Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #18 - 2005-06 Dwyane Wade

[falcolombardi]

1- 2005 suns +8.4 (RS)
2- 2007 suns +7.4 (RS)
Gap
3- 2008 lakers +5.5 (RS)
4-2006 suns +5.3 (RS)
5- 2009 lakers +4.5 (RS)
6-2016 spurs +3.9 (RS)
gap
7-2015 spurs +2.9 (RS)
8-2019 raptors +2.7 (RS)
9- 2017 spurs +2.3 (RS)
10-2010 lakers + 1.5 (RS)

1-2005 suns +16.2 (PS)
Gap
2-2006 suns +10.1 (PS)
3- 2017 spurs +9.3(PS) (only counting two first rounds)
Gap
4-2010 lakers +6.9 (PS)
5-2008 lakers +6.8 (PS)
6-2007 suns +6.75 (PS)
7-2009 lakers +6.4 (PS)
Gap
8- 2016 spurs +4.5 (PS)
Gap
9-2015 spurs +2.9 (PS)
Gap
10-2019 raptors +1.7 (PS)

Not only does nash have higher heights and average across his prime season offenses. and kobe a clearly bettwr average offense in his peak year stretch

But spurs 2017 playoffs run is just a massive outlier, to surrounding seasons, to their owm regular seasom and evem within the same playoffs run (their +14 against memphis vs their +5 against rockets)

Is why i have some doubts about taking it at face value even for a peak project

Notice how kawhi teams are all at the bottom below every kobe and nash year here (including 17' reg season) except for the 17 playoffs

Hell, kobe lakers in 2008 had a +12.4 first round offense vs denver and a +10.6 one vs utah in the second. If kobe got hurt in the first half of game 1 vs san antonio we could say lakers had a +11.5 offense with kobe in the first two rounds and that would also beat 2017 kawhi postseason offense

2006 suns went +11 over their first two series too so nash would also have two 2-series stretches better than kawhi one

[AEnigma]

Do you think 2010 is Nash’s second best year because that was his second best postseason rOrtg?

i brought up the playoffs specifically because falcolombardi brought up how nash looked in the playoffs compared to others in the playoffs.

Right, but he was not specifically arguing that the 2007 Suns had a better offensive result than any other season.

i can't replay the universe over a million times to see what will happen. this is already a peaks project with a small one year sample and the playoffs in a peaks project are an even smaller sample. what happened is what happened. otherwise we're turning it into more of a careers project. a spurs team that was #1 in defense in the regular season was able to produce an offseason rORtg greater than nash in 2007 or kobe in 2009, despite nash having the #1 regular season offense to work with and kobe having the #3. if that's solely because kawhi can just score massive amounts of points on massive efficiency or whether he was creating enough, i don't know, but that's what we have to go with. it's not like he got a hugely offensive slanted roster to work with. they were 9th in offense and then he took them up a notch. for what it's worth, he beats out 1986 Bird (+8.5), 1977 Walton and his creation (+2.2), and 2004 Garnett (-0.5, oof), 1964 Oscar (+2.4, estimated as best I can), and 1966 West (+8.2, also estimated). And most of these are teams with very highly ranked offenses (Oscar and West were actually #1 in their years). So I feel like it supports my case that playoff Kawhi just was at a level that is hard to ignore. He took a more defensively slanted team and outperformed league leading offenses with peak offensive players in the playoffs. Whether he could have done it for the next 10 games, I don't know. But this is his peak and he did it.

As Falco pointed out, the bulk of that is against Memphis — which continues to be the problem with these tiny samples (remember when I talked about his results against first round opponents in general?).

Put it another way: we (you and I) have talked before about how it is unfair to act as if a player would be better off losing early instead of getting injured later. But I would extend that thinking past injury: if the approach is ever that a player would have been better off exiting early, it is a flawed approach. And while that may not be your intention, hyper-focusing on these early rounds is part of that implication. Yes, all we can really ask is that players do what they can. But would 2006 Dirk be better off if Manu hits that shot? Look at Dirk’s numbers that series. Incredible! Right up there with 2006 Pistons Wade and 2019 76ers Kobe (as is 2008 Kobe versus the Spurs). And if that had been his exit, he never would have that disappointing finals, his rOrtg would be insane, his playoff averages would be impeccable, and a lot of people would feel even more strongly that is his peak.

Imagine if Lebron got Zaza’d right at the beginning of the 2017 Finals. His numbers would look absolutely astronomical; people would forever say that the Cavaliers could have gone toe to toe and that 2017 was probably his peak but we were just robbed. And a few people would say, well, the East was nothing special, and to an extent they would be right, but we would never know because we had no opportunity to see that oh yeah at best the Cavaliers with Lebron are only playing them close, maybe the 2017 Celtics/Raptors/Pacers were not exactly the best group to assess against.

EDIT: Falco did a good job touching on this too as I was writing.

Why the sudden turn to their offensive rating in this ten and a half game sample?

i only brought it up because someone else did. and people, including you, do seem to be disputing that. we get he's not an elite defender as an argument, we get he's not passing enough as an argument, we get he's not leading offenses like others as an argument. he's putting up 1991 Jordan numbers with almost Magic level playoff rORtg's and he's somehow getting qualitative arguments thrown against him. like i said, maybe i can see quantitative arguments, but even there Nash would lose with not getting out of the 2nd round (if cheap shots don't matter, then i guess the suns suspensions are irrelevant).

Then you misinterpreted the point. We know Nash drives elite postseason offences because there is a large sample of him doing so — much like with Magic, and Lebron, and Jordan, and Dirk, and Kobe. Much like with Duncan and Russell defensively. The focus has never really been on one singular series where the opponent was obliterated.

So then the question with Kawhi is why his scoring was not enough on any consistent basis (to be clear, I think his scoring does provide a nice and resilient floor), and the easy answer is that he is a more limited passer comparatively, except against Dirk, who has outlier positional spacing and gravity which warps opposing defences more than Kawhi does as a wing (gravity in general also weighs against Kawhi as a more limited off-ball mover who for whatever reason has not drawn the same defensive attention as guys like Kobe or Durant). The next question is whether his defence makes up for that gap, and the answer for many people is “maybe”.

Say we agree that no one remaining has a six-series playoff stretch as impressive as 2017-19 Kawhi. Do you think that is the end of the discussion, and if so, why do you think others do not feel that way?

that's pretty much been the entire question i've been asking in this thread. only you really seem to be engaging so i guess i can't say what others don't see. at this point, it feels like 2017 kawhi might as well be mikan. if people just want to ignore it because of the injury, then ok, but much like mikan why even squish it in at #24 behind qualitatively much worse seasons? i mean he has broad box score stats like 1991 Jordan and a playoff on/off of +22.3 for the plus/minus crowd and a small sample but "as good as it can be" whooping of a great team, at which point he got cheapshotted and his team epically fell apart. it feels like if we took the names off, this season would be doing gangbusters in this project.

Okay, so I am engaging, but I feel like you are not really engaging in kind with the responses I am trying to provide. Like, not as in not making an attempt — you are — but more as in still not quite seeing what the criticisms are. I hope this time around I will have done a better job of trying to communicate why people are not assessing other seasons as “qualitatively worse”.

