LukaTheGOAT wrote:DraymondGold wrote:f4p wrote: to be clear (since i saw it in another post also), i do not think kawhi was going to win that series. i think it was very, very likely (>95%) that he was going to win game 1 and i would say better than a coin flip that the spurs add another win but not guaranteed. but the teams were clearly not equal teams. the warriors were much, much more talented. the fact kawhi wasn't phased and made it look like the warriors had no idea what to do as the spurs machine just hummed along in game 1 says that 2017 curry over kawhi is far from certain and the preponderance of the evidence is in kawhi's favor before he was taken out. ...
if this was a one year phenomenom, i might understand the hesitancy. but "kawhi puts up huge playoff performance" is not a one year phenomenom. from 2017 to 2021, you could argue kawhi's 2019 epic title run is only his 3rd best playoff run, which is crazy. i think we have plenty of evidence kawhi is a better playoff performer than steph (and frankly, quite a few guys ranked above kawhi on all-time lists), but 2017 comes with the added bonus that you actually got a full regular season out of kawhi and you have at least 30 minutes of evidence that kawhi could make the greatest team ever look stupid, to the point that hurting him seemed like the best option.
Hi f4p! I'd like to push back against the idea that "the preponderance of the evidence is in kawhi's favor [over Curry's] before he was taken out" and "i think we have plenty of evidence kawhi is a better playoff performer than steph". I answered these in my last post (sorry to repeat myself!), but these blanket statements that 2017 postseason Kawhi clearly trumps Curry by the numbers just aren't true. There are plenty of stats that take Curry overall over Kawhi, and even 2017 playoff-only stats.
2017 Postseason only: Postseason APM, Postseason RAPM, postseason AuPM, postseason Backpicks BPM, DARKO, and plenty more take 2017 Playoff Curry over 2017 Kawhi.
You mentioned larger playoff sample size. What if we look at 3-year playoff samples?
I'm glad LukaTheGOAT corrected me about PIPM (thanks Luka!). I misspoke when I said 2017 PIPM takes Curry over Kawhi. I was looking at 3 year samples, so while Kawhi is better in this 1 year playoff sample just according to PIPM... Curry's pulls ahead in a 3 year playoff run.
And this isn't even looking at the regular season. Plenty of these stats (PIPM again, RAPTOR, RPM, etc.) favor Curry if we do composite 2017 playoff-and-regular-season numbers. And if we just look at regular season... the gap gets even bigger :0
I don't mean to suggest there's no case for Kawhi. You yourself have pointed out Kawhi's historic performance in a few metrics, which I appreciate!But the problem is metrics like PER and WS/48 just aren't as accurate as the plus minus metrics.f4p wrote:kawhi's 31.5 PER is 13th all time based on 100 MP and 8th all time for multi-series playoffs. his WS/48 of .314 is 9th all time based on 100 MP and 6th all time for multi-series playoffs. and that's with 1954 mikan included above him. even with very generous 100 MP and 20 PPG limits, his TS% of 67.2 is 24th. for 200 MP and 24 PPG, it jumps to 6th, and one of the people ahead of him is himself.
PER is just about the worst all-in-one metric we have. It has a great feature which is that it goes back so many decades. But we're dealing with players that do have more recent one-number metrics. Actual NBA analysts who work for NBA organizations consistently rate PER as the single worst all-in-on metric at measuring value (https://hoopshype.com/lists/advanced-stats-nba-real-plus-minus-rapm-win-shares-analytics/), and it's actually the least effective all-in-one metric at predicting future success, at times even worse than points per game haha(https://fansided.com/2019/01/08/nylon-calculus-best-advanced-stat/). WS/48 is a little better than PER, but it similarly drops behind all the plus-minus based metrics we have.
Anyway, I appreciate your consistency in putting Kawhi on your ballotI do think it's definitely possible that he was underrated in the last Greatest Peak project (at least if we're discounting the health concerns). I think he's a super interesting player, and he's one of the few players to compete with Bill Walton in the height of their peak when healthy and how much their prime/longevity were limited by injuries (and in how disappointed I was that we didn't get to see them healthy!)
In sum: I'm not trying to say that there's no case at all... but it's simply not true that Kawhi dominates Curry in the playoff-only numbers, either in 2017 or if we take a larger postseason sample. Regardless, I'm more interested to discuss Magic who's 3rd on your ballot:How much does Magic's lack of playoff difficulty concern you?f4p wrote:3. 1987 Magic
Bounced back from 1986 playoff failure and won 65 games. Huge scoring increase. 27.0 PER as a high assist point guard is pretty crazy. Kept up the stats in the playoffs and comfortably won the title while going 15-3.
I remember in a previous thread, you mentioned that playoff difficulty was one of your biggest concerns with Curry. But the thing is... 87 Magic's playoffs were significantly easier than Curry's.
2017 Curry's average playoff opponent: +4.59
1987 Magic's average playoff opponent: +1.53
Magic's playoff opponents were weaker than basically every other Peak listed in this thread (under KG, Curry, Russell, Bird, Erving, and Kawhi). You've mentioned injuries -- if we estimates the Warriors' opponents accounting for injury, their average opponent was +3.53, which is still tougher than what the Lakers faced. This doesn't even account for the fact that Magic's opponents were also injured: Walton couldn't play at all, and McHale was nursing an ankle injury throughout the entire finals.
What about toughest opponent?
2017 Curry's' toughest opponent: Cavs at +9.5
1987 Magic's toughest opponents:Celtics at +5.3 (which doesn't account for injury)
You may argue that the Warriors were starting from a better place, but the Lakers were certainly a superteam too. The difference between the Warriors and their hardest opponent was actually smaller than the Lakers and their hardest opponent.
Is there anything that makes you less concerned about Magic's easier playoff opposition?
Could you link the Postseason APM? Didn't think there was such a thing.
I don’t know if Draymond answered this or not.
