Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #21 - 2016-17 Kawhi Leonard

[70sFan]

Here's what I found from Backpicks:



He ranks 154th in peak BPM, 214th in prime WOWYR, 85th in prime WOWY, and 237th in 5 year AuPM. Seems pretty unimpressive to me. If he really didn't have any significant impact on defense and was just a scorer/rebounder who played with good defenders, then it seems like he's still a long way behind Paul and Nash.

Ben really cherry picked the stats to prove his point. Sixers were better defensively in 1983 than in previous year. Likewise, Rockets definitely took a hit defensively after he left. Despite getting Caldwell Jones (definitely a positive defender), Rockets went from +1.4 to +3.6 rDRtg. To me, this is a collapse.

We actually have Moses on/off numbers and he looks incredible in 1983 and 1985. 1984 lowered his 3 years numbers, because he dealt with injuries. I think the actual numbers are significantly more important than BPM, which underrates his off-ball play.

Moses wasn't an elite defensive anchor, but he was clearly a positive defender in his peak years (he improved noticeably in 1981/82 by my tracking numbers). His offensive impact is significantly downgraded by you calling him "just a scorer/rebounder". Moses was arguably the best off-ball center in NBA history with top notch isolation skills. His unique skillset allowed him to dominate on offense without dominating the ball. He was extremely portable and scalable, proving in Philadelphia.

I'm not saying he's clearly ahead of Nash or Paul, but his profile is certainly up there.

I went searching for actual on/off numbers for Moses after this post. Couldn't find them. I did find this though:

Out of his nineteen seasons in the league, Malone had a negative D-PIPM for a whopping fourteen of them and a negative DBPM for every single one of them. Furthermore, in his years of stardom, Moses only anchored two top five defenses, both of which were for the immensely talented Philadelphia 76ers he joined in 1982. None of the other teams he played for in that time span even broke into the top nine for their respective seasons, with all of his prime years on the Rockets amounting to far below average team defensive ratings. When Malone was traded from Houston, their defense was barely affected in the following season. Overall, defense stands as one of Malone's more glaring weaknesses in terms of all-time context, as most of his contemporaries in the same echelon of greatness were far better on that side of the court than he ever could be.

Since I and most others regard '83 as superior to '82, we'll compare '83 Moses to the best seasons of all the other centers he'll be contrasted with -- from my personal point of view of course -- and '82 to the second best season of each of those big men. This'll allow us to see beyond just single season peaks, instead evaluating prolonged climaxes as well. Anyway, on to '83 first:

Best Season PIPM:

'83 Moses Malone: +4.8

'77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +8.1

'91 David Robinson: +7.4

'93 Hakeem Olajuwon: +7.3

'00 Shaquille O'Neal: +6.8

'19 Joel Embiid: +6.8

'11 Dwight Howard +6.4

'98 Dikembe Mutombo: +5.7

'90 Patick Ewing: +5.7

'04 Ben Wallace: +5.6

'77 Bill Walton: +5.3

'13 Marc Gasol: +5.0

'19 Rudy Gobert: +4.5

'00 Alonzo Mourning: +4.0

Best Season RAPTOR:

'83 Moses Malone: +6.5

'91 David Robinson: +8.2

'93 Hakeem Olajuwon: +7.8

'00 Shaquille O'Neal: +7.6

'77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +7.6

'19 Joel Embiid: +7.5

'11 Dwight Howard: +6.2

'04 Ben Wallace: +5.9

'19 Rudy Gobert: +5.4

'77 Bill Walton: +5.3

'90 Patrick Ewing: +3.5

Best Season WAR:

'83 Moses Malone: 16.3

'00 Shaquille O'Neal: 21.8

'93 Hakeem Olajuwon: 20.2

'77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 18.5

'91 David Robinson: 18.2

'04 Ben Wallace: 17.5

'11 Dwight Howard: 14.6

'19 Joel Embiid: 13.3

'77 Bill Walton: 12.5

'90 Patrick Ewing: 11.7

'19 Rudy Gobert: 11.4

In regards to the preceding assemblage of lists, Malone's lackluster standing is easy to recognize. In PIPM he ranks above just two other given players while in RAPTOR and WAR, his results are also subpar. Unfortunately for Moses, his '82 season won't be able to redeem such a disparity, with his defense in that season being represented as extremely undesirable by impact metrics.

Second Best Season PIPM:

'82 Moses Malone: +3.5

'94 David Robinson: +8.3

'74 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +6.7

'01 Shaquille O'Neal: +6.5

'94 Hakeem Olajuwon: +6.2

'10 Dwight Howard: +6.7

'99 Alonzo Mourning: +6.0

'17 Rudy Gobert: +5.4

'78 Bill Walton: +5.3

'00 Dikembe Mutombo: +5.0

'03 Ben Wallace: +5.0

'91 Patick Ewing: +4.4

'12 Marc Gasol: +4.2

Second Best Season RAPTOR:

'82 Moses Malone: +4.0

'94 David Robinson: +9.1

'01 Shaquille O'Neal: +6.2

'94 Hakeem Olajuwon: +6.1

'10 Dwight Howard: +5.9

'79 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +5.5

'17 Rudy Gobert: +6.5

'03 Ben Wallace: +5.6

'92 Patick Ewing: +4.6

Second Best Season WAR:

'82 Moses Malone: 12.0

'94 David Robinson: 20.4

'94 Hakeem Olajuwon: 19.3

'01 Shaquille O'Neal: 16.6

'03 Ben Wallace: 15.3

'10 Dwight Howard: 14.8

'79 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 14.7

'17 Rudy Gobert: 14.1

'92 Patick Ewing: 13.6

In the above charts, Moses' position falters even further. He ranks dead last in all three of those major stats, an underwhelming mark for a player who most see as a lock for the top 20 best players in league history. Nonetheless, with all complex things of such nature, we need to ask why specifically Moses' seasons rank so low in these crucial metrics? Is it warranted? Well to put it simply, yes it is. The Chairman's low numbers stem from an overtly harsh evaluation of his defense, especially in '82 (net negative based on both RAPTOR and PIPM). However, that's not to say that his offense wasn't problematic either.

Moses' pathetic creating ability greatly tints his offensive value, with RAPTOR and WAR in particular being stats that highly value such elements. In addition, his scoring production's value was also limited by the influence of high minute inflation. Naturally, these deficiencies follow Malone's underwhelming statistical portfolio into other aspects. For example, Moses places just 34th in peak WS/48, 154th in peak Backpicks' BPM, 214th in peak WOWYR, 85th in peak WOWY and an abysmal 237th in five-year peak augmented plus-minus. So no, the trends that arose in Moses' impact metrics are far from just a mere fluke. Overall, most of his weaknesses in both offense and defense even persisted into his peremptory apex, culminating in an uninspiring prime.

What impact numbers do you have that show a different story? Is it possible that Dwight Howard had a better peak than Moses?

Actual +/-:

viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1970211

1983: +15.6, -7.4 on defense
1985: +21.7, -2.8 on defense

Moses was extremely impactful on offense and he was a positive defender at his peak.

[AEnigma]

Might be a good time to pull from the older projects now that discussion on Moses is heating up.
Note: this is not a post intended to sway anyone who is voting for Moses primarily because he won MVP and Finals MVP on a 65-win, 12-1 postseason team.

I looked at the DRB ranks of Moses' teams, because I was thinking heavily at the time about how big men who excel at getting offensive rebounds more than defensive ones, may be using their high skill of "tracking" the ball on the glass on the defensive end, thus chasing after rebounds instead of boxing out. Moses of course has one of the highest ORB to DRB ratios of all players in history, such as in 1982 having 47% of his rebounds on the offensive glass, 53% DRB. A guy I compared him to as on the opposite end of ORB/DRB ratio, Dirk, had 10% of his rebounds offensive in 2011, 90% defensive, and his team managed to have a lot of good defensive rebounding years. Here are Moses' team rebounding stats:

Moses
Rockets 77 - 5th
Rockets 78 - 15/22
Rockets 79 - 9/22
Rockets - 80 - 21/22
Rockets 81 - 11/23
Rockets 82 - 17/23
Sixers 83 - 13/23
Sixers 84 - 18/23
Sixers 85 - 15/23
Sixers 86 - 17/23 - This is a Barkley/Moses frontcourt year. WTF?
Bullets 87 - 22/23
Bullets 88 - 21/23
Hawks 89 - 22/25
Hawks 90 - 26/27
Hawks 91 - 7/27
Bucks 92 - 23/27

That's rough. I also looked at what happened to the team's after his moves - Rockets move from 17th in DRB in 82 to 18th in 83, Sixers move from 22nd DRB in 82 to 13th DRB in 83. So that's not a bad impact, though he was also replacing Daryl Dawkins, who has probably the worst size of human being to rebounding ratio ever. The Sixers are 17th in both 86 and 87, the Bullets are 20th in 86 and 22nd in 87. The Hawks go from 13th in 88 to 22nd in 89, the Bullets go from 21st in 88 to 12th in 89. The Hawks go from 7th in 91 to 8th in 92, the Bucks go from 21st in 91 to 23rd in 92. So the overall changing from team to team doesn't support Moses being an impact defensive rebounder.

I wouldn't completely rule out Moses having an impact on the defensive glass because team results have many variables, but it doesn't look that good to me

btw, what did Moses do aside from scoring and offensive rebounding ? he wasn't an elite defensive rebounder since his team was consistently underperforming on the glass. he wasn't average defensively since his teams were mostly BAD defenses. he couldn't pass to save his life. he didn't really set picks or get back fast in transition. he didn't cover a lot of ground defensively. he wasn't known as a leader. he didn't coach his teammates on the floor or anything. his intangibles are pathetic for an all time great. he's very, very overrated as an impact player.