Take Walton, who was just voted in but has been seeing broad support of some kind since like #10. Criticisms levied against him were sample size and health based too. But a key difference — beyond the fact these are two fundamentally different players — is that Walton’s teams collapsed without him and Kawhi’s teams generally do not seem to need him that much in the regular season. That is not saying he is not helpful or that they do not need him in the postseason (they obviously do), but pretty much no other star is so fortunate as to be able to take the regular season easily like that, Walton included. Curry has maybe been the exception, but these past couple of years showed that he could manage pretty well as more of a true floor raiser. Kawhi has never been asked to do that outright, and with his health being what it is, I would be concerned for his ability to carry over in the postseason if he did. I mean, for all the criticisms of Davis being fragile too, he at least has 2015 and 2018.

and in a weird way, kawhi has a perfect backup season in 2019, with one of the 4 sole superstar championships of the modern era, but it's like it gets ignored for 2017 because 2017 seems better, and then 2017 gets ignored for injuries. so we weirdly have the second best playoff performer of his generation after lebron, with one of the great individual championship runs ever and arguably 2 playoff runs even better than that, one that was ended for something that wasn't his fault,

I do broadly agree or at least sympathise with the sentiments here, but…

and they are getting ignored for clearly lesser playoff performers in a peaks, not careers, project.

Again, I would not characterise anyone so far as inherently lesser in the postseason when considering all context, let alone “clearly”, unless we hyper-focus on scoring and/or first round disparities. In a vacuum, for a playoffs peaks series, would I put 2019 Kawhi over Wade or Kobe? Probably (although then Dirk gets a boost too), but part of the reality behind that performance is that it came about after he was allowed to heavily injury manage the regular season on a team potentially capable of earning the second seed without him.

[eminence]

1- 2005 suns +8.4 (RS)
2- 2007 suns +7.4 (RS)
Gap
3- 2008 lakers +5.5 (RS)
4-2006 suns +5.3 (RS)
5- 2009 lakers +4.5 (RS)
6-2016 spurs +3.9 (RS)
gap
7-2015 spurs +2.9 (RS)
8-2019 raptors +2.7 (RS)
9- 2017 spurs +2.3 (RS)
10-2010 lakers + 1.5 (RS)

1-2005 suns +16.2 (PS)
Gap
2-2006 suns +10.1 (PS)
3- 2017 spurs +9.3(PS) (only counting two first rounds)
Gap
4-2010 lakers +6.9 (PS)
5-2008 lakers +6.8 (PS)
6-2007 suns +6.75 (PS)
7-2009 lakers +6.4 (PS)
Gap
8- 2016 spurs +4.5 (PS)
Gap
9-2015 spurs +2.9 (PS)
Gap
10-2019 raptors +1.7 (PS)

Not only does nash have higher heights and average across his prime season offenses. and kobe a clearly bettwr average offense in his peak year stretch

But spurs 2017 playoffs run is just a massive outlier, to surrounding seasons, to their owm regular seasom and evem within the same playoffs run (their +14 against memphis vs their +5 against rockets)

Is why i have some doubts about taking it at face value even for a peak project

Notice how kawhi teams are all at the bottom below every kobe and nash year here (including 17' reg season) except for the 17 playoffs

Hell, kobe lakers in 2008 had a +12.4 first round offense vs denver and a +10.6 one vs utah in the second. If kobe got hurt in the first half of game 1 vs san antonio we could say lakers had a +11.5 offense with kobe in the first two rounds and that would also beat 2017 kawhi postseason offense

2006 suns went +11 over their first two series too so nash would also have two 2-series stretches better than kawhi one

Somewhat notably Tony Allen missed that series for the Grizzlies as well.

[falcolombardi]

Do you think 2010 is Nash’s second best year because that was his second best postseason rOrtg?

i brought up the playoffs specifically because falcolombardi brought up how nash looked in the playoffs compared to others in the playoffs.

Right, but he was not specifically arguing that the 2007 Suns had a better offensive result than any other season.

i can't replay the universe over a million times to see what will happen. this is already a peaks project with a small one year sample and the playoffs in a peaks project are an even smaller sample. what happened is what happened. otherwise we're turning it into more of a careers project. a spurs team that was #1 in defense in the regular season was able to produce an offseason rORtg greater than nash in 2007 or kobe in 2009, despite nash having the #1 regular season offense to work with and kobe having the #3. if that's solely because kawhi can just score massive amounts of points on massive efficiency or whether he was creating enough, i don't know, but that's what we have to go with. it's not like he got a hugely offensive slanted roster to work with. they were 9th in offense and then he took them up a notch. for what it's worth, he beats out 1986 Bird (+8.5), 1977 Walton and his creation (+2.2), and 2004 Garnett (-0.5, oof), 1964 Oscar (+2.4, estimated as best I can), and 1966 West (+8.2, also estimated). And most of these are teams with very highly ranked offenses (Oscar and West were actually #1 in their years). So I feel like it supports my case that playoff Kawhi just was at a level that is hard to ignore. He took a more defensively slanted team and outperformed league leading offenses with peak offensive players in the playoffs. Whether he could have done it for the next 10 games, I don't know. But this is his peak and he did it.

As Falco pointed out, the bulk of that is against Memphis — which continues to be the problem with these tiny samples (remember when I talked about his results against first round opponents in general?).

Put it another way: we (you and I) have talked before about how it is unfair to act as if a player would be better off losing early instead of getting injured later. But I would extend that thinking past injury: if the approach is ever that a player would have been better off exiting early, it is a flawed approach. And while that may not be your intention, hyper-focusing on these early rounds is part of that implication. Yes, all we can really ask is that players do what they can. But would 2006 Dirk be better off if Manu hits that shot? Look at Dirk’s numbers that series. Incredible! Right up there with 2006 Pistons Wade and 2019 76ers Kobe (as is 2008 Kobe versus the Spurs). And if that had been his exit, he never would have that disappointing finals, his rOrtg would be insane, his playoff averages would be impeccable, and a lot of people would feel even more strongly that is his peak.

Imagine if Lebron got Zaza’d right at the beginning of the 2017 Finals. His numbers would look absolutely astronomical; people would forever say that the Cavaliers could have gone toe to toe and that 2017 was probably his peak but we were just robbed. And a few people would say, well, the East was nothing special, and to an extent they would be right, but we would never know because we had no opportunity to see that oh yeah at best the Cavaliers with Lebron are only playing them close, maybe the 2017 Celtics/Raptors/Pacers were not exactly the best group to assess against.

EDIT: Falco did a good job touching on this too as I was writing.

Why the sudden turn to their offensive rating in this ten and a half game sample?

i only brought it up because someone else did. and people, including you, do seem to be disputing that. we get he's not an elite defender as an argument, we get he's not passing enough as an argument, we get he's not leading offenses like others as an argument. he's putting up 1991 Jordan numbers with almost Magic level playoff rORtg's and he's somehow getting qualitative arguments thrown against him. like i said, maybe i can see quantitative arguments, but even there Nash would lose with not getting out of the 2nd round (if cheap shots don't matter, then i guess the suns suspensions are irrelevant).

