Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #20 - 1993-94 David Robinson

[AEnigma]

also, i'm not sure how nash is getting votes over someone like harden. 2005-2007 nash doesn't seem very comparable to 2018-2020 harden.
harden's got a 2018 no doubt about it mvp where he practically led in every stat.

Yet again I must ask: how do you think this responds to any arguments at play? When has a Nash backer ever cared about PER and BPM and WinShares and points per game?

the 2018 rockets are significantly better than any of the suns teams. when actually healthy, 44-5 with a +11.0 SRS with harden and cp3 playing. and while very well constructed, i wouldn't exactly call harden plus 33 year old chris paul plus clint capela some absurd collection of talent to dominate as much as they did.

Well they basically added Chris Paul directly to that 2017 team, so yeah I would say it looks like he mattered a lot. Which team was better, the 2006 Suns or the 2017 Rockets? And how much better is Chris Paul than Amar’e Stoudemire?

harden was #31 in the last top 100, and i don't think that included 2020, and obviously as an active player, he is theoretically getting more value from his peak than a retired player, so it will be weird if his peak doesn't beat his ranking.

Harden went too low in that project — almost no way he slots in below Westbrook this time — but a large number of people think 2019 was his peak anyway. If you are confused about how Nash could be argued higher, maybe that project would be a good place to start.

[LukaTheGOAT]

The argument for Nash over Harden might look like something like the following:

I take Nash for peak and an all-time sense. The only people who have a 8 year string of postseason offense as good as Nash are Shaq and Lebron (via backpicks).
Furthermore, per Backpicks BPM, James Harden has among the greatest dropoffs from a NBA superstar from the RS to PS, which I think pushes things favorably in Nash's favor (does not include 20-22 PS)

Watch on YouTube

Continuing on, I suppose I should provide some more data to back my Nash>Harden opinion, because looking solely at box-score numbers, this conclusion might still come as a suprise.

For one, Steve Nash was on a #1 offense for 9 years straight in his career, playing with Dirk and then becoming the #1 guy during this timespan. This gives validity to the idea that Nash truly was a special driving force and could mesh with other high end talent.

Furthermore, RPM and APM figures are very kind to Nash.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/rapm-by-player

At this link not only does Nash have the top peak offensive peak per RAPM ahead of Peak Lebron, Peak Kobe, Peak Wade, etc., but he takes up multiple spots in the upper echelon.

Even if we adjust for dominance relative to year, Nash is beating out Kobe, Wade, Lebron (only goes up to 13)

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According to Steve Ilardi's 04-09 APM, Steve Nash also has the highest offensive peak by quite the margin as well. https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/04-09-6-year-apm

Finally, I should bring up 19 year RAPM, which captured the downside of Nash's career yet still ranks him higher than Harden

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While yes numbers aren't everything, the fact that Nash ends up so high in all these measures where we have a large samples size is telling. His playoff improvement and upped aggression in the second season gives more confidence in him such that if I had to pick between Harden or Nash to run my team, I would feel more certain what I am getting with Nash. Finally, a lot of people contribute Nash and Harden's success to D'Antoni's scheme but considering they have the same coach, I think we can be more confident that we are comparing their actual abilities and not just who is more well coached (also Nash lead a top 10 offense ever in 2010 with D'Antoni...plus you we maybe could argue D'Antoni got better as a coach as time went on, as perhaps he learned from past mistakes). Also I am focusing largely on offense as I consider both Harden and Nash as slight negatives on D, but neither being laughably worse than the other.

[falcolombardi]

If we are going by per we may as well rank harden above magic too while we are at it

Nash and magic volume scoring/efficiency/assists profiles are fairly similar

[No-more-rings]

Is Nash any worse than Curry as an offensive player? And if no, what will justify what’s likely to be a 15-20 spot gap? Was Curry a lockdown defender now? Lol.

[falcolombardi]

Is Nash any worse than Curry as an offensive player? And if no, what will justify what’s likely to be a 15-20 spot gap? Was Curry a lockdown defender now? Lol.

I dont think so i lean nash if anythingh, although i do think curry is a better defender thanks to height and strenght advantage

I would have ranked curry below giannis at 12 and nash where kobe is or at 20-21. It seems like a big gap but all the playera between like 8-20 are actually a lot closer than the raw number indicatws imo

The further you go off the top 1,the more players start to cluster in roughly comparable tiers imo

[No-more-rings]

Is Nash any worse than Curry as an offensive player? And if no, what will justify what’s likely to be a 15-20 spot gap? Was Curry a lockdown defender now? Lol.

I dont think so i lean nash if anythingh, although i do think curry is a better defender thanks to height and strenght advantage

I would have ranked curry below giannis at 12 and nash where kobe is or at 20-21. It seems like a big gap but all the playera between like 8-20 are actually a lot closer than the raw number indicatws imo

The further you go off the top 1,the more players start to cluster in roughly comparable tiers imo

So then where would you have curry overall amongst the crowd?

[falcolombardi]

Is Nash any worse than Curry as an offensive player? And if no, what will justify what’s likely to be a 15-20 spot gap? Was Curry a lockdown defender now? Lol.

I dont think so i lean nash if anythingh, although i do think curry is a better defender thanks to height and strenght advantage

I would have ranked curry below giannis at 12 and nash where kobe is or at 20-21. It seems like a big gap but all the playera between like 8-20 are actually a lot closer than the raw number indicatws imo

The further you go off the top 1,the more players start to cluster in roughly comparable tiers imo

So then where would you have curry overall amongst the crowd?

Dunno, i suppose in the upper part of it, closer to 9th than 20th

[falcolombardi]

1- 1950 george mikan (alternate 1951)

I feel weird ranking mikan but i feel like he is the last "best player in the world for a long period of time" player left

he may not be a mvp if time machine'd forward and that is a valid concern more than with anyone else.

But i dont feel comfortable ranking him below players who didnt come even close to dominating their nba eras as much as mikan

If i am gonna arbitraly decide where to rank mikan i prefer to put his peak in a spot that more accurately reflects how dominant he was when he played. Otherwise i would prefer to leave pre-shotclock players out of the project and as honorable mentions

2- 2007 nash (2006)

This may be a controversial pick but after watching footage of playoffs kobe (2008,2009), kawhi (17,19) paul (15), dirk (11) and nash i surprised myself (even as someone high on nash) with beimg more impressed with him out of all of them

His offense eye test impressed me a fair bit more than everyone else i am comparing him with. He combined brilliant scoring ability with some of the best passing i have seen and the offensive numbers of his suns teams match the eye test here

His defense off ball was rather solid although his size and strenght (lack of) made him a vulnerable target in isolation and probably a small negative overall (+/- metrics seem to usually peg him neutral ish) But i am high enough in his offense to still pick him here

If his defense was as big of a negative as i expected it to be he would have been last of all these guys. But instead he looked neutral in the playoffs game against spurs and lakers i watched.