Moses actually did have great impact with the '83 Sixers because he fit the team really well. Offensively he was in a perfect situation because he had so many guys around him who could create their own offense or for others, so you didn't need Moses to make other guys better. But you're not always going to be that lucky where you can play with three other all-stars in your backcourt, so his portability as an offensive hub in the post is still a major flaw.

But more importantly, the 76ers at the time were sorely lacking a rebounder. In '82 they were the worst rebounding team in the league (partly because of the insanely active defense they played on the perimeter which didn't allow them to crash the boards). They were 22nd out 23 in drb% and 21st in orb%, Moses came in and made them an average defensive rebounding team and the best offensive rebounding team. His defensive rebounding allowed the Sixers guards/wings to play their frenetic defense but not give up second chance points. If he had positive defensive impact that year, it would be because of that (allowing guys around him to focus on defense while he cleared the boards). At the same time though, this could be said about any good defensive rebounder...

Re: People arguing for Moses' defensive impact based on the fact Philly was the 5th best defensive team.

I'll give him solid post defense and solid defensive rebounding which allowed the perimeter guys to play pressure defense without having to worry about hitting the boards (this had hurt them in the past especially against LA), so overall was probably a positive impact defender that year (playing on a contender also naturally increases a player's willingness to play defense as well). But Philly was the best perimeter defensive team in the league. It was the unbelievably active defense applied by the backcourt and Erving/Jones which made them a top 5 defensive team year in year out. What hurts Moses to me, especially in comparison to other guys at his position like Zo or Dwight for example, is that I see them making Philly an all-time great defensive team (with all those active perimeter defenders, you put Zo or Dwight's shot blocking in the middle to shut down the paint, who also provide similar level or better defensive rebounding...how is that not the best defensive team of that era?

Erving didn't shoot well in the 83 PS, but I'm not seeing the team falling apart at all...

G1 v NY Jones, Richardson, Toney Cheeks and Iavaroni combine to shoot 23-35. New York commits 21 TOV.

G2 v NY The Knicks lose due to a 9-point 3rd Q. Cheeks has 26-6-6 (61% TS). Erving 20-7 (8-20). Johnson 10-8 off the bench.

G3 v NY Erving 20-11-5 (9-19). Cheeks 24-7 (65% TS). Toney has a bad game in 19 min but Iavaroni and Johnson are hyper efficient, Edwards in double-figures off the bench.

G4 v NY Toney has 14-5 (7-14), Erving 18-7 (7-15) and Cheeks is contained. King goes off for New YOrk (35 pts) but Philly wins by 2.

*******
G1 v Mil An OT win. Toney has 22 (11-15). Cheeks 26-7-6 4 steals (64% TS). Moses only 14-12 in this game, Moncrief is held (by someone) to 7 pts on 1-9 shooting. Phi still wins.

G2 v Mil Erving a bad game (6 pts 5 reb), but Toney scores 20 (8-20) and Cheeks 15-4-4. Another 18 Mil turnovers.

G3 v Mil Erving a big qame -- 26-8-8 (10-16). M. Johnson 6-20 for 12 pts for Mil.

G4 v Mil Bucks win finally as Moses has another "down" game (17-12, 7-19 FG)

G5 v Mil Toney has 30 on 78% TS to go with 7 reb and 5 ast. Erving 24-10 on 10-19 shooting and 3 blocks.
********

G1 v LAL Toney 25 (9-18). Richardson 15 off the bench. Erving 20-10 (8-18).
G2 v LAL Cheeks 19-8 (8-16 FG), Toney 19 (7-18), Jones 14-5 (6-11). Erving and Jones block 5 shots and Philly has 10 steals.
G3 v LAL Erving 21-12 (8-16), Toney 21 (8-19), Jones 17-7. Magic Johnson was 3-12.
G4 v LAL Erving 21-5-4 (8-13). Toney 23-9 (60% TS) 8 TOV, Jones 13 more and Cheeks 20-7 (7-10 FG). They had another 9 steals.

Of course Moses matches up very well with Kareem and abused him on the glass.I know not a single Moses voter will back off 83, but at least this can be referenced for posterity.They only played 13 PS games. The bench was often excellent. The defense was excellent all around, especially forcing TOV. And there were spots where Cheeks was awesome, then Erving, then Toney...obviously the mark of a great team. And Moses wasn't guarding Squid, Marques, Bernard, Sparrow, Magic, etc.

edit: elgee beat me to it

I did a break down of the games not to start up a "Dr. J = 1983 finals MVP" campaign but because we have people in here criticizing Dr. J (and rest of supporting cast's) performance in the playoffs which is completely inaccurate. It was in response to this:

As was mentioned earlier, most of Moses' supporting cast fell off during the playoffs, especially Dr. J who went ice cold scoring. Despite this the Sixers didn't miss a beat, and dismantled the Lakers, mostly behind Moses severely outplaying Kareem.

This is kind of a shocking recap of things, and I'm surprised people are buying it. The only series this would be true against would be against the Knicks. This was because Toney had a thigh injury that limited his minutes and caused him to miss game 2, and overall play poorly in the series (9 ppg on 41%), but after that he was back to normal and killed the Bucks (22 ppg on 53%). The Sixers got away with it because they were clearly better than the Knicks (who were only a 44-38 team). This is the series Moses truly dominated, 31/15 on 58% shooting, was consistent game to game.

Against the Bucks, I don't see how "help" was an issue. They won game 1 with Moses getting shut down by Lanier/Bucks team defense and had a 14/12 game on 5/14 shooting. Sixers won behind great games from Cheeks (26/6/7 on 12/18 shooting) and Toney (22/5 on 11/15 shooting). Doc was great in the first half but hurt his knee which also affected his game 2 performance. Game two was a defense fueled win, but this is one where Moses came through offensively. Game 3, Doc was probably the best player in the game (26/8 on 10/16 shooting) though Moses was solid as well (struggled early against Lanier but came on strong afterwards, 25/16 on 9/16 shooting). Game 4, Moses got shut down again with 17 pts on 7/19 shooting. This is the only game I haven't seen but seems like Toney was the only one who had a good scoring game here. In game 5, Doc had 24/10 on 10/19 shooting, Toney had 30/5/7 on 14 shots. How is that for help?

The guy was playing with three all-star perimeter players and had one or two of them taking over every game. And yet now we're seeing people point out that he didn't have that much help offensively. This is also ignoring the fact he was playing behind one of the greatest perimeter defense lineups ever. As someone who has seen most of the playoff run, this is a crazy statement.

The description of Lakers series is what really confuses me. You say despite Doc's "ice cold shooting" the Sixers didn't miss a beat and dismantled the Lakers mostly behind Moses. You do realize that Doc was arguably the best Sixers player in those finals right? But I feel like here he's almost being painted as a liability. The games are on youtube (I think) for you to verify what I'm saying. I guarantee anyone who thinks Moses was far and away the finals MVP did not watch the series.

Game 1 - This was Doc's game. Incredible all-around game by him. Contributed in every facet. Making plays, sparking fast breaks, dominating on defense, rebounding, scoring, that games deserves a highlight reel on youtube (particularly the second half). Moses was good, but Doc was amazing. It's clear who's identity this team is shaped after on both ends. Doc had a brilliant all around game (20/10/9 + 5 blocks). Sixers explode in the second half with Doc dominating every facet of the game. He's playing amazing team defense, blocking/changing shots, sparking fastbreaks, scoring when they need him to, setting up teammates, grabbing rebounds in traffic. This was clearly his game. I don't even see how it's arguable, Moses was garbage in the second half outside of his solid post D on KAJ but Sixers also gave him good help.

Entire game can be viewed here:

Watch on YouTube

Game 2 - Moses is in foul trouble and doesn't play for most of the second half. He doesn't play for most of the fourth, and during "winning time", he was on the bench with his fifth foul. Philly not only maintains but extends the lead while he is out behind Doc and Cheeks' terrorizing defense. Lakers were up 55-51 at halftime. Moses goes out with four fouls with four minutes left in the 3rd. Sixers defensive intensity picks up (Lakers half court offense also struggles with KAJ out) and they go from down 1 to up 4 without Malone. Moses comes back around the 10 minute mark of the fourth. Then Moses picks up his fifth foul with 8 minutes left. Sixers again extend lead from 4 to up 8 over 6 crucial minutes in the fourth behind the amazing defensive intensity of Cheeks/Cureton/Doc/Jones/Toney lineup. With around two minutes left, Moses comes back up 8, he grabs an offensive rebound, gets fouled, misses the second FT but Toney grabs the offensive rebound (which essentially ices the game). Moses then takes a shot, misses, Sixers get a stop, they are up 9 with a minute left and then Moses makes 4 FTs from that point on with the game in hand (remember teams weren't good at making threes back then). In a close game where Sixers were actually down going into the second half, they were +9 in the ~12ish minutes Moses missed. He might be their best player on the team but he barely made any impact in getting them this win. Commentators mentioning how "Lakers miss Kareem more than the Sixers miss Moses." Cheeks was the best overall player with Doc closely behind. Russell notes "Magic and Julius are the only two guys in this game who could go 1/10 from the floor and have a good game". Moses comes in with 2 minutes left and the game in hand and turns a "mediocre" 19/10 game into a "good" 24/12 game. He had no impact at all in the second half in getting the Sixers the win. None.

Game 3 - This was Moses' game. His best all around game from the entire playoff run that I've seen (though game 1 against the Knicks is right there too). Doc also had a good game, showed great poise in the third quarter was probably the best player until then, but Moses had an absolutely dominant fourth quarter.

Game 4 - Slow start for Moses but brought it later on. Moses was a BEAST on the boards but wasn't bringing much else for most of the game, and was struggling to convert shots. Doc closes out the game for the Sixers with 7 straight points for them in the last minute. Moses had a dominant rebounding game, but overall? Hard to say. Seems like Doc again had more impact on both ends (his D, particularly in the third q, was awesome, and great overall all-around game), and was the guy who closed it out for them.