Then you misinterpreted the point. We know Nash drives elite postseason offences because there is a large sample of him doing so — much like with Magic, and Lebron, and Jordan, and Dirk, and Kobe. Much like with Duncan and Russell defensively. The focus has never really been on one singular series where the opponent was obliterated.

So then the question with Kawhi is why his scoring was not enough on any consistent basis (to be clear, I think his scoring does provide a nice and resilient floor), and the easy answer is that he is a more limited passer comparatively, except against Dirk, who has outlier positional spacing and gravity which warps opposing defences more than Kawhi does as a wing (gravity in general also weighs against Kawhi as a more limited off-ball mover who for whatever reason has not drawn the same defensive attention as guys like Kobe or Durant). The next question is whether his defence makes up for that gap, and the answer for many people is “maybe”.

Say we agree that no one remaining has a six-series playoff stretch as impressive as 2017-19 Kawhi. Do you think that is the end of the discussion, and if so, why do you think others do not feel that way?

that's pretty much been the entire question i've been asking in this thread. only you really seem to be engaging so i guess i can't say what others don't see. at this point, it feels like 2017 kawhi might as well be mikan. if people just want to ignore it because of the injury, then ok, but much like mikan why even squish it in at #24 behind qualitatively much worse seasons? i mean he has broad box score stats like 1991 Jordan and a playoff on/off of +22.3 for the plus/minus crowd and a small sample but "as good as it can be" whooping of a great team, at which point he got cheapshotted and his team epically fell apart. it feels like if we took the names off, this season would be doing gangbusters in this project.

Okay, so I am engaging, but I feel like you are not really engaging in kind with the responses I am trying to provide. Like, not as in not making an attempt — you are — but more as in still not quite seeing what the criticisms are. I hope this time around I will have done a better job of trying to communicate why people are not assessing other seasons as “qualitatively worse”.

Take Walton, who was just voted in but has been seeing broad support of some kind since like #10. Criticisms levied against him were sample size and health based too. But a key difference — beyond the fact these are two fundamentally different players — is that Walton’s teams collapsed without him and Kawhi’s teams generally do not seem to need him that much in the regular season. That is not saying he is not helpful or that they do not need him in the postseason (they obviously do), but pretty much no other star is so fortunate as to be able to take the regular season easily like that, Walton included. Curry has maybe been the exception, but these past couple of years showed that he could manage pretty well as more of a true floor raiser. Kawhi has never been asked to do that outright, and with his health being what it is, I would be concerned for his ability to carry over in the postseason if he did. I mean, for all the criticisms of Davis being fragile too, he at least has 2015 and 2018.

and in a weird way, kawhi has a perfect backup season in 2019, with one of the 4 sole superstar championships of the modern era, but it's like it gets ignored for 2017 because 2017 seems better, and then 2017 gets ignored for injuries. so we weirdly have the second best playoff performer of his generation after lebron, with one of the great individual championship runs ever and arguably 2 playoff runs even better than that, one that was ended for something that wasn't his fault,

I do broadly agree or at least sympathise with the sentiments here, but…

and they are getting ignored for clearly lesser playoff performers in a peaks, not careers, project.

Again, I would not characterise anyone so far as inherently lesser in the postseason when considering all context, let alone “clearly”, unless we hyper-focus on scoring and/or first round disparities. In a vacuum, for a playoffs peaks series, would I put 2019 Kawhi over Wade or Kobe? Probably (although then Dirk gets a boost too), but part of the reality behind that performance is that it came about after he was allowed to heavily injury manage the regular season on a team potentially capable of earning the second seed without him.

This is also a much bigger issue in the basketball community than one would think

The (in)famous finals losses arguments against lebron are the most obvious example (since they imply he would have been better off losing earlier in years like 2007 or 2018)

But it applies to a bunch of thinghs

I still see people using health for 2016 kawhi >2017 kawhi arguments when the only reason kawhi could get injured was that he made it one round further in the first place

Or arguing draymond>gobert for dpoy in 2021 based gobert playoffs when draymond didnt even play them

It means that players with a better rep (deserved or not it doesnt matter) benefit from missing seasons or postseasons more thsn others from playing them and being perceived as underperforming them (even if in absolute terms they still provided a lot of value)

Jordan prolly gets more credit for missing 1994 (since people assume he would have won) than lebron for underperforming (but still being great in absolute terms and getting to a finals run) in 2011

Stuff like that

[DraymondGold]

1- 2005 suns +8.4 (RS)
2- 2007 suns +7.4 (RS)
Gap
3- 2008 lakers +5.5 (RS)
4-2006 suns +5.3 (RS)
5- 2009 lakers +4.5 (RS)
6-2016 spurs +3.9 (RS)
gap
7-2015 spurs +2.9 (RS)
8-2019 raptors +2.7 (RS)
9- 2017 spurs +2.3 (RS)
10-2010 lakers + 1.5 (RS)

1-2005 suns +16.2 (PS)
Gap
2-2006 suns +10.1 (PS)
3- 2017 spurs +9.3(PS) (only counting two first rounds)
Gap
4-2010 lakers +6.9 (PS)
5-2008 lakers +6.8 (PS)
6-2007 suns +6.75 (PS)
7-2009 lakers +6.4 (PS)
Gap
8- 2016 spurs +4.5 (PS)
Gap
9-2015 spurs +2.9 (PS)
Gap
10-2019 raptors +1.7 (PS)

Not only does nash have higher heights and average across his prime season offenses. and kobe a clearly bettwr average offense in his peak year stretch

But spurs 2017 playoffs run is just a massive outlier, to surrounding seasons, to their owm regular seasom and evem within the same playoffs run (their +14 against memphis vs their +5 against rockets)

Is why i have some doubts about taking it at face value even for a peak project

Notice how kawhi teams are all at the bottom below every kobe and nash year here (including 17' reg season) except for the 17 playoffs

Hell, kobe lakers in 2008 had a +12.4 first round offense vs denver and a +10.6 one vs utah in the second. If kobe got hurt in the first half of game 1 vs san antonio we could say lakers had a +11.5 offense with kobe in the first two rounds and that would also beat 2017 kawhi postseason offense

2006 suns went +11 over their first two series too so nash would also have two 2-series stretches better than kawhi one

Great post! I'm learning a lot about Kawhi/Kobe in this thread.

I thought it might be worth adding values for Clippers Kawhi. Not sure a quick way to calculate postseason offensive rating (are you using a source or calculating? otherwise we'd have to do a weighted average based on his opponent each round), but it's pretty easy to add regular season numbers:
2020 Regular Season Clippers would be between your 6th and 7th at +3.3
2021 Regular Season Clippers would be tied for 4th at +5.3

This is still below the best of Kobe/Nash, but a touch better on average.

Personally, I do see Clippers Kawhi as clearly superior offensively to earlier 19/17 Kawhi. His passing clearly improved from his younger years, although I do think the team construction of the Clippers helped by putting a larger passing load on Kawhi. Compare that to the 16-17 Spurs and 19 Raptors, who put Kawhi slightly more off-ball (which is to his credit) and surrounded him with great fitting passers (which isn't to his credit). I wonder how much the improved offenses came from his passing? I still don't see 21 Kawhi as a great passer by any means, and his defensive decline vs younger Kawhi makes me hesitant to take 21 > 17.