If i change my mind that his defense is actually as big of a negative as the consensus opinions says i will move him lower

3-dirk 2011 (2006)

I thought about him vs kawhi

Both are incredible scorers, dirk adds more extra value offensively with spacing and warping defenses off ball, kawhi even past his defensibe prime is a easily superior defender

It is really close between both of them. But i leaned dirk with impact metrics as a tiebreaker of sorts. His plus-minus metrics have always been absurd and in 2011 his team success correlates with him being on the floor to a greater degree than kawhi spurs or raptors teams

4- kawhi 2019 (2017)

Unpopular (?) But i am more impressed with what kawhi did in the 19 playoffs vs sixers and to a lesser degree bucks than by his destruction of the tony allen-less grizzlies in 2017 (may sound silly but losing your team defense leader is a big deal even if he was not gonna be the one guarding kawhi)

The lost games in the regular season are a issue i only care slightly about as he was healthy for a full finals run

Incresible player, clear plus defense even past his defense prime, all time level scoring and ok passing and decision making to go along with it. I just kind of flipped a coin and used dirk absurd plus-minus metrics as tie breaker over him

[DraymondGold]

1. 94 David Robinson (1b, 1c: 95, 96)
2. 17 Durant (2b, 2c: 16, 14)
3. 11 Dirk (3b 10, 3c 06)

1. Reasoning for Robinson
He's clearly the best regular season player and defender in this tier. I've argued his playoff decline and scoring decline against better teams is from poor teammates. For example in my film study, Robinson was doubled on 85% of entry passes against the 94 Playoff Utah Jazz. We should expect a scoring decline in situations like this... the problem was that his teammates shot 50% eFG% on the resulting wide open shots. (link to film analysis: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100931140#p100931140)

On better teams (with admittedly a smaller role and better fit), Robinson clearly put up the impact of a top 15 all time peak (see above link).

Past reasoning:

Reasoning:
Don't particularly feel like a long post. In short:

A) Robinson clearly has the best impact data, and despite others' disagreement, I don't feel like the impact metrics are biased enough by era/teammates/fit/etc. to put him lower. Defensively, he's the only remaining person in Tier 1/2 of my GOAT defenders (along with Russell obviously, Hakeem, Duncan, KG, Wilt not in order). I love his rim protection, big man man defense, and help defense. His ability to raise regular season defenses is like a rich-man's Gobert, but I see his perimeter mobility as less of an liability (at least in that era). The fact that he was the center on the GOAT Defensive Dynasty of the modern NBA (both statistically and by the eye test) also says a lot, and while credit goes to Tim Duncan for that, I'm not sure there's anybody left who could do this well defensively in that era (e.g. Giannis' rim protection isn't on the same level).
Offensively, he's a great scorer (though not the same level as others in this tier), and great off-ball player. He's a great first option in the regular season (trex_8063 joked that he was basically asked to be Russell and Jordan in the regular season haha), and while this scheme alongside his poor fitting/low-value teammates did become more vulnerable in the playoffs, I see this as an issue of fit/situation, not an inherent limit to Robinson. He performed much better and showed more resilience as a defensive 1 and offensive 1b/2, which is a fairly common archetype in history on championship teams (Thinking Basketball estimates ~50% of championship teams have this archetype). He basically never got to play with an all-star guard, despite having one of the best big-man off-ball games. That lob threat would be legendary.

Edit: I recently saw one stat that further supports the idea that Robinson's atrocious teammates were pulling his value down in the playoffs, and that he would have far better impact if he had a better team around him: from 98-01, with a better team / offensive fit, despite clearly not being at his peak, Robinson had the highest multi-year playoff on/off of any high-minute player. Ever.
98-01 Robinson's at +25.1 on/off (per 48), while 00-04 Shaq is second all the way dow at +21. [source: thinking basketball's latest Jordan +/- video]

As for 94 vs 95, I'm open to discussion. There's a trend of all-time players having a better regular season early on in their career (with their more athletic motor), and then losing athleticism but gaining enough experience/skill/BBIQ to offset their lost motor and have a better playoff performance when they're older. This trend isn't universal, but it does raise a question of whether this is the case for Robinson in 94 (clearly best regular season) vs 95/96 (likely better postseason). I see 96 as enough of a drop in athleticism to put it below 94. In the film I've seen, I haven't been convinced yet that 95 showed sufficient skill/experience improvement (compared to say 09 vs 13 LeBron's visible growth in skillset, with his off-ball game, shooting, post-game, and improved passing). Not for certain, just the way I'm leaning now. If anyone wants to do any film analysis of 95 vs 94, that would probably be the way to convince me otherwise.

We've already debated Robinson vs Giannis too much, so no need to re-sour the discussion with that.
The similarities with Walton are highly interesting, and not lost on me. Walton's one of the few players ever to have a comparable defensive impact, his passing is clearly better, and his shooting was (odd but) ahead of its time. Like with all players, each comes with some uncertainty, but I have higher uncertainty for Walton, given how short his healthy peak was. Probably the single greatest loss in basketball history in terms of greatness we didn't get to see due to injury.
One poster mentioned that Walton's peak has the best single-season WOWY on record. Wow! That does raise an eyebrow, but I'm not (yet) convinced for two reasons. 1) WOWY Biases. WOWY tends to like offensive quarterbacks (i.e. playmakers who run the offense > finishers who make the last shot) and defensive centerpieces (i.e. high volume defensive rim protectors). Walton's basically the perfect archetype to be highly rated in this stat. Is there some truth to this? I'd say so... I do personally value offensive playmaking > finishing more than the average RealGM person, and WOWY does support this. But this may also be a slight systematic overrating by WOWY... it can be harder to replace a playmaker who runs the offense or a defensive rim protector for just a few games without totally changing your offensive/defensive scheme. 2) Robinson is still Tier 1 in WOWY, even if his best season is a hair behind Walton's.

Reasoning for Kobe and KD

Previous post discussing the comparison with others in this tier: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100727032#p100727032.
...

Kobe and KD are quite close for me, per previous post. Their impact metrics overall are quite similar (particularly if you’re more skeptical of outlier box metrics in the warriors system). KD does have the scalability advantage, but Kobe’s no slouch there if you can convince him to play in a team concept. Kobe’s 08 Olympic performance and his 01 playoffs with Shaq do a lot of work here. His shooting is great, as is his off ball movement. I do worry about his declining defense in 08 vs his defensive peak, but plenty of other perimeter players in this tier don’t align their defensive and offensive peak (eg Kawhi, per the previous posts), and I think Kobe has the overall scoring/playmaking advantage over many of them.

I’m also a bit more comfortable with Kobe’s resilience. KD is incredibly resilient… if you can place him as a finisher playing with someone who draws more defensive attention then he does. If not, you get series like KD vs the 22 Celtics, 16 Warriors, 13 Grizzlies. Kobe meanwhile has some of the most resilient shotmaking in NBA history. Check out Ty and 70sFan’s project on players’ performance against different defense levels for a bit more on this.

