Kareem before he got voted in. I don't find it tragic at all, they were comparable at their bests.
people that pop in and say “damn this was a dumb result yall tripping” and disappear and never come back is annoying as hell lol
I can think of a lot of things that are far more annoying, but yeah, I hear you.
Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious. Libeskind
f4p wrote:i guess i don't understand picking Curry 2017. it's literally a season with a degree of difficulty of 0. a super easy regular season where the warriors were just on cruise control, limiting minutes, and not taking any chances with injuries and still won 67. and then the easiest playoff run ever thanks to adding durant to a 73 win team.
Happy to discuss more about Curry! I did add an explanation for why I personally found the "degree of difficulty of 0" argument fairly unconvincing in my post, so I figured I'd add it here. In short: the Curry/KD Warriors only dominated when Curry was on the court. When Curry was off the court, they were only as good as this season's 2022 Cavs. Unless you consider adding a star to the 2022 Cavs being degree difficulty 0... but I don't lol
You say they added Durant to a 73 win team, which is true, but they did lose Bogut and Barnes and KD still missed 25% of the 2017 regular season. In that span with KD out, the Warriors went 16-4 (which is a 66-win pace). Anyway, here's the larger explanation:
DraymondGold wrote:The Warriors were definitely great scenario for Curry, with great coaching, great defenders, and great offensive players alongside Curry. ... But personally, I find Curry's value/scalability/portability enough to make up for this. Historically, it's easier for players to have their best plus minus value with worse supporting casts (or at least with no co-stars competing for value). The better the supporting cast and the better the co-stars, the more the team improves but the harder it is for a single individual to dominate the team's value (since they're competing for value against better teammates). And yet... Curry dominates the Warriors in terms of value.
From 2017–2019 (larger sample to give more stable values), here's the net rating with each of the stars on or off: -All 4 stars on: +17. (that's 20% better than the 1996 Chicago Bulls across 3 seasons!) -Only Klay off: +15.64. -Only KD off: +13.54 (still better than the 96 Chicago Bulls even with KD off) -Only Draymond off: +12.77 -Only Steph on, all 3 other stars off: +10.81 -Only Steph off: +1.94 When all four stars are on the court, the 17-19 Warriors are significantly better than the 1996 Bulls. With all 3 other all stars off, and just Steph on, the 17-19 Warriors have a better net rating than the 16 Warriors, 13 Heat, 2000 Lakers, 91 Bulls, 87 Lakers, or 86 Celtics. With all 3 all stars on, and just Steph off, the 17-19 Warriors are worse than this season's 2022 Cavs.
Again, I'm happy to discuss more. You said you don't understand picking Curry because of the difficulty level. What about this data do you find unconvincing?
f4p wrote:and even when it seemingly might get hard, a goon took out kawhi and turned what could have been their one challenge into a joke series. having your best statistical playoffs in the playoffs where you had by far the least pressure doesn't say much to me.
This seems to suggest their playoff opponents were easy. I agree it certainly may not have been one of the hardest ever, but I think this might undersell it. In Sansterre's Top 100 Teams Ever list, they found the Warriors faced the 73rd hardest average opponent defense of all time and the 12th hardest average opponent offense. Ranking teams by their opponent's Overall SRS (OSRS), the Warriors have a harder playoff run (at least on average) than the 1971 Bucks, 1985 Lakers, 1991 Bulls, 1986 Celtics, and 2014 Spurs. You could argue they never faced another super team (though the 2017 Cavs still rank 43rd on that list), you could argue Kawhi's injury makes the Spurs overrated in the system (though the 2017 Warriors still come out on top in that team list if you reduce the Spurs' SRS by 50% to account for the injury), but overall... the Warriors possibly had the most dominant playoffs ever, and as I showed above, they were only dominant when Curry was on, never while he was off.
f4p wrote:the impact metrics always love curry no matter how he looks so i don't see how this season is any different in the metrics overrating his actual impact. it feels like people want to have a curry season but know the 2016 playoffs make that season impossible, so they just pick the "way too easy to matter" 2017 season.
I think like lots of players in this tier, there are multiple possible years (e.g. 2009 vs 2013 vs 2016 LeBron, 2000 vs 2001 Shaq, 64 vs 67 Wilt, 71 vs 74 vs 77 Kareem). Like with Kareem, most people have sided with Curry's better (healthier) playoffs over the better regular season. But if you end up siding with 2016 Curry, that's perfectly fine!
Like you say, the impact metrics often favor Curry, but 2016/2017 is definitely the best pair of years by the metrics.