Edit:
For any interested, here's Thinking Basketball's video analysis on 2019 Kawhi.
0:00–3:05 Scoring Pros
3:05-5:30 Passing Cons
5:30-7:22 Defensive Pros
7:22-8:33 Defensive Cons
8:33-9:45 Overall Impact and Summary

Watch on YouTube

[falcolombardi]

1- 2005 suns +8.4 (RS)
2- 2007 suns +7.4 (RS)
Gap
3- 2008 lakers +5.5 (RS)
4-2006 suns +5.3 (RS)
5- 2009 lakers +4.5 (RS)
6-2016 spurs +3.9 (RS)
gap
7-2015 spurs +2.9 (RS)
8-2019 raptors +2.7 (RS)
9- 2017 spurs +2.3 (RS)
10-2010 lakers + 1.5 (RS)

1-2005 suns +16.2 (PS)
Gap
2-2006 suns +10.1 (PS)
3- 2017 spurs +9.3(PS) (only counting two first rounds)
Gap
4-2010 lakers +6.9 (PS)
5-2008 lakers +6.8 (PS)
6-2007 suns +6.75 (PS)
7-2009 lakers +6.4 (PS)
Gap
8- 2016 spurs +4.5 (PS)
Gap
9-2015 spurs +2.9 (PS)
Gap
10-2019 raptors +1.7 (PS)

Not only does nash have higher heights and average across his prime season offenses. and kobe a clearly bettwr average offense in his peak year stretch

But spurs 2017 playoffs run is just a massive outlier, to surrounding seasons, to their owm regular seasom and evem within the same playoffs run (their +14 against memphis vs their +5 against rockets)

Is why i have some doubts about taking it at face value even for a peak project

Notice how kawhi teams are all at the bottom below every kobe and nash year here (including 17' reg season) except for the 17 playoffs

Hell, kobe lakers in 2008 had a +12.4 first round offense vs denver and a +10.6 one vs utah in the second. If kobe got hurt in the first half of game 1 vs san antonio we could say lakers had a +11.5 offense with kobe in the first two rounds and that would also beat 2017 kawhi postseason offense

2006 suns went +11 over their first two series too so nash would also have two 2-series stretches better than kawhi one

Great post! I'm learning a lot about Kawhi/Kobe in this thread.

I thought it might be worth adding values for Clippers Kawhi. Not sure a quick way to calculate postseason offensive rating (are you using a source or calculating? otherwise we'd have to do a weighted average based on his opponent each round), but it's pretty easy to add regular season numbers:
2020 Regular Season Clippers would be between your 6th and 7th at +3.3
2021 Regular Season Clippers would be tied for 4th at +5.3

This is still below the best of Kobe/Nash, but a touch better on average.

Personally, I do see Clippers Kawhi as clearly superior offensively to earlier 19/17 Kawhi. His passing clearly improved from his younger years, although I do think the team construction of the Clippers helped by putting a larger passing load on Kawhi. Compare that to the 16-17 Spurs and 19 Raptors, who put Kawhi slightly more off-ball (which is to his credit) and surrounded him with great fitting passers (which isn't to his credit). I wonder how much the improved offenses came from his passing? I still don't see 21 Kawhi as a great passer by any means, and his defensive decline vs younger Kawhi makes me hesitant to take 21 > 17.

Sure

In the 2020 bubble clippers had +10.6 offense against dallas and -0.9 offense against denver (all my numbers are relative to rival regular season defensive rating, not to league average rating). Average those two extremes and you get +4.9

In 2021 they went +9.2 against dallas but kawhi only played 4 games against utah, dont know how to calculate single game offensive rating

If you combine kawhi 3 fully healthy clipper series it averages to +6.4

[Proxy]

In 2021 they went +9.2 against dallas but kawhi only played 4 games against utah, dont know how to calculate single game offensive rating

If you combine kawhi 3 fully healthy clipper series it averages to +6.4

Should generally help but i'm pretty sure bball ref has single game ORTG already listed on it as well(possession stuff/lack of filters may give slightly diff results than pbp or ctg)
https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy/nba?0Exactly1PlayedInGame=202695&TeamId=1610612746&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Playoffs&Type=Team&Opponent=1610612762

[f4p]

1- 2005 suns +8.4 (RS)
2- 2007 suns +7.4 (RS)
Gap
3- 2008 lakers +5.5 (RS)
4-2006 suns +5.3 (RS)
5- 2009 lakers +4.5 (RS)
6-2016 spurs +3.9 (RS)
gap
7-2015 spurs +2.9 (RS)
8-2019 raptors +2.7 (RS)
9- 2017 spurs +2.3 (RS)
10-2010 lakers + 1.5 (RS)

1-2005 suns +16.2 (PS)
Gap
2-2006 suns +10.1 (PS)
3- 2017 spurs +9.3(PS) (only counting two first rounds)
Gap
4-2010 lakers +6.9 (PS)
5-2008 lakers +6.8 (PS)
6-2007 suns +6.75 (PS)
7-2009 lakers +6.4 (PS)
Gap
8- 2016 spurs +4.5 (PS)
Gap
9-2015 spurs +2.9 (PS)
Gap
10-2019 raptors +1.7 (PS)

Not only does nash have higher heights and average across his prime season offenses. and kobe a clearly bettwr average offense in his peak year stretch

But spurs 2017 playoffs run is just a massive outlier, to surrounding seasons, to their owm regular seasom and evem within the same playoffs run (their +14 against memphis vs their +5 against rockets)

Is why i have some doubts about taking it at face value even for a peak project

Notice how kawhi teams are all at the bottom below every kobe and nash year here (including 17' reg season) except for the 17 playoffs

Hell, kobe lakers in 2008 had a +12.4 first round offense vs denver and a +10.6 one vs utah in the second. If kobe got hurt in the first half of game 1 vs san antonio we could say lakers had a +11.5 offense with kobe in the first two rounds and that would also beat 2017 kawhi postseason offense

2006 suns went +11 over their first two series too so nash would also have two 2-series stretches better than kawhi one

Great post! I'm learning a lot about Kawhi/Kobe in this thread.

I thought it might be worth adding values for Clippers Kawhi. Not sure a quick way to calculate postseason offensive rating (are you using a source or calculating? otherwise we'd have to do a weighted average based on his opponent each round), but it's pretty easy to add regular season numbers:
2020 Regular Season Clippers would be between your 6th and 7th at +3.3
2021 Regular Season Clippers would be tied for 4th at +5.3

This is still below the best of Kobe/Nash, but a touch better on average.

Personally, I do see Clippers Kawhi as clearly superior offensively to earlier 19/17 Kawhi. His passing clearly improved from his younger years, although I do think the team construction of the Clippers helped by putting a larger passing load on Kawhi. Compare that to the 16-17 Spurs and 19 Raptors, who put Kawhi slightly more off-ball (which is to his credit) and surrounded him with great fitting passers (which isn't to his credit). I wonder how much the improved offenses came from his passing? I still don't see 21 Kawhi as a great passer by any means, and his defensive decline vs younger Kawhi makes me hesitant to take 21 > 17.