Concerns with Kawhi: His regular season impact clearly lags behind the others (e.g. in AuPM, RAPM, RPM, BPM). It's worsened by the fact that he's often doing injury-prevention in the regular season, though less-so in 2017. His early defense is great, and his later offense is great, but he never fully combined them. The limits of younger Kawhi's offense, specifically his passing (which is arguably the worst of the perimeter players here), can be seen in team offenses and in the film study (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100924468#p100924468) and in the filmy study (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100924249#p100924249). Not everyone penalized injuries, but it's worth noting that even if you don't fault 17 Kawhi for the Zaza injury, his ankle was already injured and he had already missed games that playoffs.

Concerns with Moses: He's gotten some traction, but his defense is pretty bad (particularly among the bigs in this tier) and his passing is atrocious. He posts pretty poor impact metrics for this tier too ( https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100727032#p100727032 ). It's great that he got a championship, but these limitations cause me serious concern from a team building perspective and a time-machine perspective.

Concerns with Erving: Like Moses, he also shows slightly limited impact metrics compared to this tier (see link above). I'm also concerned with how much he benefited from easier competition: as I've discussed in previous posts, he shows major decline going into the NBA. Some of this may be injury or poor team building fit or the lack of the 3 point line, but it's still a large drop immediately after his supposed peak. Perhaps I'm underrating him (e.g. perhaps the ABA was good enough to consider, and perhaps the spacing might be fixed with the time machine argument)?

Concerns for Dirk: not many relative to this tier (though his defense is always the limiting factor). To me he could be in the argument with KD/Kobe. I'm open to discussion here... I just haven't been sold yet that he's over Kobe/KD.

Concerns for Nash: Defense, of course. I'll try to add the impact metrics for him for the next thread.

Concerns for Mikan: Era, of course.

Other players to consider: It might be time for Paul to start getting mentioned at the bottom of a few people's lists. Also open for AD to start being discussed. It'll be interesting to see when Karl Malone, McGrady, and Barkley join the conversation too.

__________
Stat box for later discussion:
Here are the years for the players: 94/95/96 Robinson, 2014/2015 CP3, 2014/2016/2017 KD, 2017/2019/2021 Kawhi, 06-09 Kobe, 10-12 Dirk. I changed my normal stats around a bit since we’re using modern players only (without prime WOWY data for everyone, and since WS/48 is clearly the worst stat in the old group, I'm now adding RAPTOR, LEBRON, DARKO to replace them).

Plus minus data
Ai. AuPM: 94/95/96 Robinson > 14/15 Paul > 14/16/17 KD > 06-09 Kobe > Dirk > 17/19/21 Kawhi
Aii. Postseason AuPM: Robinson > Paul > Kobe (best 1/2 year avg of this group) >~ Dirk (better 1 year, worse 2) >~ Kawhi >~ KD (only old Robinson)
Bi. Goldstein RAPM: Robinson > Dirk > Paul > Kobe > Kawhi > KD
Bii. Goldstein RS/Playoff PIPM: Robinson > Paul > Kawhi > Kobe > KD (21 higher than Kobe) > Dirk > Kobe
Ci. Additional plus minus stats: Fivethirtyeight’s Overall RAPTOR +/-: Paul > Kawhi > KD (no Dirk no Kobe no Robinson)
Note: this is a per 75 stat. If we do per season volume, Curry rise and KD rise, but per season Raptor rewards long playoff
runs.

Cii. Additional plus minus stats: Bball-Index’s LEBRON: KD (14’s higher than 17) > Paul > Kawhi > Dirk (no Kobe no Robinson)
D. Additional plus minus stats: DARKO: Paul > Kawhi > KD (no Kobe no Dirk no Robinson))
E. Additional plus minus stats: ESPN’s RPM: Paul > KD > Kobe > Dirk ~ Kawhi (no Robinson)
Fi Additional Plus Minus stats: WOWY: Robinson >> Dirk > Kobe > Paul > KD (no Kawhi)
Fii. Additional plus minus stats: Backpicks’ CORP evaluation: Kobe >~ KD >~ Robinson > Dirk > Paul > Kawhi


Box score-based data
Gi. Backpicks BPM: Robinson >~ KD > Paul > Kobe ~ Kawhi > Dirk
Gii. Postseason Backpicks BPM: 21 Kawhi (17 below Paul, 19 lower) > 17 KD (14 is bottom) > Paul > Kobe > Dirk ~ Robinson
Hi. BR’s BPM: Robinson > KD > Paul > Kawhi > Dirk > Kobe
Hii. BR’s Postseason BPM: Kawhi > KD > Paul > Kobe > Dirk > Robinson

Notes:
Robinson (top impact metrics, worse box stats): Robinson clearly puts up the best impact metrics, being first in AuPM, postseason AuPM, RS RAPM< RS/Playoff combined PIPM, WOWY, even RS BPM.

Kobe vs KD: KD's ahead of Kobe in the box plus minus stats, but I wonder how much of that boost comes from the scoring and efficiency created by Curry (which BPM wouldn't capture). KD's ahead in RS AuPM< but Kobe's ahead in PS AuPM, RAPM, RS/PS PIPM, and Wowy. I think this supports Kobe.

Dirk: not that far back in the impact metrics, though clearly behind in the box metrics.

Kawhi: massively behind in the regular season impact metrics, though he rises in playoff ones. Note that playoff-only stats don’t count missed games from injury

[DraymondGold]

Concerns with Moses: He's gotten some traction, but his defense is pretty bad (particularly among the bigs in this tier) and his passing is atrocious. He posts pretty poor impact metrics for this tier too ( https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100727032#p100727032 ). It's great that he got a championship, but these limitations cause me serious concern from a team building perspective and a time-machine perspective.

This was in the previous thread but may as well ask it here now

What makes you think moses was a bad defender? I am not a gamefilm expert on him but a dude who replaced caldwell jones (seen as a very good defebsive player) and the sixers defense improved seems unlikely to have been a negative on D, let alone a huge one

Glad you asked!

I don't think he was a bad defender per se, but I do think he's bad relative to other All-time bigs (and not bringing enough on the other end to make up for it).

Let's look at the Bigs that have been taken in front of him:
3. 1999-00 Shaquille O'Neal, 4. 1976-77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 5. 1966-67 Wilt Chamberlain, 6. 2002-03 Tim Duncan, 7. 1993-94 Hakeem Olajuwon, 8. 1963-64 Bill Russell, 12. 2003-04 Kevin Garnett, [13. 2020-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo if you consider him a big], 16. 2021-22 Nikola Jokic, 17. 1976-77 Bill Walton.

That's 10 bigs. Of those 10 players, 60% of them have an argument for ~Top 10 Defensive Peaks of all time (Wilt, Duncan, Hakeem, Russell, Garnett, Walton).
What about the minority of bigs who aren't All-Time Top 10 defenders? Well... Shaq, Kareem, and Jokic all at least have arguments for Top 10 Offensive Players all time (certainly Top 20). And Kareem/Shaq are certainly better defenders anyway.

Now you may suggest Moses isn't competing against Kareem or Shaq, he's competing with the next tier. But there's another big (Robinson) in line to be voted in with a strong argument for Top 10 Defensive Peak of all time. And further down the line, upcoming peaks like AD, Mikan, and Ewing also all seem clearly better than him on defense.