This is actually something I'm curious about what other people think. I think in the entire story of Moses having a "perfect" year, Doc's finals performance gets a bit lost. I know I come off as a bit of a Moses hater because I'm always arguing against him but I will say I have him coming up right after K. Malone (between him or Dwight). It's not like I think he's chopped liver but I just haven't been presented with anything that would make me want to rank him any higher.

One thing that was special about Moses is that he can have HUGE performances that you need to win crucial games in the playoffs. He has these type of stretches over games, they come a bit randomly (like we see with Love), sometimes in the first quarter, sometimes in the second or sometimes in the fourth, where the ball starts bouncing his way and that combined with his already phenomenal offensive rebounding, turns him into a monster. When he gets into these grooves, he can absolutely tear apart your team. A players ability to "explode" for big games in the playoffs is very valuable, you need them to win in tough situations. Also given the needs of the Sixers team, Moses definitely had a large positive impact on the team but the thing is, a lot of centers could have came in and plugged the same holes to take that team over the top.

[Owly]

Ben really cherry picked the stats to prove his point. Sixers were better defensively in 1983 than in previous year. Likewise, Rockets definitely took a hit defensively after he left. Despite getting Caldwell Jones (definitely a positive defender), Rockets went from +1.4 to +3.6 rDRtg. To me, this is a collapse.

We actually have Moses on/off numbers and he looks incredible in 1983 and 1985. 1984 lowered his 3 years numbers, because he dealt with injuries. I think the actual numbers are significantly more important than BPM, which underrates his off-ball play.

Moses wasn't an elite defensive anchor, but he was clearly a positive defender in his peak years (he improved noticeably in 1981/82 by my tracking numbers). His offensive impact is significantly downgraded by you calling him "just a scorer/rebounder". Moses was arguably the best off-ball center in NBA history with top notch isolation skills. His unique skillset allowed him to dominate on offense without dominating the ball. He was extremely portable and scalable, proving in Philadelphia.

I'm not saying he's clearly ahead of Nash or Paul, but his profile is certainly up there.

I went searching for actual on/off numbers for Moses after this post. Couldn't find them. I did find this though:

Out of his nineteen seasons in the league, Malone had a negative D-PIPM for a whopping fourteen of them and a negative DBPM for every single one of them. Furthermore, in his years of stardom, Moses only anchored two top five defenses, both of which were for the immensely talented Philadelphia 76ers he joined in 1982. None of the other teams he played for in that time span even broke into the top nine for their respective seasons, with all of his prime years on the Rockets amounting to far below average team defensive ratings. When Malone was traded from Houston, their defense was barely affected in the following season. Overall, defense stands as one of Malone's more glaring weaknesses in terms of all-time context, as most of his contemporaries in the same echelon of greatness were far better on that side of the court than he ever could be.

Since I and most others regard '83 as superior to '82, we'll compare '83 Moses to the best seasons of all the other centers he'll be contrasted with -- from my personal point of view of course -- and '82 to the second best season of each of those big men. This'll allow us to see beyond just single season peaks, instead evaluating prolonged climaxes as well. Anyway, on to '83 first:

Best Season PIPM:

'83 Moses Malone: +4.8

'77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +8.1

'91 David Robinson: +7.4

'93 Hakeem Olajuwon: +7.3

'00 Shaquille O'Neal: +6.8

'19 Joel Embiid: +6.8

'11 Dwight Howard +6.4

'98 Dikembe Mutombo: +5.7

'90 Patick Ewing: +5.7

'04 Ben Wallace: +5.6

'77 Bill Walton: +5.3

'13 Marc Gasol: +5.0

'19 Rudy Gobert: +4.5

'00 Alonzo Mourning: +4.0

Best Season RAPTOR:

'83 Moses Malone: +6.5

'91 David Robinson: +8.2

'93 Hakeem Olajuwon: +7.8

'00 Shaquille O'Neal: +7.6

'77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +7.6

'19 Joel Embiid: +7.5

'11 Dwight Howard: +6.2

'04 Ben Wallace: +5.9

'19 Rudy Gobert: +5.4

'77 Bill Walton: +5.3

'90 Patrick Ewing: +3.5

Best Season WAR:

'83 Moses Malone: 16.3

'00 Shaquille O'Neal: 21.8

'93 Hakeem Olajuwon: 20.2

'77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 18.5

'91 David Robinson: 18.2

'04 Ben Wallace: 17.5

'11 Dwight Howard: 14.6

'19 Joel Embiid: 13.3

'77 Bill Walton: 12.5

'90 Patrick Ewing: 11.7

'19 Rudy Gobert: 11.4

In regards to the preceding assemblage of lists, Malone's lackluster standing is easy to recognize. In PIPM he ranks above just two other given players while in RAPTOR and WAR, his results are also subpar. Unfortunately for Moses, his '82 season won't be able to redeem such a disparity, with his defense in that season being represented as extremely undesirable by impact metrics.

Second Best Season PIPM:

'82 Moses Malone: +3.5

'94 David Robinson: +8.3

'74 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +6.7

'01 Shaquille O'Neal: +6.5

'94 Hakeem Olajuwon: +6.2

'10 Dwight Howard: +6.7

'99 Alonzo Mourning: +6.0

'17 Rudy Gobert: +5.4

'78 Bill Walton: +5.3

'00 Dikembe Mutombo: +5.0

'03 Ben Wallace: +5.0

'91 Patick Ewing: +4.4

'12 Marc Gasol: +4.2

Second Best Season RAPTOR:

'82 Moses Malone: +4.0

'94 David Robinson: +9.1

'01 Shaquille O'Neal: +6.2

'94 Hakeem Olajuwon: +6.1

'10 Dwight Howard: +5.9

'79 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: +5.5

'17 Rudy Gobert: +6.5

'03 Ben Wallace: +5.6

'92 Patick Ewing: +4.6

Second Best Season WAR:

'82 Moses Malone: 12.0

'94 David Robinson: 20.4

'94 Hakeem Olajuwon: 19.3

'01 Shaquille O'Neal: 16.6

'03 Ben Wallace: 15.3

'10 Dwight Howard: 14.8

'79 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 14.7

'17 Rudy Gobert: 14.1

'92 Patick Ewing: 13.6

In the above charts, Moses' position falters even further. He ranks dead last in all three of those major stats, an underwhelming mark for a player who most see as a lock for the top 20 best players in league history. Nonetheless, with all complex things of such nature, we need to ask why specifically Moses' seasons rank so low in these crucial metrics? Is it warranted? Well to put it simply, yes it is. The Chairman's low numbers stem from an overtly harsh evaluation of his defense, especially in '82 (net negative based on both RAPTOR and PIPM). However, that's not to say that his offense wasn't problematic either.

Moses' pathetic creating ability greatly tints his offensive value, with RAPTOR and WAR in particular being stats that highly value such elements. In addition, his scoring production's value was also limited by the influence of high minute inflation. Naturally, these deficiencies follow Malone's underwhelming statistical portfolio into other aspects. For example, Moses places just 34th in peak WS/48, 154th in peak Backpicks' BPM, 214th in peak WOWYR, 85th in peak WOWY and an abysmal 237th in five-year peak augmented plus-minus. So no, the trends that arose in Moses' impact metrics are far from just a mere fluke. Overall, most of his weaknesses in both offense and defense even persisted into his peremptory apex, culminating in an uninspiring prime.

What impact numbers do you have that show a different story? Is it possible that Dwight Howard had a better peak than Moses?

Actual +/-:

viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1970211

1983: +15.6, -7.4 on defense
1985: +21.7, -2.8 on defense

Moses was extremely impactful on offense and he was a positive defender at his peak.

That's not quite actual plus/minus, is it? (If I've understood correctly in the sense of the numbers being plus minus, and whether it's really quite the absolute "actual" version of the stat that it is).
My understanding was it's using actual plus minus ("on", and of course team level data to get "off", with minutes on, minutes off and the team's average pace to generate a very close approximation of on-off (which, being per 100 possessions can only be approximated assuming a constant pace). I may be wrong.

I will say on D ... those positive years, he's starting and a minutes leader with Cheeks, and Cheeks has better net defense both years and much better net defense in the alternate years and some pretty great defense before. Nevertheless he's part of the effective lineups in those years (and avoided fouling, which if done "naturally" is a low visibility asset).

Regardless those are big team leading on-off approximates and ones that came to mind (as presumably not seen) when that original impact comment came up.

[Proxy]

It would be also nice to have his postseason splits to see if the pattern is consistent.

Yeah this was another thing I mentioned alot earlier for Julius, his box only metrics consistently rose in the PS(and on the large side in terms of RS -> PS translation for most star players, really), so I also wonder if it would really look as bad for him there, and I generally weight PS performance more than I do RS.

I don't have #s from backpicks.com because that site is barely functional for me rn but from bballref, Erving went from a 4.5 OBPM to a +5.8 OBPM from '77 to '82.

I'm not really a fan of just using OBPM(and DBPM is borderline useless to me) but in the absence of pbp data the trend does still make me wonder if i'm a bit too harsh indexing somewhat heavily on the RS stuff.

I also really wish we had actual lineup/rotation data tracked for all these prime years and that info isn't insignificant IMO, but as far as i'm concerned nobody has that readily available at least. Some explanations have been presented(ex: Bobby coming off the bench), but the actual info would be so helpful.

[Proxy]

Gonna repost the convo I had with Doc MJ in a earlier thread and something else I said about his production

Now it's true that the ABA did have some talent, as people have mentioned. But when the ABA and NBA merged, Erving's production took a clear drop. Erving almost looks better in 1982/1983 than he did in 1977-1979.  Is there any context that I'm missing? I'd love to hear from Erving fans, since I'm far from a Dr. J expert!