Sure

In the 2020 bubble clippers had +10.6 offense against dallas and -0.9 offense against denver (all my numbers are relative to rival regular season defensive rating, not to league average rating). Average those two extremes and you get +4.9

In 2021 they went +9.2 against dallas but kawhi only played 4 games against utah, dont know how to calculate single game offensive rating

If you combine kawhi 3 fully healthy clipper series it averages to +6.4

Bbref has the individual games. Just taking the average of the games, the clippers were 126.4 in kawhi's 4 games (118.1, 115, 142.4, 130.1). Which is +15. After averaging 136 in kawhi's last 2 games, in the 2 games without him, the clippers were 128 and 148!!! The jazz gave up a 137 Drtg for the last 4 games. Is that some sort of record? Not that I've memorized nba history, but I've never seen a 130 series Ortg.

[falcolombardi]

Great post! I'm learning a lot about Kawhi/Kobe in this thread.

I thought it might be worth adding values for Clippers Kawhi. Not sure a quick way to calculate postseason offensive rating (are you using a source or calculating? otherwise we'd have to do a weighted average based on his opponent each round), but it's pretty easy to add regular season numbers:
2020 Regular Season Clippers would be between your 6th and 7th at +3.3
2021 Regular Season Clippers would be tied for 4th at +5.3

This is still below the best of Kobe/Nash, but a touch better on average.

Personally, I do see Clippers Kawhi as clearly superior offensively to earlier 19/17 Kawhi. His passing clearly improved from his younger years, although I do think the team construction of the Clippers helped by putting a larger passing load on Kawhi. Compare that to the 16-17 Spurs and 19 Raptors, who put Kawhi slightly more off-ball (which is to his credit) and surrounded him with great fitting passers (which isn't to his credit). I wonder how much the improved offenses came from his passing? I still don't see 21 Kawhi as a great passer by any means, and his defensive decline vs younger Kawhi makes me hesitant to take 21 > 17.

Sure

In the 2020 bubble clippers had +10.6 offense against dallas and -0.9 offense against denver (all my numbers are relative to rival regular season defensive rating, not to league average rating). Average those two extremes and you get +4.9

In 2021 they went +9.2 against dallas but kawhi only played 4 games against utah, dont know how to calculate single game offensive rating

If you combine kawhi 3 fully healthy clipper series it averages to +6.4

Bbref has the individual games. Just taking the average of the games, the clippers were 126.4 in kawhi's 4 games (118.1, 115, 142.4, 130.1). Which is +15. After averaging 136 in kawhi's last 2 games, in the 2 games without him, the clippers were 128 and 148!!! The jazz gave up a 137 Drtg for the last 4 games. Is that some sort of record? Not that I've memorized nba history, but I've never seen a 130 series Ortg.

Cleveland had a 128.4 offensive rating vs celtics in 2017 is as close as it gets

[iggymcfrack]

1. 1995/96 David Robinson- Led the league in PER in both the regular season AND postseason while anchoring the 3rd best defense in the league. Early impact metrics had him neck and neck with Michael Jordan for best player in the league. When Robinson missed the vast majority of the following season, the Spurs defense went from 3rd/29 to 29th/29. They were 9 points worse per 100 possessions. The following season when he returned, the defense improved 13 points per 100 possessions. His defensive impact vastly outpaced his box score value and you can argue that at this point in his career, he was right there with anyone else in the history of the league for most valuable defensive players. I have a hard time believing that Bill Russell ever peaked higher than David Robinson for instance since Robinson had such a strong offensive game while providing at least 95% of the same value on defense.

2. 2016/2017 Kawhi Leonard- Yes he suffered a season ending injury in the playoffs, but it was on a dirty play that could have happened to anyone and prior to that, he hadn’t been injury prone at all. In the playoffs that year, Kawhi had a 31.5 PER on .672 TS%. He had .314 WS/48 and a 14.2 BPM. All of those are all-time numbers. What’s even more impressive though is he did all that WITH some of the best wing defense of all-time. He won DPOY in 2015 and 2016 and absolutely played at that same elite level in the playoffs. He had a playoff on/off of +22.3 and led the Spurs to a huge lead over the best team of all-time in Game 1 against the Warriors in a series where they would ultimately get swept after he got hurt.

3. 2010/11 Dirk Nowitzki- In 2 strong RAPM samples, he ranked incredibly high finishing 1st overall in the NBAShotCharts site which spanned from 2010-2022 and he also ranked #3 in the 97-14 sample on Yahoo behind 2 LeBron years and one year from Tim Duncan. The Mavericks were approximately a -6 with him on the bench in both the regular season and postseason and yet, he led them to sweep Kobe and Pau in the first round and beat a superteam of Wade, Bosh, and LeBron that many thought was the best team ever established at the time.

[ShotCreator]

Great post! I'm learning a lot about Kawhi/Kobe in this thread.

I thought it might be worth adding values for Clippers Kawhi. Not sure a quick way to calculate postseason offensive rating (are you using a source or calculating? otherwise we'd have to do a weighted average based on his opponent each round), but it's pretty easy to add regular season numbers:
2020 Regular Season Clippers would be between your 6th and 7th at +3.3
2021 Regular Season Clippers would be tied for 4th at +5.3

This is still below the best of Kobe/Nash, but a touch better on average.

Personally, I do see Clippers Kawhi as clearly superior offensively to earlier 19/17 Kawhi. His passing clearly improved from his younger years, although I do think the team construction of the Clippers helped by putting a larger passing load on Kawhi. Compare that to the 16-17 Spurs and 19 Raptors, who put Kawhi slightly more off-ball (which is to his credit) and surrounded him with great fitting passers (which isn't to his credit). I wonder how much the improved offenses came from his passing? I still don't see 21 Kawhi as a great passer by any means, and his defensive decline vs younger Kawhi makes me hesitant to take 21 > 17.

Sure

In the 2020 bubble clippers had +10.6 offense against dallas and -0.9 offense against denver (all my numbers are relative to rival regular season defensive rating, not to league average rating). Average those two extremes and you get +4.9

In 2021 they went +9.2 against dallas but kawhi only played 4 games against utah, dont know how to calculate single game offensive rating

If you combine kawhi 3 fully healthy clipper series it averages to +6.4

Bbref has the individual games. Just taking the average of the games, the clippers were 126.4 in kawhi's 4 games (118.1, 115, 142.4, 130.1). Which is +15. After averaging 136 in kawhi's last 2 games, in the 2 games without him, the clippers were 128 and 148!!! The jazz gave up a 137 Drtg for the last 4 games. Is that some sort of record? Not that I've memorized nba history, but I've never seen a 130 series Ortg.

As far as overall ORTG, the series was about as explosive as others in different eras.

The 80’s and 90’s had some absolute shootouts. 95 Rockets/Jazz is one that stands out.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I also think when you look at 2007 Nash, you might want to index on his play against a tougher opponent versus say a weaker one.