Is Moses still a positive defender? Sure! But there's clear limitations compared to other All-time bigs. What exactly is he bringing besides rebounding and some shot blocking? Thinking Basketball notes he's in the 63rd percentile among shot-blocking bigs (good, but far from All-time), with film study showing concerns in both reaction time and in man defense (particularly mobility).

How do his teams perform defensively? To quote the Backpicks top 40 article (https://backpicks.com/2018/01/08/backpicks-goat-24-moses-malone/):

While his rebounding and physicality likely made him a positive defender — I certainly view him as such — the case for any kind of considerable defensive impact is lacking. Malone played on six below-average defensive teams in Houston, some of which were dreadful, and the Rocket D didn’t collapse after he left. In Philadelphia, the Sixers generated two strong defensive years in his first two seasons (3.8 and 3.0 points better than average, respectively). However, with the core of the team intact (save for Caldwell Jones), Philly’s three-year defensive efficiency peaked in 1981 and ’82 before slowly dropping off in the Malone years.

So he played on plenty of poor defensive teams over the years, and while Philadelphia showed some defensive improvement with his arrival, it's noteworthy that this defensive performance lessened in the year we're considering (1983).

Okay, so his defense is All-time. Do his offensive skills make up for this? I'm not too sure. His passing is a serious concern: he's all the way down in the 3rd percentile of Box Creation among volume scorers. That's putrid creation.

Do these limitations show up in his overall impact? They sure do (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100727032#p100727032).
In WOWY: He's massively below Robinson's +9.1, Dirk's +7.1, Durant's +5.6 (not up to date), with Moses at +3.0
In RS/PS PIPM: He's also behind Robinson, Dirk, and Durant.
In AuPM: He's also behind Robinson, Dirk, and Durant.
In Backpicks RS BPM: He's also behind Robinson, Dirk, and Durant.
In Basketball Reference's RS BPM: He's also behind Robinson, Dirk, and Durant.
In Backpicks PS BPM: He's also behind Durant, is close to Dirk/Robinson in a single-year sample, and falls behind Dirk/Robinson by a lot in multi-season samples.
In Basketball Reference's PS BPM: He's also behind Dirk and Durant. He's barely ahead of 94 Robinson in a single-year sample, and clearly falls behind in multi-season samples.

[ceoofkobefans]

14. 1996 David Robinson

David Robinson is another O2 D1 player with really really good impact metrics in the RS (which are inflated by his lack of a backup center) that is a clear PO dropper. Robinson is lower than KG because KG is much better off the ball and a much better passer which makes him better offensively (although Drob is a > scorer and arguably better defender). I could see him a little bit lower and I don’t like to go higher than 14 for him

16. 2017 Kevin Durant

Now I went back and forth with Wade and KD. KD gives you more shooting overall scoring off ball movement/portability and is just a straight up better playmaker but Dwayne Wade is still able to be a ≈ t15 offensive player ever while playing clear All D level Defense in 2009 while Kd Is just a + on that end. While I do think KD is clear of wade as a scorer how valuable his scoring is in a PO environment is hard to gauge since he goes from a WOAT tier environment to GOAT tier environment spacing wise but I do think his lack of rim pressure and his handle make it easier for elite defenses (which you’re more prone to face in the PO) to make him a PO dropper scoring wise. KD is a pretty good playmaker thanks to his all time off ball / spacing abilities and his good not great passing abilities. He makes basic reads pretty well and he gets more defensive attention than most basketball players which opens up opportunities to create higher value shots more often (averaged 4.1 High value assists/75 in 2017 which was 80% of his assists). He isn’t great at making advanced reads or hitting them and he isn’t near elite passing vision (1 Bad passing TOV/75 on 5.2 AST/75 and again he’s not making a lot of hard passes). Overall if you’re a little higher on KD’s O or lower on Wade’s D I’d put KD over wade but I’m just slightly more confident in Wade.

17. 1977 Bill Walton

I know he has already been voted but like other players I would like to give an analysis on him so y’all know why I’m lower on him than the consensus of this forum. Bill Walton is the 2nd best Playmaking big ever after arguably a t10 playmaker ever in Nikola Jokic (and there is a big gap). Walton gets called Proto-Jokic and it’s not for no reason. He had very good passing vision, he was great at hitting cutters and finding open guys in the corners (the two highest value shots). He also is a GOAT tier outlet passer (along with Jokic) He also was a very good perimeter shooter (for 70s bigs standards at least) being able to consistently shoot Mid range shots and hit deep 2s at a decent rate. Now while he has a very similar playstyle to Jokic but is nowhere near as valuable Offensively. Walton wasn’t an elite scorer by any stretch of the imagination. He was a good post scorer and good off the ball with a good spot up jumper but he didn’t have Jokic’s post game or even off ball game. In 77 Walton *only* averaged 19.7 IA PTS/75 on +5.2 rTS and got worse in the PO. Walton also was a pretty turnover prone player for a center without a heavy scoring load. Now turnovers weren’t tracked in 1977 but he had an estimated cTOV% of 13.8% and a cTOV% of 13.6% in 1978 which is similar to James Harden and Luka Doncic. While Walton a good not great offensive player his defense is where he really shined. He’s an elite rim protector (his 5% block% was 2nd in the league in 77 and he anchored the number 5 defense in the league (-1.5 rDRTG)) and while not an elite on ball defender by any stretch he was certainly a better one than most bigs are. He had good awareness which helped make him one of the best help defenders ever. He’s a fringe top 10 defensive player ever while being an offensive star depending on how good you think you have to be to qualify as one. I do prefer wade and Kd over him but I wouldn’t be mad at having him at that 16 or even 15 spot.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Is Nash any worse than Curry as an offensive player? And if no, what will justify what’s likely to be a 15-20 spot gap? Was Curry a lockdown defender now? Lol.

If the idea is offense first players, you could extend that to magic too, or any guy that was a neutral or slight positive on defense

[Im Your Father]

14. 1996 David Robinson

David Robinson is another O2 D1 player with really really good impact metrics in the RS (which are inflated by his lack of a backup center) that is a clear PO dropper. Robinson is lower than KG because KG is much better off the ball and a much better passer which makes him better offensively (although Drob is a > scorer and arguably better defender). I could see him a little bit lower and I don’t like to go higher than 14 for him

16. 2017 Kevin Durant

Now I went back and forth with Wade and KD. KD gives you more shooting overall scoring off ball movement/portability and is just a straight up better playmaker but Dwayne Wade is still able to be a ≈ t15 offensive player ever while playing clear All D level Defense in 2009 while Kd Is just a + on that end. While I do think KD is clear of wade as a scorer how valuable his scoring is in a PO environment is hard to gauge since he goes from a WOAT tier environment to GOAT tier environment spacing wise but I do think his lack of rim pressure and his handle make it easier for elite defenses (which you’re more prone to face in the PO) to make him a PO dropper scoring wise. KD is a pretty good playmaker thanks to his all time off ball / spacing abilities and his good not great passing abilities. He makes basic reads pretty well and he gets more defensive attention than most basketball players which opens up opportunities to create higher value shots more often (averaged 4.1 High value assists/75 in 2017 which was 80% of his assists). He isn’t great at making advanced reads or hitting them and he isn’t near elite passing vision (1 Bad passing TOV/75 on 5.2 AST/75 and again he’s not making a lot of hard passes). Overall if you’re a little higher on KD’s O or lower on Wade’s D I’d put KD over wade but I’m just slightly more confident in Wade.