If you're a bit more interested in the skill differences between 2016 and 2017, I discussed a bit in a previous thread. I can paste here:
Spoiler:
1. Postseason health: you mention this of course. If you take a more probabilistic approach to injury (e.g. partially docking every season based on perceived chance of injury, rather than fully docking injured seasons and not docking healthy seasons), I could definitely see you taking 2016 > 2017. I think it's hard to estimate injury probabilities though, and since this is a 1 year peak project, I just go with the simple route: 2017 was healthy, so he doesn't get docked! If we're just looking at skill improvements, I think 2017 was slightly better at pacing himself through the regular season (a la 2013 LeBron vs 2009, 1977 Kareem vs 1972/71), which helped him improve his chances of being fresh and healthy in the postseason. 2. Improved resilience: increased weight and strength allows for better defense and better ability to take contact on and off ball. Slightly improved decision making allows for slightly fewer boneheaded turnovers and more consistent (but less flashy) passes / shot selection (Athletic Alchemy mentioned he noticed this in his film study at some point ~2017). Slightly tighter handle (which would continue to improve and show noticeable results by 2022). 3. Improved scalability: I have Curry as the GOAT portable/scalable player, and he's certainly still all-time scalable in 2016. However, the actual act of adjusting to Durant forced Curry to improve even more without the ball and be even more efficient with his on ball usage.
I think I also have fewer concerns with the 2017 regular season: I see 2017 regular season Curry as just as good as 2016 regular season Curry, though definitely less valuable. By good, his actual goodness as a player (irrespective of team context); value is more context-dependent.
So why did his performance and value decline? I think fitting next to Durant (and making the Scalability improvements I mentioned in #3 above) actually took some work in the first quarter/half of the season. This took him out of rhythm and slightly decreased his impact metrics. In interviews, Curry actually says just that! He says he was pulling back too much in order to make room for Durant in the early part of the season, but by the end, he had figured out how to go full force without taking away from Durant's offense.
Statistically, Curry's performance improved in the second half of the season with Durant, when Durant was out for those last few weeks, and when Durant was back from the playoffs. By my eye (and from what I can tell by the metrics), Curry was just as good as he was in 2016 regular season during that span, which gives me confidence that he was just as "good" of a player in the 2017 regular season (even if figuring out how to fit alongside Durant in the first half of his season lowered his regular season impact metric value).
Like Doctor MJ says, Curry continued to make improvements in other areas over the next few years. By 2022, he had noticeably better defense, decision making, passing, handle, and resilience. I still take 2017 (and healthy 2016) because of his athleticism (specifically his speed/quickness) and his overall impact metrics. Like other people have said though, if the 2022 regular season ended up just being a cold spell (not an actual decline in shooting due to age/motor/athleticism/increased effort elsewhere), then 2021/2022 might also have an argument at his peak. Let me know if you disagree or if you have any questions!
Happy to discuss more if you disagree with anything or have any questions!
I’d rather 2016 if not for the injury. Curry is the ultimate gravity guy. His presence alone makes life easier for the rest of his teammates.
6. 1986 Larry Bird.
The legend was a dominant scorer and passer. Defended well and his shooting makes him a threat in any era.
7. 2004 Kevin Garnett
It was a tossup between KG, and other defensive bigs like Hakeem 94, Wilt 67, and Russell 64. Ultimately, KG’s offence gets him over the line. I think his spacing was a little better than Hakeem. Very close though.
My top 3 candidates for Position #5 will be PFs all...
1. 2003-04 Kevin Garnett (season 9) PER #1, WS/48 #1, BPM #1, VORP #1, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team Defense
2. 1996-97 Karl Malone (season 12) PER #1, WS/48 #2, BPM #2, VORP #3, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team Defense
3. 2006-07 Dirk Nowitzki (season 9) PER #2, WS/48 #1, BPM #1, VORP #2, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA (all in a nice bounce-back regular season after having dozens of deeply questionable ref calls for DWade steal the previous Finals).
Or are we supposed to be factoring in Playoff Success as well for the same season?
Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious. Libeskind
So to be clear, 2017 Steph's argument largely revolves around his net ratings with Durant, Draymond, and Klay off the court, correct?
I'm curious as to why people using this line of reasoning wouldn't apply it to someone like 2018 Chris Paul for example. Not an overly impressive season by the box score from him but as the lone star he anchored net ratings that were unarguably more impressive than Steph in 2017.
2017 Warriors
Steph on, KD/Dray/Klay off: 113.06 ORtg , +9.05 NET (105 minutes)
KD/Dray/Klay on, Steph off: 113.64 ORtg, +8.67 NET (77 minutes)
2018 Rockets
Paul on, Harden off: 117.19 ORtg, +12.37 NET (876 minutes)
Harden on, Paul off: 115.84 ORtg, +8.64 NET
Paul on, Harden/Capela off: 118.18 ORtg, +13.03 NET (546 minutes)
Harden/Capela on, Paul off: 115.68 ORtg, +10.02 NET (827 minutes)
Doctor MJ wrote:I like the analogy with Curry as Coca-Cola. And then I'd say Iverson was Lean.