Nash's 07 first round series was pretty weak for his standards, but it was a series the Suns won in 5, and I guess you could argue were in control of. The Suns had a raw rORTG of 6.1 in this series.

In the second round against a vaunted Spurs defense (had a rDRTG of -6.5, which is #16 all-time, just barely behind the 06 Spurs for the #15 spot), Nash played closer to what you would expect of an all-time offensive player in the box-score. First off the Suns had a better rORTG (7), hinting at a resilient offense. Even without his full squad for the whole series,

Nash averaged 21.3 pts per 75 possessions on a rTS% of 8.6%. He is estimated to have created about 17.3 shots per 100 possessions. Dating back to 2001, that shots created per 100 possessions would be the highest ever up until that point in his history. His PlayVal (Playmaking value, an estimate of a player’s points per 100 impact from playmaking only) of 3, would be the fourth highest on record up until that point with 2 of the 3 spots ahead of it being records set by none other than Nash himself.

[Proxy]

18. 2020 Anthony Davis
I'd say I've been pretty convinced by UnibrowDavis' explanations in previous threads(https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2215651#p100682968), I still think alot of his conclusions are pretty extreme like the KD offensive value comparison or 2nd best offensive player of the PS(Feel both Harden and Luka were clearly better still minimum) but upon revisiting his playoff run I I think not only was he not really optimized offensively(honestly he may not have been all that much for full seasons since like 2015, and his value wasn't optimized in the 2020 RS defensively and you could see the massive difference in Lakers' scheme from the RS vs the PS), but also the majority of things that made it great were pretty replicable to me(so much reasons for his dominance besides shooting luck honestly where he underperformed from true mid range if anything - the interior scoring, some of the self creation, the off ball stuff and relentless opportunity hunting where is truly all-time in that regard have all been pretty consistent things to me and why he looks like a general PS riser in his prime in the small sample). Offers so much to a team even with his secondary skills and allows for so much scheme versatility on defense, that with his offensive flexibility gains tremendous value in a PS environment.

19. 2008 Kobe Bryant (2009, 2007, 2006)
I think I said it in a very earlier thread when Kobe first got brought up but out of the players in this group yet to be voted I believe he has the most proof of sustaining his regular season value into the playoffs over his prime sample size wise, and none of these players have created as much separation as regular season performers like say the top 12 peaks here have, besides Drob who I believe has potentially the poorest resilience here and gave reasons for why I believe his statistical profile is inflated and not truly reflective of his goodness in much earlier theads.

Kobe Bryant absurd offensive resilience('01-'10):

RS -> PS:
28 Pts Per 75 -> 29 Pts Per 75
+2.8 rTS% -> +3.3 rTS%
8.45 cTOV% -> 8.4 cTOV%
8.43 Box Creation -> 8.3 Box Creation
+3.4 Team rORTG -> 5.6 rORTG

48.95 O Load -> 47.6 O Load
1.13 ScoreVal -> 1.24 ScoreVal
.89 PlayVal -> .9 PlayVal
4.88 BPM -> 5.1 BPM
+7.5 On/Off -> 9.0 On/Off

Average defense played in that stretch(148 Games): Ranked #5 in the league, -3.2 rDRTG

With truly all-time resilience - maybe the best in this group to me for a player at his level besides 1976 Erving, fairly strong showcases of portability(similar value in all acts of his prime mainly just dipping in '04/'05 in very distinct circumstances) and no players here besides Robinson creating *enough* separation in terms of RS value from what I can see, the combination puts him at the top for me.

20. 2017 Kevin Durant (2018, 2016, 2014)
DraymondGold and I made brief comparisons between him and Kobe in earlier threads(I want to say in the 11th?) - their impact indicators are very similar in the regular season over their primes(KD peaking higher in 2016 according to APM and WOWY stuff, but Kobe having the edge prime-wise), and Kobe winning in the PS according to most hybrid metric stuff(KD still winning the box stuff).

They both have their advantages over eachother to me and I have it as mostly a toss up, thus having them both above anyone else so far(also believe they are both a little more portable than anyone i've mentioned in this group besides Robinson). I feel Durant is a better scorer, probably adds more spacing value seeing as he can play the 4/5, and probably unlocks a bit more defensive versatility on that end due to that as well from not bleeding significant value there at his peak.

I also agree KD offers so much value when not put in the role as a lead playmaker as a hyper efficient play finisher that can play the 4/5 and drag rim protectors away from the paint unlike most wings that it might bridge the gap. This production was just absurd and so versatile in 2017


And it was also great in 2014

And 2016, basically excellent in every category for his prime:


His result of raising the Warriors to a +14.4 SRS level compared to the +10.4 in the 19 games in missed with a otherwise healthy roster in 2017 is probably one of the more impressive IRL ceiling raising results in history to me considering he generates most of his value from volume scoring, but it's hard to tell how much better many other players could do better in those circumstances(Like a Kobe).

I believe alot of the Kobe Vs KD debate depends on how much these are valued.
EDIT: Also 2008 Kobe for comparison(could grab other years if anyone is interested):

His ability as such a hyper efficient play finisher is both portable and scalable, providing fairly high value on both the Thunder with Russ, with the Warriors, and on the Nets with Harden/Kyrie and i'm impressed by his ability to raise the ceiling of the Warriors(already being like a +12 team when healthy in 2016) as high as he did as primarily a volume scorer.

However Kobe has some advantages as a playmaker that made me lean towards preferring him as a primary

I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion that KD should be considered clearly ahead by the data in your other post, I think the nox box 1 numbers are capturing some of KD's problems that aren't really captured too well in the box score.

Some of the things I see on film are that are:
-I think he takes a hair longer than many other offensive players I think are on his level, maybe even slower than Dirk even when it comes to recognizing the optimal pass or play and misses many tight windows(corner passes are a big one).

-I believe he has court mapping issues and lacks diverse passing deliveries and the ability to make more than basic passing reads.

-I also feel he struggles to leverage his off ball scoring threat to pressure defenses within the flow of an offense(ex: doesn't really screen that much, and doesn't really fight as hard for little advantages for position in the post or off the ball like a Kobe or Bird that generate small advantages), he also occasionally gets stuck between scoring and passing modes but I think he got better at balancing the two the further down his career.

The very clear difference in how box 1 number metrics and pure APM metrics portray him over his prime give me a little bit of concern when concluding his profile should be looked at as more impressive. I will also say Kobe didn't play alongside a mega ball dominant player like Russ(those ball dominant high volume players tend to perform pretty well in those metrics) for most his prime to take away some of the credit like KD.

Otoh I think some of those OKC teams were extremely poorly suited when it came to optimizing either KD's(and Russ') offensive value and yet their PS team results together were still fairly impressive in the playoffs for some of those years. I could not buy those teams as being viable in the modern NBA.

In 48 games from 2013 to 2016 they had a +5.25 rORTG on very heavily defensively minded teams running up to 4 non-high volume 3 point shooters around KD at times, and +8 PS Net Rating, and before that, from 2010 to 2012 they had a +6.73 rORTG and +7.1 Net Rating in 43 games, and this was before his peak, and before Russ or Harden really broke out as stars.