17. 1977 Bill Walton

I know he has already been voted but like other players I would like to give an analysis on him so y’all know why I’m lower on him than the consensus of this forum. Bill Walton is the 2nd best Playmaking big ever after arguably a t10 playmaker ever in Nikola Jokic (and there is a big gap). Walton gets called Proto-Jokic and it’s not for no reason. He had very good passing vision, he was great at hitting cutters and finding open guys in the corners (the two highest value shots). He also is a GOAT tier outlet passer (along with Jokic) He also was a very good perimeter shooter (for 70s bigs standards at least) being able to consistently shoot Mid range shots and hit deep 2s at a decent rate. Now while he has a very similar playstyle to Jokic but is nowhere near as valuable Offensively. Walton wasn’t an elite scorer by any stretch of the imagination. He was a good post scorer and good off the ball with a good spot up jumper but he didn’t have Jokic’s post game or even off ball game. In 77 Walton *only* averaged 19.7 IA PTS/75 on +5.2 rTS and got worse in the PO. Walton also was a pretty turnover prone player for a center without a heavy scoring load. Now turnovers weren’t tracked in 1977 but he had an estimated cTOV% of 13.8% and a cTOV% of 13.6% in 1978 which is similar to James Harden and Luka Doncic. While Walton a good not great offensive player his defense is where he really shined. He’s an elite rim protector (his 5% block% was 2nd in the league in 77 and he anchored the number 5 defense in the league (-1.5 rDRTG)) and while not an elite on ball defender by any stretch he was certainly a better one than most bigs are. He had good awareness which helped make him one of the best help defenders ever. He’s a fringe top 10 defensive player ever while being an offensive star depending on how good you think you have to be to qualify as one. I do prefer wade and Kd over him but I wouldn’t be mad at having him at that 16 or even 15 spot.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Durant described as a better playmaker than Wade.

I feel like it clearly cuts the other way.

[ceoofkobefans]

14. 1996 David Robinson

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Durant described as a better playmaker than Wade.

I feel like it clearly cuts the other way.

I did not call KD A better playmaker than wade I think you misread what i said. I called KD a good not great playmaker I didn’t even compare him to wade on that end (wade is very clear).

[trex_8063]

1. '94 David Robinson (> '95 DRob > '96 DRob)

Not sure the best year to go with; each has a slightly differing selling point, and honestly I think he was near the same level in all three years (as I've said in all of the last several rounds). So this round I've opted to swing with '94, which seems to be the consensus fav, as I'd like to see Robinson off the table. It was arguably his most bonkers rs (his rs APM/AuPM makes peak Hakeem, prime Mailman, and peak(ish) Pippen look like chumps), and likely his best all-around offensive year.

He might be the last two-way giant on the table.
I think people sometimes fail to acknowledge how extraordinary an OFFENSIVE player Robinson was in the regular season.......they just focus on the playoff decline.
I've made this [only slightly hyperbolic] statement before: Robinson was essentially asked/expected to be Bill Russell on defense AND Michael Jordan on offense for those early-mid 90s Spurs teams.

And the crazy as **** part is: he was mostly successful during the rs.

Frankly if he HAD been able to maintain that in the post-season, he'd have more than a puncher's chance of taking the #1 greatest peak of all-time.

In addition to his off-the-chart box-derived metrics [in the rs], look at his rs impact metrics over this same three-year span:
'94 Top 5 APM (from colts18)
1. David Robinson: +7.31
2. Kevin Willis: +5.44
3. Karl Malone: +5.37
4. Hakeem Olajuwon: +5.10
5. Nate McMillan: +4.85
(NOTE: the separation between Robinson [at #1] and #2 is greater than the separation between #2 and #11).

'94 Top 5 AuPM (Backpicks)
1. David Robinson: +6.7
2. Karl Malone: +5.2
3. Nate McMillan: +4.8
4. Hakeem Olajuwon: +4.5
5. Kevin Willis: +4.3
(NOTE: the separation between Robinson [at #1] and #2 is greater than the separation between #2 and #6).


'95 Top 5 APM
1. David Robinson: +7.42
2. Shaquille O'Neal: +5.80
3. Karl Malone: +4.93
4. Anfernee Hardaway: +4.68
5. Scottie Pippen: +4.63
(NOTE: the separation between Robinson [at #1] and #2 is greater than the separation between #2 and #6).

'95 Top 5 AuPM
1. David Robinson: +8.7
2. Scottie Pippen: +5.9
3. Shaquille O'Neal: +5.6
4. Anfernee Hardaway: +5.6
5. Karl Malone: +5.3
(NOTE: the separation between Robinson [at #1] and #2 is equal to the separation between #2 and #24).


'96 Top 5 APM
1. Michael Jordan: +6.67
2. David Robinson: +5.89
3. Anfernee Hardaway: +5.26
4. Scottie Pippen: +4.99
5. Karl Malone: +4.89

'96 Top 5 AuPM
1. David Robinson: +6.7
2. Michael Jordan: +6.5
3. Scottie Pippen: +5.8
4. Anfernee Hardaway: +5.7
5. Karl Malone: +5.2


I mean, holy cow. You look at these three years, and he's not just outperforming the competition......he's obliterating it! Except for a prime Michael Jordan [in '96], there's no one remotely close to him in the rs.
And these are almost exclusively all-timers he's obliterating.
In the playoffs, he comes back to Earth: down to maybe being only maybe like the 2nd or 3rd-best player in the league. Oh dear.

So how much deduction should he get for going from GOAT-candidate in rs to circa-2nd best in any given year in the playoffs?
idk.....decide for yourself. But don't sleep on how friggin' unearthly he was in the rs.
For myself, he's near the region of Duncan/Hakeem/Garnett; usually just behind, but pretty close.


**Noticeable gap to anyone else for me, considering nearly everyone else I maybe considered sort of close have already been voted in. Getting nigh on FAR overdue for DRob, imo.



2nd ballot: '76 Julius Erving
A hard one to place, given it's hard to gauge the strength of the ABA at that stage. But '76 Dr J is statistically bonkers, and appears to be doing EVERYTHING for this team [that wins the ABA title]. They're the #1 defense in the ABA, leading the league in opp TOV% (with Erving leading in spg and total steals [handily]), 3rd-best opp eFG% and 2pt% (with Erving leading the team in blocks), and he's team leader in DRebs [close 2nd in ORebs, too]. Leads team in ppg and apg, too, 2nd [to a low-volume scorer] in eFG%, while getting to the line more than twice as often as anyone else on the team [making >80%, too].
The one [or two?] games from this season I've seen, he looks like he's everywhere, doing everything. Given he was an NBA MVP in the early 80's, too [marginally past his physical peak], it's easy to believe he was as legit as his numbers suggest.