I will say that in the playoffs from '77-'79(really on the higher end of star PS production rises), Erving's production rose but it was still nowhere rly near as good  as 1976- they also weren't as dependent on him as the 76 Nets were i'd say. In 1977 he basically led them to the finals as McGinnis was pretty much dead weight that run but the team wasn't especially dominant.

I think part of the bad adjustment was the lack of three point line spacing in the NBA, and part of it were strange fits around Julius. Those teams would sometimes run double centers like Caldwell Jones and Darryl Dawkins together, George McGinnis was an awful fit alonfside Julius as they wanted to do many similar things, and World B. Free's ball dominance did not help either, they all crticized for some of these decisions. Some of those decisions helped the defense but the offense was just not optimizing him(could possibly be an argument against his portability cuz it wasn't like they were terrible offensive casts.
https://vault.si.com/vault/1977/03/21/good-but-why-not-the-best

Another problem was Julius having shaky knees throughout his career and he looked pretty reguvenated because of that, and the addition of a 3 point line by 1980:
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/21/archives/ervings-kness-pass-first-court-test-dr-j-back-knees-pass-court-test.html

There are only like 4 ABA(from 74 to 76) Julius games available on YouTube but he really did not look all THAT different than he did in the NBA playoff games immediately after to me as if he went from randomly dropping from an all-time peak to an all-nba ish level player in one year, part of me feels im either overrating ABA Julius or underrating what NBA Julius would be in a vacuum due to the bad fit and inconsistent role year to year(some years being very dependent on his scoring and other years utilizing him more like an all-around specialist), because by 1976 the ABA wasn't too far off the NBA in player quality.

The WOWY indicators are what give me the most concerns, he looks far more inconsistent year to year than other all-timers in on/off data for the NBA. Some years looking strong and other years having a...negative on/off?

Julius Erving On Court + On/Off by year

77: (+5.2/+6)
78: (+4.9/+0.6)
79: (+1.7/-0.1)
80: (+4.9/+3)
81: (+5.7/-6.7)
82: (+8.6/+10)
83: (+11.4/+10.3)
84:(3.6/+4.4)
85: (+2.9/-3.2)
86:(+4.1/+4.6)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/edit?usp=drivesdk

Now these are heavily influenced by fit and utilization, and he also rose in production in the playoffs. We also do not have this data for the ABA when many people have him on their ballots for exclusively what he did relative to ABA competition.

We also don't have more lineup/rotation data to really see why this is happening(one thing I see is how Bobby looks very strong as a replacement in these coming off the bench so I wonder if that factored in to it a bit because of the lineups they faced), it still looks kinda unimpressive to me even factoring these in but idk how much value should be placed into these for a ranking with all that information missing. I hope someone else defending Julius right now could answer those for me.

Glad you're bringing this up. As someone who named himself on these boards after Erving, I came in a strong supporter of Erving and I've become less and less so - from a player value ranking perspective - with time. This was true before we saw his 76er +/- data already to some degree, but I have to admit being pretty shocked by how little Erving stood out here.

It has been speculated that it's possible that having a player as unusual as Bobby Jones may cause raw on/off data to look pretty strange. Jones was speculated as potentially a huge per minute impact guy before we saw the data, and the data seems to have bared that out. If the 76er rotation was such that Erving & Jones were significantly staggered in their minutes, it's possible that what's happening is that we're not getting a number for Erving that represents anything at all like the off replacements for other players.

That wouldn't explain everything though. Erving's on/off looked pretty pedestrian in the first two years in Philly before they got Jones.

And yet, I remain convinced that Erving's impact in the ABA was truly exceptional, and I think the dropoff the Nets had with his departure backs that up.

In the end, I'm left feeling like Erving needs to be seen as someone capable of great impact, but not of his own adaptation. He was someone who did his thing, and if you had the right fit around him you resonated with what he was doing. If not, the level you achieved with him wasn't something so high that you couldn't do something similar with a quality team effort.

I might draw analogy to Kawhi's defense toward the end of his time on the Spurs. While his focus on defense had started to wane at this point, there was still no doubt that he was a terrifying man defender that opponents looked to avoid. But while this led to good defense by normal standards, the entire team ran like a defensive machine knowing just what to do to work in the scheme Pop told them to run, and it made the everyday defensive impact of Kawhi a bit murky.

Though Erving's 1976 run in particular looks like it could be argued as a higher scoring peak, and his 1974 run looking pretty strong as well when the ABA wasn't too far off the NBA at that point.

[DraymondGold]

Expanding my ballot a bit, since there's more uncertainty the closer the peaks get together:

1. 17 Durant (16, 14)
2. 11 Dirk (10, 06, 07)
3. 1949 Mikan (1950/1951)
4. 2017 Kawhi
5. 1976 Ewing
6. 2014 Chris Paul (2015, 2009)


Previous vote reasoning: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100961668#p100961668
Stat Box: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100988617#p100988617

Spoiler:

I didn't get the chance to post this before Robinson got voted in, so I'll include him here for reference.

Stat Box for this tier of Peaks: Robinson, KD, Kawhi, Dirk, CP3, AD, Nash, Erving, Moses [to add later: McGrady, Karl Malone, Barkley, Mikan]

Plus minus data
Ai. AuPM: 94/95/96 Robinson > 14/15 Paul > 14/16/17 KD > Dirk > Nash > 17/19/21 Kawhi ~ Moses (better in single year peak, worse multi-year) > AD > Erving (no 76 Erving)
Aii. Postseason AuPM: old Robinson > Paul > Dirk (better 1 year, worse 2) >~ Kawhi (higher 1 year than KD) >~ Nash >~ KD (better 2 year) > AD
Bi. Goldstein RAPM: Nash >~ old Robinson ~ Dirk > Paul > Moses (very small historical sample) > Kawhi > KD > AD
Bii. Goldstein RS/Playoff PIPM: Robinson > Paul > Kawhi > KD (21 higher than Kobe) > Dirk > AD > Erving (no 76) > Moses (better 1 year, worse multi-year) ~ Nash (better closer to peak, worse than 80s Erving)
Ci. Additional plus minus stats: Fivethirtyeight’s Overall RAPTOR +/- (per 75): Paul > Kawhi > AD > KD
Cii. Additional plus minus stats: Bball-Index’s LEBRON: Paul (best multi-year) ~ KD (14’s the best peak 1 year, worse multi-year) ~ Kawhi (middle) > AD > Dirk
D. Additional plus minus stats: DARKO: Paul > Kawhi > KD > AD
E. Additional plus minus stats: ESPN’s RPM: Paul > KD > Dirk ~ Kawhi > AD (worse peak year than Nash, better multi-year) > Nash
Fi Additional Plus Minus stats: WOWY: Robinson > Nash [> Kawhi in smaller samples] >> Dirk > Erving > Paul > KD [> AD in smaller samples] >> Moses
Fii. Additional plus minus stats: Backpicks’ CORP evaluation: KD >~ Robinson > Dirk > Erving > AD ~ Paul > Nash > Kawhi > Moses


Box score-based data
Gi. Backpicks BPM: Robinson >~ KD > Paul > Kawhi ~ AD > Dirk ~ Nash (better than 11 Dirk, worse than younger) > Moses > Erving (no 76 Erving)
Gii. Postseason Backpicks BPM: 17 KD (14 is bottom) > Paul ~ Kawhi (21 above KD, 17/19 below Paul) > Nash ~ AD ~ Dirk >~ Robinson (worse younger, better older) > Moses (better 1 year, worse multi-year) ~ Erving (no 76 Erving)
Hi. BR’s BPM: Robinson > 76 Erving (better 1 year than KD) >~ KD > Paul > Kawhi > AD > Dirk (worse 10/11, better younger) >~ Nash > Moses
Hii. BR’s Postseason BPM: Kawhi > 76 Erving > KD > Paul > Dirk (worse in 11, better 10/younger) ~ AD (better in 20, worse other years) >~ Robinson (worse younger, better older) > Moses > Nash


Tier 0 (best in everything): Robinson.
-Robinson: Glad he got voted in. He's worse in post-season BPM, but otherwise he's top 2 in basically every stat including other postseason stats.

Tier 1 (better in most, with some flaws): Paul >~ KD >~ Kawhi >~ Dirk
-Paul is ahead of this group in plus minus metrics (especially in AuPM, Raptor, LeBron, Darko, RPM). He's ahead of Dirk in Box metrics but behind KD in box metrics. The concern for Paul is health, resilience, and scalability, which the stats might miss. Year: I'm taking 14/15 Paul as my peak, though some will argue for 08/09 based more on the box score than impact metrics.
-KD's ahead in all 4 box metrics, tied with Dirk in impact metrics, but below Paul in most impact metrics. He does well in both resilience and scalability. Year: I'd see arguments for 14, 16, and 17.
-Kawhi’s clearly worse in the regular season (e.g. in AuPM and RAPM), but better in the postseason (e.g. in PIPM and BPM).
-Dirk's worst in BPM, but he makes some ground in WOWY and RAPM. Year: he’s better in some stats when he was younger ~06/07, but had some of his best playoffs and scoring ~10/11.
[-Kobe’s below KD in BPM and just above in impact metrics, for those curious]

Tier 2 (still great, but larger flaws): Nash
-Nash has the clear advantage against these 3 in regular impact metrics (e.g. AuPM, WOWY, and RAPM especially where he's first), but he has some of the worst box metrics of anyone here.
-Erving’s missing stats in 76 pulls him down. His non-76 years are last in AuPM and Backpicks’ BPM, but he has mid-pack WOWY regardless and his 76 Basketball Reference BPM just beats KD. If we check WS/48, he’s just below Kawhi/KD in the regular season and above KD near Kawhi in the postseason Year: Interestingly, almost every stat (AuPM, BPM, RS/PS PIPM, etc.) are better in 80/81/82 than 77/78/79. Is this a sign of worse “goodness” in the 70s or worse fit when joining the NBA?
-AD bottom 2 in almost every impact metric (e.g. AuPM, RAPM, WOWY), but his Playoff PIPM from 2020 puts him mid-pack as does BPM.