Showing how on a bit more balanced rosters he could honestly lead you to some pretty impressive offensive results as a very clear 1A offensively.

On all reports i've seen, Kobe grew as a defensive communicator before the 2007 season and is probably a more schematically sound defender than KD, his main problem being motor related(but I also don't think it was only due to offensive load by this point, I wish he had another lung or something), I see his communication as being fairly additive in most circumstances. EDIT: Not to say they don't have other advantages over eachother, I just don't hsvr time to go even more in depth

I would probably give KD an edge in portability and scalability, but I see Kobe is still being probably more resilient in a deep playoffs run setting generally due to his playmaking. Overall I see them both being fairly similar in value to eachother on both ends(i'd probably go Kobe offensively, and Durant defensively). My choice is Kobe by a hair because I think there are very slightly more realistic team circumstances overall in a normal league in which I think he'd be a higher value add in a playoff setting, and decided to go with what I feel are their most complete versions as players.

[iggymcfrack]

Part of the concern with 2017 Kawhi is that small postseason sample though. We are talking like ten and a half games here.

And that would be great if we didn't have a whole bunch of other Kawhi playoffs indicating that he is basically unstoppable. From 2016 to 2021, over 70 games, he averaged 29.0 PER, 0.263 WS48, 10.9 BPM on 62.9 TS%. Those would damn near be a career high playoff run for most of the non-Jordan/Lebron top 10. And that's a 5 year average!

Hence the comment about combining years. You are free to do that, but as I said, it is unsurprising not everyone does, especially when those postseasons variably ended disappointingly on performance (2016 and 2020), ended because of injury ten games in (2017 and 2021), or showed Kawhi degrading as the postseason went on in a way we could not see in any other postseason because he did not make it that far (2019). Like, look at how Kawhi does in round 1. He obliterates teams. And then every second round he drops off somewhat. Then in 2019 he drops further in the third round, and then further still in the Finals.

I find this to be pretty unfair when you're talking about his 2019 performance. You're saying he degraded throughout the postseason, getting worse every round, and yet against the Bucks, he put up 30/10/4 on .574 TS% and also completely shut down Giannis, turning the series around. The first 2 games, Kawhi guarded Giannis sparingly and he averaged the same 27 PPG on good efficiency he did during the early round of the playoffs. With the Raptors down 2-0, Kawhi said he wanted to guard Giannis more and he handled him. Giannis' averages dropped to 21 PPG with a TS% under .500 for the last 4 games which Toronto won all of. For the series, Kawhi guarded Giannis for 160 possessions and over those possessions, Giannis shot 12/34 with 5 assists and 5 turnovers for an 89.4 offensive rating. That two way performance was MUCH more impressive than having slightly better numbers against Orlando in Round 1 without putting in the work on the other side to stop the second best player in the league.

Thus my Tonya Harding comment. The argument is basically that if a goon decides to hurt you, we assume you would have fallen off and penalize you, and literally elevate a guy above you who was a teammate of the aforementioned goon.

No, we assume nothing. You are assuming it would have continued. Maybe he would have bucked the worrying injury warnings we saw literally one game before. Or maybe he leaves on his own in Game 3, no Zaza involved. We have no way of knowing. That is the point. Smaller sample means lesser certainty.

The last 6 years say stopping Kawhi is practically impossible.

The last six years you basically just needed to wait him out.

Again, completely unfair. In 2014, Kawhi as a young, unfinished player won Finals MVP. In 2016, Kawhi had one of the best statistical playoffs ever in a year where he also won defensive player of the year. When the Spurs were eliminated by the Thunder they were +12 with Kawhi on the floor for the series. The last 4 games, Kawhi averaged 25/8/4 with 3.3 steals per game shooting 46% from the field. When you account for the defense he played, that's all-time play when you're supposedly "waiting him out". At no point in time, did Kawhi ever struggle down the stretch of the playoffs whatsoever prior to the dirty play from Zaza in 2017.

[falcolombardi]

And that would be great if we didn't have a whole bunch of other Kawhi playoffs indicating that he is basically unstoppable. From 2016 to 2021, over 70 games, he averaged 29.0 PER, 0.263 WS48, 10.9 BPM on 62.9 TS%. Those would damn near be a career high playoff run for most of the non-Jordan/Lebron top 10. And that's a 5 year average!

Hence the comment about combining years. You are free to do that, but as I said, it is unsurprising not everyone does, especially when those postseasons variably ended disappointingly on performance (2016 and 2020), ended because of injury ten games in (2017 and 2021), or showed Kawhi degrading as the postseason went on in a way we could not see in any other postseason because he did not make it that far (2019). Like, look at how Kawhi does in round 1. He obliterates teams. And then every second round he drops off somewhat. Then in 2019 he drops further in the third round, and then further still in the Finals.

I find this to be pretty unfair when you're talking about his 2019 performance. You're saying he degraded throughout the postseason, getting worse every round, and yet against the Bucks, he put up 30/10/4 on .574 TS% and also completely shut down Giannis, turning the series around. The first 2 games, Kawhi guarded Giannis sparingly and he averaged the same 27 PPG on good efficiency he did during the early round of the playoffs. With the Raptors down 2-0, Kawhi said he wanted to guard Giannis more and he handled him. Giannis' averages dropped to 21 PPG with a TS% under .500 for the last 4 games which Toronto won all of. For the series, Kawhi guarded Giannis for 160 possessions and over those possessions, Giannis shot 12/34 with 5 assists and 5 turnovers for an 89.4 offensive rating. That two way performance was MUCH more impressive than having slightly better numbers against Orlando in Round 1 without putting in the work on the other side to stop the second best player in the league.

Thus my Tonya Harding comment. The argument is basically that if a goon decides to hurt you, we assume you would have fallen off and penalize you, and literally elevate a guy above you who was a teammate of the aforementioned goon.

No, we assume nothing. You are assuming it would have continued. Maybe he would have bucked the worrying injury warnings we saw literally one game before. Or maybe he leaves on his own in Game 3, no Zaza involved. We have no way of knowing. That is the point. Smaller sample means lesser certainty.

The last 6 years say stopping Kawhi is practically impossible.

The last six years you basically just needed to wait him out.

Again, completely unfair. In 2014, Kawhi as a young, unfinished player won Finals MVP. In 2016, Kawhi had one of the best statistical playoffs ever in a year where he also won defensive player of the year. When the Spurs were eliminated by the Thunder they were +12 with Kawhi on the floor for the series. The last 4 games, Kawhi averaged 25/8/4 with 3.3 steals per game shooting 46% from the field. When you account for the defense he played, that's all-time play when you're supposedly "waiting him out". At no point in time, did Kawhi ever struggle down the stretch of the playoffs whatsoever prior to the dirty play from Zaza in 2017.

I would push back a bit against fully crediting kawhi for stopping giannis

That toronto team was stacked with great defenders, size and athletism

Also how much of that +12 is the game 1 blowout? Spurs destroyed thunder game 1 then they lost 4 of the next five.