3rd ballot: oh boy (throws dart)......'14 Kevin Durant ('17 > '16; I think '17 was perhaps the best overal version of him, but the 20 missed games is just enough for me to put it marginally behind '14)
One of the best pure-scoring seasons of all-time (a league-leading 32 ppg on absurd efficiency), and came while being the point of a 6th-rated +3.8 rORTG, despite Westbrook missing 36 games and them having not much offensive power/depth beyond those two. This was the first [or maybe 2nd] year he felt like a somewhat relevant play-maker, too, and also coincides with leading the team in DRebs (they were 9th in the league in DREB%, fwiw). May have been a marginal positive defensively for the first time in his career that year, too.

His playoff numbers decline.....but for cryin' out loud, he was still averaging nearly 30 ppg on decent efficiency, while facing the 7th-rated -2.1 rDRTG (with on of the best perimeter stoppers of his generation: Tony Allen), followed by the 9th-rated -1.9 rDRTG, and then the 3rd-rated -4.3 rDRTG [eventual champs] who had arguably the best perimeter stopper of the decade in '14-'16 Kawhi.


4. '06 Dirk Nowitzki ('07 Dirk, '11 Dirk)
5. '17 Kawhi Leonard ('16 Kawhi)

[f4p]

The argument for Nash over Harden might look like something like the following:

I take Nash for peak and an all-time sense. The only people who have a 8 year string of postseason offense as good as Nash are Shaq and Lebron (via backpicks).
Furthermore, per Backpicks BPM, James Harden has among the greatest dropoffs from a NBA superstar from the RS to PS, which I think pushes things favorably in Nash's favor (does not include 20-22 PS)

Watch on YouTube

except Harden is falling from much higher heights (and isn't Curry one of the big drops, too?). By regular ol' BPM, he's almost literally doubling up Nash in the postseason.

Continuing on, I suppose I should provide some more data to back my Nash>Harden opinion, because looking solely at box-score numbers, this conclusion might still come as a suprise.

For one, Steve Nash was on a #1 offense for 9 years straight in his career, playing with Dirk and then becoming the #1 guy during this timespan. This gives validity to the idea that Nash truly was a special driving force and could mesh with other high end talent.

yes, but this is part of why i point out that harden was on a better team (and arguably teams with the 2019 playoff rockets being at least as good as any suns team). his team wasn't massively offensive-slanted like Nash's so it would be hard to expect offensive performances like those teams. Nash literally had a better player on his team and the GOAT offensive PF, also had michael finley, and that team still found time to give huge minutes to guys like nick van exel and raef lafrentz and one season gave 2400 minutes to antawn jamison, which means either dirk or antawn were playing a bunch of center. for the year 2004, that's like the 2022 equivalent of the Vivek Ranadive strategy of just leaving one guy down on offense the whole game.

then he gets to go to a phoenix team that was basically breaking the mold of the current nba on pace and space, with an unbelievable PnR center like amare who could both finish and pick and pop with the very best (this would be like if capela was even more athletic and had a money mid-range jumper) and then playing amare and marion at PF/C so they could outrun any team in the league. with good shooters sprinkled everywhere. even the warriors i think only matched the suns rORtg's in 2016, and they had to be a 73 win team to do it. there's basically no way a roster in 2018-2020, especially built like the rockets, is going to match +8 rORtg's in a league where everyone else has figured out that long 2's are stupid and playing fast has benefits.

harden got to go to a great offensive team in brooklyn, arguably outside of harden's prime, and they posted the best offensive rating in history (but not rORtg), despite the fact the big 3 barely ever stepped foot together on the court. when they actually did in the playoffs? well in the last peaks thread, i said i had never seen a 130 ORtg in a series until clippers/jazz. Well, now I've seen 2, because the nets did it against the celtics, for about a +18 rORtg. then in the next series when harden got hurt, even in just the 3.5 games kyrie played (just took half the nets ORtg in game 4), they were at 108.6, which is almost a -3 rORtg against the bucks. harden with extraordinarily offensive-slanted teams seems to do great, arguably even better than the KD warriors, despite the fact no one would say 2021 KD was as good as 2017 or that even 2021 harden was his best.

Furthermore, RPM and APM figures are very kind to Nash.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/rapm-by-player

At this link not only does Nash have the top peak offensive peak per RAPM ahead of Peak Lebron, Peak Kobe, Peak Wade, etc., but he takes up multiple spots in the upper echelon.

and this is where i'm always going to push back, because these numbers have seemingly way too many "wtf" moments and also seem to play favorites and never let go. 2007 baron davis was the 3rd best offensive player of that stretch? 2007 tim duncan was 10th?

why is 2011 nash so high? his own numbers weren't as good that year and the suns went 40-42 and had the 9th rated offense. this seems to be the steph curry problem with impact numbers. performance-independence. great year for steve nash, league-leading offensive APM. down year for steve nash and his team, league-leading offensive APM. so it just loves him no matter what, i.e. the favorites problem. do i just take the numbers that make sense and then explain away the ones that don't?

Even if we adjust for dominance relative to year, Nash is beating out Kobe, Wade, Lebron (only goes up to 13)

Read on Twitter

so based on that tweet, 2013 james harden was better than 2006 steve nash and wash already catching up to nash's best numbers. so if we believe these numbers, then looking into future harden seasons, there only seem to be 2 options. his numbers presumably eclipsed nash's by the time 2018-2020 rolls around. or harden's numbers somehow didn't get substantially better in the future, in which case these aren't very good numbers because 2013 harden was certainly not his peak.

According to Steve Ilardi's 04-09 APM, Steve Nash also has the highest offensive peak by quite the margin as well. https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/04-09-6-year-apm

and again, which numbers do i go with here? because steve nash's offensive APM seems to just be in a sea of other numbers that may or may not make sense. first, it would seem the basketball HOF needs to add a new kevin garnett wing to appreciate his greatness. he appears to have impact (+14.1) equivalent to prime Dirk + prime Kobe (+13.1 combined). and not too far away from equaling prime Lebron + prime Duncan. manu is 3rd, ahead of duncan. is this collinearity? if it is, how do i know duncan's not the one benefiting from manu? because i just think duncan is better? in this very list, baron davis is ahead of steve nash. since i assume people have harden above baron davis, is harden above nash? it can't just be an offense specific argument for nash over harden. according to this, nash has the worst defensive number of anyone in the top 90. now maybe this is like jokic's great DBPM numbers where the overall number is right but it just can't figure out how to split it up between offense and defense. so maybe his defense isn't as terrible as the numbers say but then his offense is not as good, and then we're still back at nash being somewhat far down the list once defense is accounted for, if we're taking these numbers to mean something.

and then of course we get stuff like jamario moon being ahead of tmac, who just edged out brian cardinal. when do we accept a result and when do we say it is trash?