Tier 3 (clearly below the rest): Moses
-Moses’ best two stats are regular season AuPM (where he sneaks past AD/Erving) and RAPM (where he has a 10 game sample). But he’s bottom 2 in this tier in literally every stat we have here. He’s particularly putrid in WOWY, and he only loses ground if we take multi-year samples.

Reasoning for KD/Dirk: I see both at quite a close level. Durant's impact metrics, scalability, and resilience (alongside another offensive engine) are all great. A similar thing can be said for Dirk. Both are great scorers, likely a hair above Kawhi. Both are clearly the better creators and fit better within an offensive scheme, though passing is neither of their strong suits. Defensively, I'm most concerned with Dirk, particularly as a big man. It's a bit like Jokic, where it becomes a bit of a team making challenge to get the most out of their offense without sacrificing defense. While KD's defense and rebounding is generally overrated due to his athleticism, 17 was finally the year he put it together. Yes, a lot of that was context -- but he also showed a decline in those areas the next year in 18, when he had quite a similar context, so I do think 17 represents KD's peak from a "defensive / team-first mentality" standpoint.

Mikan: He's clearly the most dominant of anyone here by any (few) stats we have, and by any (limited) film we have [see my previous conversation on the topic]. The big question is how much to discount him for his competition or from a "goodness" perspective. I'm honestly not sure what the answer is. I put him here, approximately around the boundary between two Tiers of peaks. I think there'll definitely be some arbitrariness in when he gets voted in though. I just wish we had more info on him!

Kawhi (film analysis: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100989379#p100989379): His impact metrics put him around this tier -- his (small sample) playoff performance is near the top of this group. His scoring is absolutely at this level, and he's one of the best defenders of the perimeter players (even after his defense declined in 17/19). But he also clearly comes with some serious concerns.
First, his regular season value is clearly worse than most players around here, and he benefited from a well fitting team that could cover his coasting more than most.
Second, his health is obviously a concern. Even discounting Zaza, he still missed a playoff game. I tend to weigh health not too heavily for 1-year peaks (more for looking at larger primes), but it still is a minor concern.
Third, how well can he combine his best defense and his best offense? His best offense came in 20/21 when he finally began improving as a passer. My film analysis of 2017 Kawhi clearly showed a lack of vision and willingness as a facilitator... he would drive numerous times, collapse the defense, then take a contested shot that would miss. This contributed to Kawhi's teams having slightly worse offensive ratings than other players around here, like Kobe or Nash (see previous discussions). Still good, just not quite as good as the offense-first players. On defense, he clearly declined a small but noticeable margin in 17 vs 16. That said, it's still great defense, better than KD/Erving/Paul/Nash etc. I see 2017 as the best combination of offense and defense that Kawhi had, but it's fun to imagine how much better it could have been. If 17 Kawhi maintained his 2016 defense, or if 17 Kawhi added his 19/20/21 passing, he'd certainly be at the top of my ballot. If he added both (which would also require an improved motor), he'd jump quite a bit in my rankings. But as it is, he winds up here.

Erving: A hard player to rank. I've voiced my concerns with his impact already, so I won't retread the same argument too much. In sum: it should certainly give us some pause that Erving seemed to be far worse in 77/78/79 than in 80/81/82 if we're choosing 76 as his peak. How much was 76 enabled by worse competition? Still, plenty have argued it's a case of fit more than goodness. His WOWY numbers are encouraging, and the stuff we do have suggests 76 has a one-year peak around the level of KD/Kawhi relative to his league. I give him a small discount for my competition concerns (a great previous post suggested the average 70s ABA player was around ~90% as good as the 70s NBA player), and I discount him for his decline in 77/78/79, which puts him around here.

Paul: I suspect he'll be given the Robinson treatment. His regular season impact is clearly just as good as anyone here. The concern for him is playoffs. And while I think the constant harping about him as a "choker" is overrated (and often health related), he does show a decline in the film and in the stats (BPM/PIPM/AuPM) even in the playoffs where he's relatively healthy. Add some scalability concerns, and he gets discounted a bit, but stays above those who seem to be a small tier below him.

[Samurai]

1. Doctor J 1976. Yes, it was in the ABA. The final year of that league before the merger in 77 and at that point, the ABA was loaded with future Hall of Famers such as David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, Bobby Jones and Dan Issel. No plumbers or milkmen in that group. And Dr J put up one of the best all-around seasons ever. Led the league in scoring at 29.3 ppg. Fifth in rebounding at 11.0 rpg. Seventh in assists at 5.0 apg. Third in steal at 2.5 spg. Seventh in blocks at 1.9 bpg. Tenth in field goal percentage at .507% and sixth in 3-point % at 33%. And led the league in PER, Win Shares, Offensive Win Shares, Defensive Win Shares, WS/48, Box Plus/Minus, VORP, and Usage %. Off the top of my head, the only other player who dominated across that many aspects of the game might be 51 Mikan but we don't have any idea what his blocks or steal numbers were and I'd guess that the competition level in the 76 ABA was higher than the 51 NBA.

2. George Mikan 1950. I said that he would be my next selection so here he is. Most dominant 2-way player relative to his peers of anyone left. Led the league in scoring, Win Shares and Defensive WS. Likely would have led the league in rebounds and blocks if those stats were recorded then and would have been the clear favorite for Defensive Player of the Year is such an award existed. There is no question whatsoever that he was the best of his era, more so than anyone left. In terms of in-era dominance, he has a very good case for being the GOAT. As is, he may well be the most impactful player ever, given that the 24-second rule was established largely due to Mikan's dominance and the widening of the key was dubbed "the Mikan rule". A good argument can be made that the introduction of the shot clock is the single biggest and most influential rule change since the NBA started. The question is how much do we penalize him for playing in a weaker era. This is where I would draw the line at continuing to penalize him.

3. Bob Pettit 1959. I have Pettit as very close to Mikan so I suppose it makes sense for me to list him just after Mikan. In terms of how he did against his peers, I think a good argument could be made that 59 Pettit could have been a top ten season. Obviously we also have to look at the context of his season and the quality of his competition and figure out how much to penalize him for the era he played in. He was MVP in a league that had Bill Russell averaging 23 boards/game, a rookie Elgin Baylor averaging 25 pts and 15 rebounds/game, and Hall of Famers like Schayes, Arizin, Hagan, Cousy and Twyman in their primes. Pettit led the league with 29.4 pts/game, a 28.2 PER and 14.8 WS while finishing second in rebounds with 16.4/game.

[homecourtloss]

Bobby Jones coming off the bench most likely affects Erving's +/- numbers in Philadelphia

Jones affects his ON-OFF numbers but what about Dr. J’s on court numbers? He shared the court with him, too, so you’d think his relatively pedestrian ON COURT numbers would be more impressive. Additionally, Mo Cheeks, a starter, doesn’t seem to have his ON-OFF numbers hampered by Jones and seems to top Dr.J in on court impact in most seasons. Mo Cheeks and Moses, two starters of course, ostensibly being more impactful in many different years, gives me pause about Dr, J’s likely impact in ‘76.

I think people take Julius +/- data too seriously here. His numbers weren't that bad in most seasons (though they weren't amazing), but a lot of that had to do with Sixers roster construction. I mean, Julius was a net negative in 1981, but then came back with +12 in the very next season. Do you believe that he improved massively that much within one year or what?

I think 1976 Julius has to be considered here and years like 1977, 1980 or 1982 can compete with any Durant or Barkley season as well.

It’s true that they can’t be the be-all, end-all, and we don’t know what they were like before 1977, but the numbers really make you wonder since they do cover J’s prime years. When you look at the known data for other players especially their respective peak/prime years, Dr. J’s numbers are really underwhelming, and it’s hard to ignore especially when we see WOWYR numbers or partial +/- for others. One concern is that other than in two seasons, he’s not near the top on his team in either ON court or ON-OFF among players who played consistent minutes. In most seasons, he does t compare favorably to Cheeks. Also, the Sixers do well enough with him off court so you’d think his ON court numbers would be stronger. If it were a season or two, eh, but it’s more than that.

1977: +5.2 ON, +6.0 ON/OFF. +5.2 on a Finals team at age 26.
1978: +4.9 ON, +.5 ON/OFF
1979: +1.7 ON, -.1 ON/OFF
1980: +4.9 ON, +3.0 ON/OFF
1981: +5.7 ON, -6.7 ON/OFF (six different Sixers had a higher ON)
1982: +8.6 ON, +10.0 ON/OFF
1983: +11.4 ON, +10.3 ON/OFF (three Sixers with higher ON, three with higher ON/OFF)
1984: +3.6 ON, +4.4 ON/OFF

Of course it brings up the question about others on this list so far whom we have fewer or no numbers for, i.e., 1977 Kareem, 1967 Wilt, 1964 Russell, 1986 Bird, 1987 Magic, 1965 Oscar, 1966 West, and 1977 Walton.

We have positive numbers for Bird in other seasons in the recent RAPM projects, really strong numbers for 1985 and 1988 Magic, really strong numbers for older Kareem, really strong WOWYR numbers for Walton, and the defensive ratings numbers for the Celtics with Russell and without.

It would be also nice to have his postseason splits to see if the pattern is consistent.

I don't have a clear explaination for that and it's possible that I just overrate Julius because of the eye test. I don't have a clear opinion about it, other than I don't see many reasons to doubt that Julius impacted Sixers in positive way.

Do you think I miss something? Do you have any hypotheses about Julius underwhelming numbers? Did he have any notable weaknesses I missed?