Ginoboleee wrote:My top 3 candidates for Position #5 will be PFs all...
1. 2003-04 Kevin Garnett (season 9) PER #1, WS/48 #1, BPM #1, VORP #1, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team Defense
2. 1996-97 Karl Malone (season 12) PER #1, WS/48 #2, BPM #2, VORP #3, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team Defense
3. 2006-07 Dirk Nowitzki (season 9) PER #2, WS/48 #1, BPM #1, VORP #2, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA (all in a nice bounce-back regular season after having dozens of deeply questionable ref calls for DWade steal the previous Finals).
Or are we supposed to be factoring in Playoff Success as well for the same season?
The position doesn’t matter. Is Karl Malone and Dirk really your 6th and 7th greatest peaks ever?
Ginoboleee wrote:My top 3 candidates for Position #5 will be PFs all...
1. 2003-04 Kevin Garnett (season 9) PER #1, WS/48 #1, BPM #1, VORP #1, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team Defense
2. 1996-97 Karl Malone (season 12) PER #1, WS/48 #2, BPM #2, VORP #3, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team Defense
3. 2006-07 Dirk Nowitzki (season 9) PER #2, WS/48 #1, BPM #1, VORP #2, MVP, 1st Team All-NBA (all in a nice bounce-back regular season after having dozens of deeply questionable ref calls for DWade steal the previous Finals).
Or are we supposed to be factoring in Playoff Success as well for the same season?
The position doesn’t matter. Is Karl Malone and Dirk really your 6th and 7th greatest peaks ever?
Yeah, I understood that it didn't have to be just PF, I was just having fun with it.
To answer your question, not sure. I just had my PF notes handy and decided to share what I had so far. Was that a bad idea?
This whole Peaks Thing is new to me. Still not sure what I think of the whole endeavor. I assume that the RGM Community has already done these for every season by all the Legends, and now is time to integrate across those results?
I am struck by how regularly my questions go unanswered, even when there is a reply. A lot to get used to around here I guess.
Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious. Libeskind
Curry’s peak went 15th in the project 3 years ago. I find it a bit strange he’s getting this much traction for a top 5-6 spot. Also considering there’s so many ballboys coming out of nowhere to vote Curry, definitely makes me think there’s an agenda going on already. At that time, it was a pretty intense debate between Curry against guys like Wade, Oscar and Jerry West. I’m not really sure why there’s such a dramatic shift where he battled those guys, to now being argued over Tim Duncan and Hakeem. Curry’s last title is great for his legacy narrative, but don’t see why that’s used as a reason to retroactively go backwards and elevate a season of his that happened 5-6 years ago.
No-more-rings wrote:Curry’s peak went 15th in the project 3 years ago. I find it a bit strange he’s getting this much traction for a top 5-6 spot. Also considering there’s so many ballboys coming out of nowhere to vote Curry, definitely makes me think there’s an agenda going on already. At that time, it was a pretty intense debate between Curry against guys like Wade, Oscar and Jerry West. I’m not really sure why there’s such a dramatic shift where he battled those guys, to now being argued over Tim Duncan and Hakeem. Curry’s last title is great for his legacy narrative, but don’t see why that’s used as a reason to retroactively go backwards and elevate a season of his that happened 5-6 years ago.
I think if Curry had stayed healthy in 2016 he would have been a clearly argued as a Top 5 peak--but he didn't.
Then Durant joined the Warriors and it was difficult to assess Curry since he team was the most talented and loaded in NBA History and people assumed Curry wasn't replicating anything close to his 2016 levels because of Box-Scores but more importantly, Kevin Durant.
Now, we see Curry dominate in the post-season again and it allows many people to look back at 2017 and say "Hey look, Curry was actually on a similar level as 2016 and stayed relatively healthy."
Hindsight and things we learn in the now can affect how we view things from the past.
1. Wilt 1967 (b. 1964, c. 1968) 2. Russell 1965 (b. 1962 c. 1963) 3. Curry 2019 (b. 2015, c. 2017)
Wilt has one of the most dominant seasons in history, like Mikan level vs the competition
Russell is hard to rank of course, but 65 is a great season, he is highly efficient for that era in the playoffs, Celtics drop a 62-18
With Curry it's not quite as good a regular season, but it's still a pretty great 1st team All NBA year. I really favor his playoff run here with helping close out the Rockets without Durant, having arguably his best series ever against the Blazers and then a strong finals performance against elite D.