Finally, I should bring up 19 year RAPM, which captured the downside of Nash's career yet still ranks him higher than Harden

Read on Twitter

i don't know exactly what 538's RAPTOR measures, but i know i see it quoted all the time and it had harden #1 in 2018, 2019, and 2020 and, even in the playoffs, #4 in 2018 (behind only first round guys like dipo, TJ mcconnell and jimmy butler), #7 in 2019 with only jokic and kawhi from this project ahead, #3 in 2020 behind AD and lillard, and #4 in 2021 despite playing almost half of his minutes on a hamstring tear against the bucks. so there's at least one acronym that loves harden and thinks he's pretty impactful in the playoffs.

While yes numbers aren't everything, the fact that Nash ends up so high in all these measures where we have a large samples size is telling. His playoff improvement and upped aggression in the second season gives more confidence in him such that if I had to pick between Harden or Nash to run my team, I would feel more certain what I am getting with Nash.

and yet he still played with tons of talent and got no closer to winning than harden, despite having easier competition that didn't win 67 or 73 games and then add kevin durant to that 73 win team. a team he got closer to beating than nash against the spurs.
imagine if harden spent his age 26-29 seasons, which are 2016-2019, playing with an even better teammate like nash did with dirk. the closest he got was 2018 chris paul and they went 44-5 together and almost beat the KD warriors. now make chris paul even better and give them 4 years and no superteam opposition. if we're talking impact, why did nash leave the mavs and they quickly regroup to a finals appearance and 67 win season in the next 3 years? truly groundbreaking impact would seem to require more of a fall-off.

harden left the rockets, and even though we clearly were trying to show him we didn't need him and went on a 6 game winning streak shortly thereafter, we then finished with one of the worst stretches to end a season in nba history, going something like 6-54. and harden's new team went from 19-17 without him to 29-7 with him, and slaughtered their first round opponent, before falling off hard on offense without him. and then this year struggled but still had a pretty good record with him this year before completely collapsing when he left to philly.

Finally, a lot of people contribute Nash and Harden's success to D'Antoni's scheme but considering they have the same coach, I think we can be more confident that we are comparing their actual abilities and not just who is more well coached (also Nash lead a top 10 offense ever in 2010 with D'Antoni...plus you we maybe could argue D'Antoni got better as a coach as time went on, as perhaps he learned from past mistakes). Also I am focusing largely on offense as I consider both Harden and Nash as slight negatives on D, but neither being laughably worse than the other.

the same numbers that would say nash is amazing on offense would apparently say he was atrocious on D so i'm very hesitant to just handwave defense and then saying nash wins because he wins offense. the rockets, in an era of hunting for mismatches, were able to survive against the KD warriors with harden in an all-switching defense. the 2018 rockets were 6th in defense and the 2019 rockets had one of the better defenses when they got healthy after the ASG. not to mention a team like the 2015 rockets finishing 8th. part of the reason the rockets can switch is because wings don't tend to give harden a ton of trouble because he's just fast enough to keep them from driving and bigs don't give him a problem because, as the numbers show, he's practically un-postup-able.




and finally, couldn't everything you said be used to argue nash over curry? curry didn't lead 9 #1 offenses in a row. in fact, outside of 2015-2019, he's never led a top 10 offense. harden has 5 top 2 offenses and 5 more top 7 offenses. i didn't get to watch it again, but the "playoff risers and fallers" video, didn't curry get listed as one of the biggest fallers just like harden? the suns relative ORtg's generally outpace the warriors rORtg's, even when they add friggin' kevin durant. and certainly i'm not going to hear that curry is some big defensive upgrade over harden and that's why he's over nash.

[falcolombardi]

Rapm is not supposed to be a player rank but a tool useful to evaluating players, Just like you shouldnt rank players by number of rings won or offensive players by highest ppg

Any single metric of any kind wont pass the smell test if used on its own

[AEnigma]

Well RealGM refreshed the page on me so this will be brief.

except Harden is falling from much higher heights (and isn't Curry one of the big drops, too?). By regular ol' BPM, he's almost literally doubling up Nash in the postseason.

Woah Harden has bigger box score numbers than Nash? Damn, never realised.

yes, but this is part of why i point out that harden was on a better team

Chris Paul.

and arguably teams with the 2019 playoff rockets being at least as good as any suns team).

Based on what.

his team wasn't massively offensive-slanted like Nash's so it would be hard to expect offensive performances like those teams. Nash literally had a better player on his team and the GOAT offensive PF, also had michael finley, and that team still found time to give huge minutes to guys like nick van exel and raef lafrentz and one season gave 2400 minutes to antawn jamison, which means either dirk or antawn were playing a bunch of center. for the year 2004, that's like the 2022 equivalent of the Vivek Ranadive strategy of just leaving one guy down on offense the whole game.

Yes 2004 is why we back Nash good job.

then he gets to go to a phoenix team that was basically breaking the mold of the current nba on pace and space

Via Nash.

with an unbelievable PnR center like amare who could both finish and pick and pop with the very best (this would be like if capela was even more athletic and had a money mid-range jumper) and then playing amare and marion at PF/C so they could outrun any team in the league.

2006.

with good shooters sprinkled everywhere.

What did Harden have? Lmao.

even the warriors i think only matched the suns rORtg's in 2016, and they had to be a 73 win team to do it. there's basically no way a roster in 2018-2020, especially built like the rockets, is going to match +8 rORtg's in a league where everyone else has figured out that long 2's are stupid and playing fast has benefits.

Ah yes that must be why Nash’s on-court offensive rating from 2005-11 was higher than any team playing today (117; that is real offensive rating to be clear, not that BBR individual one).

harden got to go to a great offensive team in brooklyn, arguably outside of harden's prime, and they posted the best offensive rating in history (but not rORtg), despite the fact the big 3 barely ever stepped foot together on the court. when they actually did in the playoffs? well in the last peaks thread, i said i had never seen a 130 ORtg in a series until clippers/jazz. Well, now I've seen 2, because the nets did it against the celtics, for about a +18 rORtg. then in the next series when harden got hurt, even in just the 3.5 games kyrie played (just took half the nets ORtg in game 4), they were at 108.6, which is almost a -3 rORtg against the bucks. harden with extraordinarily offensive-slanted teams seems to do great, arguably even better than the KD warriors, despite the fact no one would say 2021 KD was as good as 2017 or that even 2021 harden was his best.

Yes Durant and Kyrie and Blake Griffin at centre is the approximate equivalent to Barbosa, Marion, and Amar’e.

Maybe will respond to the rest later, or someone else can, but not understanding impact metrics does not mean they are less valuable than box score totals.

By the way, the 2011 Suns had a 114 offensive rating with Nash on the court — about the same as 2015-20 Harden. No Amar’e, no D’Antoni, and past his peak. How strange.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Well RealGM refreshed the page on me so this will be brief.

except Harden is falling from much higher heights (and isn't Curry one of the big drops, too?). By regular ol' BPM, he's almost literally doubling up Nash in the postseason.

Woah Harden has bigger box score numbers than Nash? Damn, never realised.

yes, but this is part of why i point out that harden was on a better team

Chris Paul.

and arguably teams with the 2019 playoff rockets being at least as good as any suns team).