Would you have KD over him by the way?

I really do wish we had playoff numbers because we know he raised his game in the playoffs at least offensively.

I think two things:

1) off ball defense though not equivalent in terms of importance compared to today’s game when one weak/slow/bad rotation yields a wide-open three
2) mediocre play-making relative to a pretty high TOV%

I have him and KD around the same area

It’s true that they can’t be the be-all, end-all, and we don’t know what they were like before 1977, but the numbers really make you wonder since they do cover J’s prime years.

The numbers cover the back half of Dr. J's prime though, his peak was clearly the three preceding seasons with the pinnacle in 75/76. I would break up the relevant seasons of Erving's career like this...

[FIGURING IT OUT]
72-73 RS: 25.7 PER | .546 TS% | 23.1 WS | .170 WS/48 | --- BPM | 189 TS Add
72-73 PO: 28.8 PER | .570 TS% | 3.4 WS | .224 WS/48 | --- BPM

[PEAK]
74-76 RS: 26.8 PER | .565 TS% | 51.8 WS | .247 WS/48 | 9.2 BPM | 625 TS Add
74-76 PO: 26.7 PER | .577 TS% | 7.1 WS | .253 WS/48 | 9.4 BPM

[VALLEY]
77-79 RS: 20.9 PER | .548 TS% | 28.6 WS | .168 WS/48 | 4.2 BPM | 276 TS Add
77-79 PO: 22.3 PER | .564 TS% | 6.0 WS | .194 WS/48 | 6.6 BPM

[SECONDARY PEAK]
80-83 RS: 24.9 PER | .575 TS% | 50.6 WS | .223 WS/48 | 7.3 BPM | 544 TS Add
80-83 PO: 20.8 PER | .545 TS% | 8.2 WS | .153 WS/48 | 6.0 BPM

Also pretty impressive that for the majority of his prime Julius was able to noticeably ramp up his play in the playoffs (72-73 and 77-79) or maintain his MVP calibre play (74-76). His playoff performances got a little more uneven at the end of his prime, with solid runs in 80/82 but less than stellar results in 81/83 dragging the totals down some.

Dr. J was 26 in ‘77—26 to 30 years of age encompasses most players’ respective primes. Also, and I’m not in the boat of Deigrating the ABA, but that doesn’t seem like a good look that he hits a valley as soon as he gets into the NBA.

[falcolombardi]

Bobby Jones coming off the bench most likely affects Erving's +/- numbers in Philadelphia

Jones affects his ON-OFF numbers but what about Dr. J’s on court numbers? He shared the court with him, too, so you’d think his relatively pedestrian ON COURT numbers would be more impressive. Additionally, Mo Cheeks, a starter, doesn’t seem to have his ON-OFF numbers hampered by Jones and seems to top Dr.J in on court impact in most seasons.

Without lineup data i dont know how much to weight cheeks leading him in on/off. Maybe when cheeks played withouth julius he would play with jones/moses/caldwell/etc but julius would play a lot of minutes without either of them

For example in 2018 eric gordon led the rockets in +/- and a possibility for why may be that maybe he played with paul in those Harden less minutes while harden played bench minutes without wither gordon or paul

[AEnigma]

I might transcribe this later, but was listening to a podcast and an extended diatribe on postseason Jokic caught my ear.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6nnPPTqk28spMm0X2BTiz6?context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A1TF4f3ukvC7kdxIfX9eMzr&si=TecrsUaDSMy-Th_Hl6UAwQ&t=1260
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-top-30-players-in-the-nba/id1475645192?i=1000577262527
Starting at the 21-minute mark.

Basic summary: indications are that he needs to have an entire defence built around Jokic to make a title run (relating it to this project: much like Dirk, and in some sense Moses, and even — not that it ever really came up… — Shaq). In the modern league, this principle threatens to limit the pursuit of all these top talents who also compromise defences in the face of the most potent offences in league history (not sure I buy this one as much).

I bring that up for a few reasons:
One, I do think Jokic (and Shaq) went too high based on what they have achieved to this point, via perhaps the most thinly discussed thread of the project so far.

Two, seeing as there has been so much concern with how these players perform relative to their contemporaries… if Jokic is that beloved in spite of his postseason limitations, then maybe Embiid does deserve a better look.

Three, probably worth asking how many of us care to consider a player’s absolute defensive ability and weaknesses versus what their ability and weaknesses were in their era. Dirk was solid enough in his own era, but was he a better absolute defender than Jokic? Or is it more a matter of potentially being better relative to position — and then we return to the question of whether it is a valid approach for Jokic to play next to defensive centres the way the Wolves are trying to do.
Is that where Harden enters the discussion?

I will think about this more, but I do have concerns about to what extent weak defensive bigs can consistently push for a title as the clear top player. Moses was 1/1, Dirk was 1/3 (2003 was probably the second-best team in the league), and Jokic is 0/0 so far. Shaq fares a lot better, but that was not until Phil Jackson arrived and the supporting roster essentially became Kobe + two-way roleplayers.

[No-more-rings]

Assuming this project goes to 40, what do you guys think the likelihood of Luka making it are? I mean he seems like a pretty resilient playoff performer from what we’ve seem so far. I know he’s sort of a poor defender, so I get that will drag him down some. Looking at the names from the bottom of last project’s list, I’d likely take him over Walt Frazier, Bob McAdoo, Karl Malone and Willis Reed. Unsure about Dwight Howard, Rick Barry, or Artis Gilmore. Hell, not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I may actually take him over Westbrook. I mean he’s clearly a better scorer imo, and is a great passer on his own. Not real sure though. Also I find it borderline shocking that he didn’t have at least one top 5 finish in POY projects the past 3 seasons given his playoff resilience. In 2021 Gobert went 5th over him and this year Tatum like really? Lol. Tatum is less surprising given the winning bias, but Gobert?

Thoughts?

[AEnigma]

Luka’s case I think relies pretty heavily on a combination of box scores and abstract skillset.

In the regular season, he has pretty weak impact indicators, and that is going to be automatically discrediting for several posters here. Like, lower than Trae Young weak (and Trae Young is not an impact beacon either). As discussed, I do not feel this is inherently damning, because that can just mean the Mavericks have good backup options. Or it can be a consequence of era — the Mavericks are much better defensively without him, but maybe you could argue in other eras he would be less of a problem, or that players from those eras would have similar problems today.

That could make for a more effective argument if he were still leading strong teams, but he is really not. His teams have been fine with him on the court but nothing special. His defence is bad, but anyone voting for him will vote based on his offence, so maybe that should be the focus… and there too he is not really standing out (his ORAPM rank hovers around #10-15 over the past three years). None of this is discrediting but it certainly is making the case tough.

His box score production is gaudy (befitting this era of heliocentrism), but his middling efficiency hampers him relative to guys like Lillard (to say nothing of non-guards like Embiid). He is an impressive passer, and he clearly helps his teammates find good looks, but personally I think he is far from consistent relative to the top guys. He has enough flashes of brilliance that I could believe we will one day talk about him as a top five passer ever, but we are not there yet. He is no Nash, Magic, Jokic, etc.

As you said, his best argument is the postseason, where he maintains his numbers against tough opposition while others drop. Except… simply maintaining does not in itself make him as good as someone like 2019-21 Harden in the postseason. The team continues to not rely on him too much, and his defence is still an issue. His three-year postseason LEBRON comfortably trails Embiid’s, Draymond’s, Paul’s, Davis’s, Harden’s, post-2015 Durant’s… George’s … however, it is better than our #16’s And since you mentioned him, Westbrook’s too.

The era relative argument gives him a chance. Can I absolutely say he is worse than McGrady or Penny or Barry or Barkley? I think they were all clearly better relative to their own eras — which will also immediately discredit Luka for several voters — but no I cannot confidently say they would be better if they were swapped for each other. Even then, the argument to take him over elite historical bigs is more abstract and tougher to sell definitively.

So I would say possibly in that 35-40 range but with the current voter pool would be disinclined to predict a yes.

[SickMother]

Jones affects his ON-OFF numbers but what about Dr. J’s on court numbers? He shared the court with him, too, so you’d think his relatively pedestrian ON COURT numbers would be more impressive. Additionally, Mo Cheeks, a starter, doesn’t seem to have his ON-OFF numbers hampered by Jones and seems to top Dr.J in on court impact in most seasons. Mo Cheeks and Moses, two starters of course, ostensibly being more impactful in many different years, gives me pause about Dr, J’s likely impact in ‘76.

I guess I'm not sure how Dr. J's on/off numbers from 1977-84, when he was playing in a different league, with different rules for the first couple seasons (maybe this impacted his raw box numbers some?), on a different team, with different teammates are all that relevant to his 1975-76 season under consideration for this project.

If Dr. J wasn't having an impact on the 75/76 Nets, which of his teammates that played regular minutes was? Rich Jones, John Williamson, Kim Hughes, Al Skinner, Tim Bassett and Brian Taylor (the only other 75/76 Nets to play at least 1,700 minutes) combined for negative 227 TS Add.

[falcolombardi]

Luka’s case I think relies pretty heavily on a combination of box scores and abstract skillset.

In the regular season, he has pretty weak impact indicators, and that is going to be automatically discrediting for several posters here. Like, lower than Trae Young weak (and Trae Young is not an impact beacon either). As discussed, I do not feel this is inherently damning, because that can just mean the Mavericks have good backup options. Or it can be a consequence of era — the Mavericks are much better defensively without him, but maybe you could argue in other eras he would be less of a problem, or that players from those eras would have similar problems today. Maybe that would be less of an issue if he were leading strong teams, but he is really not. His teams have been fine with him on the court but nothing special. His defence is bad, but anyone voting for him will vote based on his offence, so maybe that should be the focus… and there too he is not really standing out (his ORAPM rank hovers around #10-15 over the past three years). None of this is discrediting but it certainly is making the case tough.