Edit: looked it up

Game 1: +20
Game 2: +11
Game 3: +5
Game 4:-19
Game 5: +8

Well i am really impressed, that looks really damn nice

[AEnigma]

Hence the comment about combining years. You are free to do that, but as I said, it is unsurprising not everyone does, especially when those postseasons variably ended disappointingly on performance (2016 and 2020), ended because of injury ten games in (2017 and 2021), or showed Kawhi degrading as the postseason went on in a way we could not see in any other postseason because he did not make it that far (2019). Like, look at how Kawhi does in round 1. He obliterates teams. And then every second round he drops off somewhat. Then in 2019 he drops further in the third round, and then further still in the Finals.

I find this to be pretty unfair when you're talking about his 2019 performance. You're saying he degraded throughout the postseason, getting worse every round, and yet against the Bucks, he put up 30/10/4 on .574 TS% and also completely shut down Giannis, turning the series around. The first 2 games, Kawhi guarded Giannis sparingly and he averaged the same 27 PPG on good efficiency he did during the early round of the playoffs. With the Raptors down 2-0, Kawhi said he wanted to guard Giannis more and he handled him. Giannis' averages dropped to 21 PPG with a TS% under .500 for the last 4 games which Toronto won all of. For the series, Kawhi guarded Giannis for 160 possessions and over those possessions, Giannis shot 12/34 with 5 assists and 5 turnovers for an 89.4 offensive rating. That two way performance was MUCH more impressive than having slightly better numbers against Orlando in Round 1 without putting in the work on the other side to stop the second best player in the league.

Maybe instead of reflexively lashing out just because a player you voted for was criticised, you should take the time to actually read the argument. What part of “he had the most impressive six series run of anyone left” seemed like I was underselling him. Did I say he performed poorly? No. Did I say he was unimpressive? No. What I said was that he degraded — and he did. Like, in real time, we could follow his health getting worse. Maybe you do not remember or were not following close enough to notice. Fine. But citing a box score — where even there you can see his scoring notably dip relative to the prior two rounds — is not a counterpoint.

I agree, I was much more impressed by his Milwaukee series than his Orlando series. I was also much more impressed by his Milwaukee series than the Memphis series everyone is gushing over. A substantial part of why it is impressive is the competition level. Another part of why is that he was doing all that even as he started to limp on the court. Gutsy as hell, should have shut up everyone who basically called him soft for how he handled injuries up to that point. From a narrative standpoint, squaring up against the MVP like that is downright legacy defining and could (should?) have been a Hakeem/Robinson moment if he had any broad fan appeal.

All of which is to say, whether he was good is not remotely close to the argument. The argument is, okay, if he is already limping after having one of the all-time load management seasons, because the team was good enough to let him do that without harm, what if the team had been worse and/or more had been asked of him? Does he make it there if he has to play like Wade or Kobe did in the regular season? What if that limp were even slightly worse and the Raptors slightly less great. Falco already rightly pointed out that defending Giannis was nothing close to a one-man effort, but even if we ignore that, Kawhi had pretty nice help on offence too (admittedly much less in the first two rounds; they timed it well, picking up the load as Kawhi began to struggle with his). You bring up Kawhi’s numbers; care to look at Lowry’s? What about VanVleet averaging 16 a game on nearly 100% efficiency over those final three games? Those last two were decided by six points, and in the fourth quarter of Game 6, trailing, Kawhi was even more hobbled and struggling to score… and it did not even matter.

Championship teams tend to demand someone other than the star shows up… but no other ones basically just ask the star to take it easy and rest whenever they want during the regular season. I am not criticising Kawhi or the team for taking that approach, except in the sense that it is relevant when we act as if that postseason occurs in a vacuum or refuse to mention how much that helps him specifically be able to perform like that.

No, we assume nothing. You are assuming it would have continued. Maybe he would have bucked the worrying injury warnings we saw literally one game before. Or maybe he leaves on his own in Game 3, no Zaza involved. We have no way of knowing. That is the point. Smaller sample means lesser certainty.

The last 6 years say stopping Kawhi is practically impossible.

The last six years you basically just needed to wait him out.

Again, completely unfair. In 2014, Kawhi as a young, unfinished player won Finals MVP. In 2016, Kawhi had one of the best statistical playoffs ever in a year where he also won defensive player of the year. When the Spurs were eliminated by the Thunder they were +12 with Kawhi on the floor for the series. The last 4 games, Kawhi averaged 25/8/4 with 3.3 steals per game shooting 46% from the field. When you account for the defense he played, that's all-time play when you're supposedly "waiting him out". At no point in time, did Kawhi ever struggle down the stretch of the playoffs whatsoever prior to the dirty play from Zaza in 2017.

Yeah so how soon as you voting for 2019 Embiid? Check out the 76ers with him on the court!

If you want to vote for 2016 Kawhi (famously more than six years/seasons ago at this point, but hey, math is hard), feel free. If you think 2014-16 Kawhi is more analogous to 2017 Kawhi than 2019-21 Kawhi is, go right ahead and argue that. Pretty much everyone else recognises what followed those years as a meaningfully different type of player, one who was Durant’s greater or equal rather than the one struggling to keep up.

[AEnigma]

Also how much of that +12 is the game 1 blowout? Spurs destroyed thunder game 1 then they lost 4 of the next five.

Edit: looked it up

Game 1: +20
Game 2: +11
Game 3: +5
Game 4:-19
Game 5: +8

Well i am really impressed, that looks really damn nice

And then Game 6 was -13. Not that it really matters (see again: Joel Embiid), but having a positive in two losses in nothing crazy. After game 1, he was overall outscored just like the Spurs.

You can see something similar with Giannis in the 2019 Bucks/Raptors series. You already know Lebron did it in the 2017 Finals. When losses are close it becomes more likely.

[falcolombardi]

I am wondering along but is dpoy kawhi a better player than peak scottie pippen?

Both are defense monsters outside the interior positions, kawhi is a better floor spacer and scorer (even then) but pippen is a great offensive rebounder and playmaker

[falcolombardi]

Also how much of that +12 is the game 1 blowout? Spurs destroyed thunder game 1 then they lost 4 of the next five.

Edit: looked it up

Game 1: +20
Game 2: +11
Game 3: +5
Game 4:-19
Game 5: +8

Well i am really impressed, that looks really damn nice

I would take those numbers with a pretty big grain of salt, because from what I am seeing outside of BBR he did not have a positive on-court rating over those last five games. Not that it really matters (see again: Joel Embiid).

I actually think embiid was fantastic in 2019 lol, back when his defense still got him argued as a dpoy level player

Having greg monroe (like him, but dude was starting a now standing tradition of slow/outdated ineffective embiid backups) as his bench replacement and a point guard (simmons) who really needs all the spacing he can get to be effective was a dream situation for his impact metrics tbh

[AEnigma]

2016 Kawhi versus 1995 Pippen (or 1996 if we want to go title chasing) is a pretty interesting debate. Defence is tough to call. “Impact” is similar. Kawhi definitely the better scorer, but Pippen has a massive creation advantage.

Tellingly, Pippen has not come close to making either of the past two projects. Whether or not that is right maybe should be debated. 1994-96 Pippen versus 1995/96 Penny could be an okay contemporary comparison. Pippen versus Walt Frazier, perhaps? Versus 2019 Paul George?