Based on what.

his team wasn't massively offensive-slanted like Nash's so it would be hard to expect offensive performances like those teams. Nash literally had a better player on his team and the GOAT offensive PF, also had michael finley, and that team still found time to give huge minutes to guys like nick van exel and raef lafrentz and one season gave 2400 minutes to antawn jamison, which means either dirk or antawn were playing a bunch of center. for the year 2004, that's like the 2022 equivalent of the Vivek Ranadive strategy of just leaving one guy down on offense the whole game.

Yes 2004 is why we back Nash good job.

then he gets to go to a phoenix team that was basically breaking the mold of the current nba on pace and space

Via Nash.

with an unbelievable PnR center like amare who could both finish and pick and pop with the very best (this would be like if capela was even more athletic and had a money mid-range jumper) and then playing amare and marion at PF/C so they could outrun any team in the league.

2006.

with good shooters sprinkled everywhere.

What did Harden have? Lmao.

even the warriors i think only matched the suns rORtg's in 2016, and they had to be a 73 win team to do it. there's basically no way a roster in 2018-2020, especially built like the rockets, is going to match +8 rORtg's in a league where everyone else has figured out that long 2's are stupid and playing fast has benefits.

Ah yes that must be why Nash’s on-court offensive rating from 2005-11 was higher than any team playing today (117; that is real offensive rating to be clear, not that BBR individual one).

harden got to go to a great offensive team in brooklyn, arguably outside of harden's prime, and they posted the best offensive rating in history (but not rORtg), despite the fact the big 3 barely ever stepped foot together on the court. when they actually did in the playoffs? well in the last peaks thread, i said i had never seen a 130 ORtg in a series until clippers/jazz. Well, now I've seen 2, because the nets did it against the celtics, for about a +18 rORtg. then in the next series when harden got hurt, even in just the 3.5 games kyrie played (just took half the nets ORtg in game 4), they were at 108.6, which is almost a -3 rORtg against the bucks. harden with extraordinarily offensive-slanted teams seems to do great, arguably even better than the KD warriors, despite the fact no one would say 2021 KD was as good as 2017 or that even 2021 harden was his best.

Yes Durant and Kyrie and Blake Griffin at centre is the approximate equivalent to Barbosa, Marion, and Amar’e.

Maybe will respond to the rest later, or someone else can, but not understanding impact metrics does not mean they are less valuable than box score totals.

By the way, the 2011 Suns had a 114 offensive rating with Nash on the court — about the same as 2015-20 Harden. No Amar’e, no D’Antoni, and past his peak. How strange.

Tbf, on court off rtg can’t be compared to overall team off rtg like the at, but if point out for the original post that currys on court offenses were pretty great during that 16-19 period but they just sat him down much because they didn’t need to do much in the RS anyways, and offenses fell off a cliff without hin

I do feel harden vs Nash is an interesting discussion, but I wouldn’t use the nets era to compare them, and the fact that Nash’s offenses were so incredibly great consistently are a noteworthy thing even if it’s not something he would replicate with every team.

In any case that Nash’s box score numbers for his prime are like slightly worse than magics basically right? It’s not like he averaged 5 points a game lol

I probably pick harden as a player but it’s hard to get a peak season for him, he took the KD Warriors to 7 sounds great until you think about the series and remember why the harden got clowned for it instead of being praised after, their defense was incredible that series but their offense let them down and harden was a big part of that, whereas 2019 wasn’t as impressive in general

[trex_8063]

14. 1996 David Robinson

David Robinson is another O2 D1 player with really really good impact metrics in the RS (which are inflated by his lack of a backup center) that is a clear PO dropper. Robinson is lower than KG because KG is much better off the ball and a much better passer which makes him better offensively (although Drob is a > scorer and arguably better defender). I could see him a little bit lower and I don’t like to go higher than 14 for him

16. 2017 Kevin Durant

Now I went back and forth with Wade and KD. KD gives you more shooting overall scoring off ball movement/portability and is just a straight up better playmaker but Dwayne Wade is still able to be a ≈ t15 offensive player ever while playing clear All D level Defense in 2009 while Kd Is just a + on that end. While I do think KD is clear of wade as a scorer how valuable his scoring is in a PO environment is hard to gauge since he goes from a WOAT tier environment to GOAT tier environment spacing wise but I do think his lack of rim pressure and his handle make it easier for elite defenses (which you’re more prone to face in the PO) to make him a PO dropper scoring wise. KD is a pretty good playmaker thanks to his all time off ball / spacing abilities and his good not great passing abilities. He makes basic reads pretty well and he gets more defensive attention than most basketball players which opens up opportunities to create higher value shots more often (averaged 4.1 High value assists/75 in 2017 which was 80% of his assists). He isn’t great at making advanced reads or hitting them and he isn’t near elite passing vision (1 Bad passing TOV/75 on 5.2 AST/75 and again he’s not making a lot of hard passes). Overall if you’re a little higher on KD’s O or lower on Wade’s D I’d put KD over wade but I’m just slightly more confident in Wade.

17. 1977 Bill Walton

I know he has already been voted but like other players I would like to give an analysis on him so y’all know why I’m lower on him than the consensus of this forum. Bill Walton is the 2nd best Playmaking big ever after arguably a t10 playmaker ever in Nikola Jokic (and there is a big gap). Walton gets called Proto-Jokic and it’s not for no reason. He had very good passing vision, he was great at hitting cutters and finding open guys in the corners (the two highest value shots). He also is a GOAT tier outlet passer (along with Jokic) He also was a very good perimeter shooter (for 70s bigs standards at least) being able to consistently shoot Mid range shots and hit deep 2s at a decent rate. Now while he has a very similar playstyle to Jokic but is nowhere near as valuable Offensively. Walton wasn’t an elite scorer by any stretch of the imagination. He was a good post scorer and good off the ball with a good spot up jumper but he didn’t have Jokic’s post game or even off ball game. In 77 Walton *only* averaged 19.7 IA PTS/75 on +5.2 rTS and got worse in the PO. Walton also was a pretty turnover prone player for a center without a heavy scoring load. Now turnovers weren’t tracked in 1977 but he had an estimated cTOV% of 13.8% and a cTOV% of 13.6% in 1978 which is similar to James Harden and Luka Doncic. While Walton a good not great offensive player his defense is where he really shined. He’s an elite rim protector (his 5% block% was 2nd in the league in 77 and he anchored the number 5 defense in the league (-1.5 rDRTG)) and while not an elite on ball defender by any stretch he was certainly a better one than most bigs are. He had good awareness which helped make him one of the best help defenders ever. He’s a fringe top 10 defensive player ever while being an offensive star depending on how good you think you have to be to qualify as one. I do prefer wade and Kd over him but I wouldn’t be mad at having him at that 16 or even 15 spot.

Walton is already off the table.

Also, your vote for '96 Robinson will NOT "transfer" to '95 or '94 versions ['94 being the consensus pick this go-around] unless you specify that.