His box score production is gaudy (befitting this era of heliocentrism), but his middling efficiency hampers him relative to guys like Lillard (to say nothing of non-guards like Embiid). He is an impressive passer, and he clearly helps his teammates find good looks, but personally I think he is far from consistent relative to the top guys. He has enough flashes of brilliance that I could believe we will one day talk about him as a top five passer ever, but we are not there yet. He is no Nash, Magic, Jokic, etc.

As you said, his best argument is the postseason, where he maintains his numbers against tough opposition while others drop. Except… simply maintaining does not in itself make him as good as someone like 2019-21 Harden in the postseason. The team continues to not rely on him too much, and his defence is still an issue. His three-year postseason LEBRON comfortably trails Embiid’s, Draymond’s, Paul’s, Davis’s, Harden’s, post-2015 Durant’s… George’s … however, it is better than our #16’s And since you mentioned him, Westbrook’s too.

The era relative argument gives him a chance. Can I absolutely say he is worse than McGrady or Penny or Barry or Barkley? I think they were all clearly better relative to their own eras — which will also immediately discredit Luka for several voters — but no I cannot confidently say they would be better if they were swapped for each other. Even then, the argument to take him over elite historical bigs is more abstract and tougher to sell definitively.

So I would say possibly in that 35-40 range but with the current voter pool would be disinclined to predict a yes.

Luka issue is really his efficiency, he is near league average scorer meaning that in a vacuum his scoring doesnt add as much value as one would expect

Harden 30 points add like 2-3 points compared to those possesions going to a league average scorer, luka 30 points dont add those 2-3 points.

His creation, as great as it is, alreadty starts with a "handicap" compared to lebron, harden, curry or jokic as he needs to make up the scoring efficiency gap first

[An Unbiased Fan]

Luka issue is really his efficiency, he is near league average scorer meaning that in a vacuum his scoring doesnt add as much value as one would expect

Harden 30 points add like 2-3 points compared to those possesions going to a league average scorer, luka 30 points dont add those 2-3 points.

His creation, as great as it is, alreadty starts with a "handicap" compared to lebron, harden, curry or jokic as he needs to make up the scoring efficiency gap first

Disagree. Volume scoring is very impactful because shot creators lift a team's efficiency on broken possessions. Luka takes the tough shots, so his effiency will be lower. Shot creators almost always shoot a statistically lower pct. because of that, but the impact is rather huge

[falcolombardi]

Luka issue is really his efficiency, he is near league average scorer meaning that in a vacuum his scoring doesnt add as much value as one would expect

Harden 30 points add like 2-3 points compared to those possesions going to a league average scorer, luka 30 points dont add those 2-3 points.

His creation, as great as it is, alreadty starts with a "handicap" compared to lebron, harden, curry or jokic as he needs to make up the scoring efficiency gap first

Disagree. Volume scoring is very impactful because shot creators lift a team's efficiency on broken possessions. Luka takes the tough shots, so his effiency will be lower. Shot creators almost always shoot a statistically lower pct. because of that, but the impact is rather huge

So you agree with me that if he did exactly the same thinghs but his own shots went in more often then he would be better?

[LukaTheGOAT]

Luka and Jokic offensive performance against similar opponents in the PS.


Luka's averages vs Clippers in 2020 PS (Clippers had a rDRTG of -3.1)

31 points, 9.8 rebs, 8.7 assists, 5.2 turnovers (59.6 TS%) in 35.8 MPG.

GameScore-23.4

Dallas had a 113 ORTG, and 112 ORTG with Luka on.


Jokic's averages vs Clippers in 2020 PS (Clippers had a rDRTG of -3.1)

24.4 points, 13.4 rebounds, 6.6 assists, 4.7 turnovers (60.3 TS%) in 37.7 MPG.

GameScore-19.9

Denver had a 110.6 ORTG, and 108 offensive rating with Jokic on.


Luka's averages vs Clippers in 2021 PS (Clippers had a rDRTG of -1.3)

35.7 pts, 7.9 rebounds, 10.3 assists, 4.6 turnovers (57.2 TS%) in 40.2 MPG.

GameScore-26.1

Dallas had a 116.5 ORTG, and a 114 ORTG with Luka on.



Jokic's averages vs Suns in 2021 PS (Suns had a rDRTG of -1.1)

25 points, 13.3 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 2 turnovers (53 TS%) in 33.5 MPG

GameScore-22.2

Denver had a 107.9 ORTG, and 116 ORTG with Jokic on.


Luka's averages vs Suns in 2022 PS (Suns had a rDRTG of -4.6)

32.6 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 7 assists, 4 turnovers (58.3 TS%) in 36.1 MPG

GameScore-24.8

Dallas had a 116.8 ORTG and a 116 ORTG with Luka on.


Jokic's averages vs Warriors in 2022 PS (Warriors have a rDRTG of -4.9)

31 pts, 13.2 rebs, and 5.8 assists, 4.8 turnovers (64.3 TS%) in 34.2 MPG

GameScore-25.9

Denver had a 114.7 ORTG and a 119 ORTG with Jokic on.


Luka's averages vs Warriors in 2022 PS (Warriors have a rDRTG of -4.9)

32 pts, 9.2 rebs, and 6 assists, 3.8 turnovers (55.9 TS%) in 38.2 MPG

GameScore-22.9




All in all

Luka's measurements in the aforementioned PS stats

Backpicks BPM
20-7.03
21-6.87
22-7.5

AuPM/g
20-2.8
21-3.9
22-3.2

EPM
20-3.1
21-7.4
22-5.9

Multi-Year LEBRON
20-22: 4.32

Jokic's measurements in recent PS runs

Backpicks BPM
20-6.43
21-6.12
22-7.8

AuPM/g
20-3.4
21-2.7
22-4.2

EPM
20-4.1
21-2.8
22-1.4

Multi-Year LEBRON
20-22: 1.96

Now an argument could be made that 22 Jokic is significantly better than previous iterations, and I wouldn't deny that, however I just wanted to share.

[f4p]

I mean if you want to say that box scores underrate Nash's impact, pretty much everyone would agree, but if you think Harden underwhelms in RAPM I'd like to know what you think he should've done differently because his production and team results stack up pretty well.

I kind-of went into it last thread, and philosophically when I discussed Moses earlier (I think also last thread? or maybe two threads ago), but my concern is not necessarily, “What more could you have done on your specific roster in the specific year in question.” I explicitly said I do not think Nash would do well in Harden’s place because — as Unibro more thoroughly explained — that team was built to put nearly the entire offensive load (scoring and creation) on Harden. That team would have more suited someone like Lillard or Iverson more naturally than Nash, even if there would eventually be enough of a drop-off from Harden to SCORING GUARD where Nash would be better.

ok but you're basically saying it's nice harden did well in his situation, but he should have done better in a hypothetical situation that he had no chance to perform in if he wanted to be ranked higher.

However, my approach has repeatedly emphasised that I only care about context-specific results to the point that they confirm aspects about building a title roster around you. For example, I know Dirk can circumstantially win a title and consistently contend with good overall defensive support and offensive fit but no true secondary star, whereas I cannot exactly say the same for Durant. The question for me is not whether Harden could do better than anyone else in his position, but whether those results gave us a good degree of confidence that he could contend for titles in edited circumstances.

plays with talented and extremely young team, big part of getting them to the finals in the WCF. immediately takes on massive role with new team, gets to WCF with big man. gets new coach and system and wins surprise 55 games with ryan anderson and eric gordon (both of the mighty pelicans the year before). gets 33 year old chris paul and wins 65 games and seems unbeatable. not sure why the performance should be credit to chris paul, who has also never gone near the +11 SRS he and harden had or had ever even gotten out of the 2nd round. seems like harden and chris paul meshing beautifully shows harden can fit with people. then goes to the nets and immediately shows how uber-valuable his distributing is next KD/kyrie (while still scoring a bunch himself), producing off the charts offensive results with great offensive talent. with a team that looks like it might cruise to a title with any sort of health. why should we wonder about harden's fit in the nba?

I talked last thread about why I do not attribute the outlier successes of 2018 primarily to Harden.

but why was chris paul the 2nd round failure who wanted to go to the rockets to play if really he was so much more valuable than harden?

2019 is a better argument with a diminished Chris Paul (and I think Harden himself improved that year anyway), but then we end up back at fit issues: Paul and Harden that year were pretty much just as good as either was without the other (with the acknowledgments that the two of them faced tougher lineups than either did solo and that Harden faced tougher lineups solo than Paul did solo). For me that calls into question whether that team was really competing for a title, considering their Game 6 disappointment and clearly reduced quality relative to the Bucks, Raptors, and possibly even 76ers.

hmm, kind of seems like you just don't like harden. you're not sure if the team that went 6 games with the version of the warriors where durant played 5 games and averaged 35 ppg and where every game was decided by 6 points or less, not sure if that was a contender? not even over philadelphia, who still hasn't gotten out of the 2nd round in recent memory. the raptors didn't even get the appetizer version of kevin durant, much less the full course. more like the amuse bouche. and they still lost that game with durant providing all of the margin of victory (+7 to +6) in just 12 minutes. but oh the rockets lost a game without KD. those fortunate few, who only had to face durant for 5 games and got one whole game against the remainder of the 73 win team (i.e. the whole reason KD joining them seemed nuts). a team that still was a klay thompson ACL from possibly forcing a finals game 7. anyway, aren't you the sample size guy? harden and cp3 actually played well in game 6, it was just that you had klay and iggy go 12-21 on 3's. any team could lose a game like that. something tells me if you told vegas iggy would hit 5 3's, a lot of money would have been on the warriors.

In 2021 and 2022, Harden showed a commitment to being more of a true facilitator, taking a backseat to scoring teammates better than anyone Nash had in his prime but at least might suggest some proof of concept. In a very tiny sample, the Brooklyn trio together were monstrous… but then in any other combination Harden did not seem to stand out. Early returns on the Harden/Embiid combination were encouraging

i mean are you really going to bring 2022 into a peaks discussion? by a country mile this was the worst season of harden's prime, if he can even be said to be in his prime any more.

I think Harden’s clearest limitation relative to Nash is adding value to the Tobias Harrises and the old Blake Griffins of the league, which I think is a better path to serious contention.

based on what? griffin looked pretty good on the nets last year. then terrible this year with a diminished/traded harden. harris started shooting 3's much better after harden got to philly and had a good playoffs.

Harden is an impressive volume scorer and lead playmaker, but I am not sure he is so impressive at either that it actually is easier to put together that type of true contender around him than it would be for Nash. That might sound harsh, because he is probably top ten-ish at both skills, but a lot of volume scorers do not generate the offence you may expect to see (examples here should be obvious…), and as a playmaker Harden is not making full use of varied teammates to the extent as the truly top of the line ones like Nash or Magic.

again, based on what? he's played on 5 Top 2 offenses and 5 more Top 7 offenses in his career, which is 5 more Top 7 offenses than steph curry, who supposedly can create amazing offenses out of nothing (actually doesn't even have another top 10 offense). and this is with harden having seasons where dwight howard and omer asik played huge minutes. and corey brewer and josh smith played big minutes. or he got post linsanity Lin and chandler parsons as his best teammates. or even had 2020 russell westbrook as a teammate. he hasn't been rolling with prime Dirk Nowitzki for years and years. the one time he got close with CP3 they were amazing. shouldn't steve nash have been able to build a title contender with Dirk? shouldn't steve nash not even being his team's best player get you a title, or at least better than a 2-1 deficit to the 2003 spurs (before dirk got hurt)? if the answer is that he was way more valuable in phoenix, then it would certainly seem to make his value every bit as situation-specific as you said of harden, because it would seem hard to argue he just became way better at age 30 and it had nothing to do with his new team and environment. you act like harden's not volume scoring with tremendous efficiency, which is the usual reasons why guys like iverson and melo don't seem as good as the scoring indicates.

You said I was looking at the box score because I said the Rockets schematically keep Harden away from tougher perimetre assignments (and not because he is a Lebron-tier help defender lol). Make an argument to the contrary if you want to, but people know what that defence was designed to do, and it has nothing to do with the box score.

the rockets had a very good defense in 2018 and very good in the 2nd half of 2019 when people got healthy. i mean i wouldn't look at our personnel and say i was just expecting a world class defense so i'm not sure why being 6th in 2018 means harden was really holding us back and we just schemed around him (presumably if the scheme was suboptimal just to hide harden, the results should be more suboptimal). if nash is going to get credit for playing on higher ranked offenses, then harden has certainly played on higher ranked average defenses, as nash has played on numerous defenses ranked 23/24 and below. it would seem either harden is causing the good defenses or he has defensive teammates who he has to really carry to get good offenses.
...

I do not think you are tracking the discussion well if that is your impression.

Well then tell me what you're saying. To me it just seems to be one side(or mainly one poster rather) bringing up all of Harden's stats and team success, and the responses are waving it away be saying things like "Oh so are you taking Harden over Magic too?" It's these hyperbole comparisons I'm talking about. Harden doesn't even have a playoff box score edge over Magic.

2019-21 Harden has a higher playoff PER and BPM than 1986-88 Magic. He has a higher PER, BPM, and WS/48 than 2008-10 Kobe. He has a higher PER and WS/48 than 1984-86 Bird, and an equal BPM. If someone wants to trumpet those measures and use them to dump on a player whose game is not as reflected in the stat-sheet, they deserve to have that thrown back in their face.

why is it that the people who use impact numbers are citizens of the world with a wide range of views but people who dare post PER's and BPM's only have PER and BPM spreadsheets they read off of and have never watched a basketball game? the box score isn't terrible. the raw box score, where people used to compare 1961 Oscar to some guy playing in the depths of the lockout season, was bad. but the stats that have sanded off the rough edges of minutes, pace, and league averages? these are pretty damn good stats. perfect? no. but neither are the impact metrics, which arguably spit out even crazier stuff even more often. as soon as you point out that APM says kevin willis was the 2nd best player in 1994, you get a bunch of "it's not a ranking" and "i use other stuff" but people seem to think that using the production stats means you use nothing else? you've certainly made a strong case that you find steve nash's box score/production numbers to be irrelevant. so i have to assume you are going off impact stats and ignoring production completely. when they produce just as wonky results. production seemed good enough for jordan and lebron. and hakeem and duncan. and bird and magic, 2 guys certainly thought of as doing all the intangible things nash is said to have done. as for harden being ahead of those guys, just like all these APM's and PIPM's are supposed to be general tools to make us think of stuff in a new light, why would harden's massive numbers in those stats not make you reconsider him in a new light. even if you don't have harden over those guys (i don't), then at the very least it very well might mean he's better than the consensus view and not exactly showing up and playing as terribly as people think. it's not as if kobe bryant was playing a style of game that was avoiding box score production.

[f4p]

1. 1983 Moses Malone (alternate 1982)
Fo Fo Fo, blah blah blah.

Dominated the regular season, dominated the playoffs for one of the best teams ever. Dr J didn't even play well in the playoffs, so if there was ever going to be a test of the "Moses is just joining a great team, he's not really that good", then this would be it. And well, the 12-1 record doesn't lie. But his PIPM is low?

2. 2011 Dirk Nowitzki

In some ways doesn't feel as good as 2006, with the epic Spurs series and being great against the Suns. But in one finals he crumbled, while in 2011 he was great. He might have had the GOAT clutch playoffs. I wanna say he had a 90+ TS% in the clutch through the WCF. Maybe it was a few games into the WCF, I don't know, but it felt like he never missed a shot in the clutch in those playoffs. Faced down the Heatles and came out on top. Though it wasn't actually a particularly great series compared to the rest of the playoffs, he still seemed amazing in the clutch. Weight of the world and his legacy on the line with this being the last realistic shot and he came through.

3. 2019 James Harden (alternate 2018, then 2020)

Greatest scoring season in history per 100. Took an 11-14 team that cratered at the beginning of the season because the owner got cheap and thought Michael Carter Williams and Carmelo Anthony could replace Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah-a-moute (narrator: they couldn't). I was at opening night when we lost by a million. I knew we would do nothing until we got rid of them. Well, it took a few extra games after we got rid of them, but then The Unguardable Tour started. 32 consecutive games of 30+ points, just mind-boggling. A total of a 46 game stretch averaging 39.7/7.0/7.3 where the rockets went 33-13 after looking out of it and with guys in and out of the lineup. Seriously, read that again. 39.7 ppg for 46 straight games, doing way more winning than 1987 Jordan or 2006 Kobe.

On January 14th and 16th, Harden I believe became the first person since Wilt to score 57+ in back to back games. On March 20th and 22nd, James Harden became the first person since James Harden to score 57+ in back to back games. Insane how easy he made scoring look. You'd just look up and he'd have 31 with 4 minutes to go in the 3rd and you'd barely remember him being hot because it was just a normal night. Eventually made the playoffs and put up 35/7/5.5 against the Warriors in arguably his best series ever (why I choose it over 2018). Played toe to toe with KD, who was on fire, and easily outplayed Steph. Did everything he could with Chris Paul not looking great. An amazing season.

2018 summary: Led league in PER, WS, WS48, BPM, team easily won the most games, won MVP. When healthy, Rockets went an incredible 44-5 with a +11.0 SRS when Harden and Paul played (42-3 and +12.0 when Harden/CP3/Capela played). Dominated first 2 rounds and then got up 3-2 on a seemingly unbeatable team that went 28-3 in the playoffs in 2017 and 2018 when not facing the Rockets, including easy trouncings of prime Lebron. And arguably only lost because Chris Paul got hurt and the Rockets were down to a 5.5 man rotation for the last 2 games, where Harden still averaged 32/7.5/6.5 in games where his team averaged 88.5 ppg. Anybody else is beloved for this amazing season and heroic challenge of Goliath.

[LA Bird]

Here are the results for round 21

Winner: 17 Leonard

There were 13 voters in this round: AEnigma, CharityStripe34, Dutchball97, mdonnelly1989, falcolombardi, trelos6, SickMother, Proxy, trex_8063, iggymcfrack, DraymondGold, Samurai, f4p

A total of 42 seasons received at least 1 vote: 03 McGrady, 05 Nash, 06 Nash, 06 Nowitzki, 07 Nash, 07 Nowitzki, 08 Paul, 09 Paul, 10 Nowitzki, 11 Nowitzki, 11 Paul, 13 Paul, 14 Durant, 14 Paul, 15 Paul, 16 Durant, 16 Leonard, 16 Paul, 17 Durant, 17 Leonard, 17 Paul, 18 Durant, 18 Harden, 18 Paul, 19 Harden, 19 Leonard, 20 Davis, 20 Harden, 21 Leonard, 49 Mikan, 50 Mikan, 51 Mikan, 58 Pettit, 59 Pettit, 62 Pettit, 68 Hawkins, 76 Erving, 77 Erving, 79 Malone, 82 Malone, 83 Malone, 93 Barkley

Top 10 seasons and H2H record between them
17 Leonard: 0.674 (60-29)
76 Erving: 0.671 (51-25)
11 Nowitzki: 0.667 (54-27)
17 Durant: 0.559 (33-26)
06 Nowitzki: 0.475 (29-32)
16 Durant: 0.423 (22-30)
14 Durant: 0.423 (22-30)
83 Malone: 0.377 (26-43)
16 Leonard: 0.306 (19-43)
15 Paul: 0.246 (15-46)