No-more-rings wrote:Owly wrote:1) All-star isn't a great measuring stick cf Joe Johnson.
No one called it a "great measuring stick", that was just an off the cuff accomplishment that's at least worthy of something.
Joe Johnson is more an outlier case, but yeah Joe Johnson was a good player sure.
Fine it's a poor measuring stick. One that might do as a proxy in specfic eras where there weren't team maximums but we're missing a bunch of more modern data to nudge a player in one direction but honestly in the era discussed tells us nothing.
On Johnson what do you mean by he was good? Versus being "bad" (not anything said)? Or that you're happy with him tied 64-88 all-time and think he was 7 times a top 24 player in the league?
I don't think it is intrinsically worthy of something. I don't think BJ Armstrong with his all-star or Steve Johnson or James Donaldson or Jamaal Magloire or Kevin Duckworth (x2) are better for having been named all-stars than they would be if they hadn't.
No-more-rings wrote:Owly wrote: In Parker's case he might benefit from Spurs need representation though I've not looked closely because per above it's a bad yardstick.
Parker deserves some credit for their success, so not sure what you mean by this exactly. If you're saying that he got those selections because of Spurs name recognition that's not really fair.
Well the whole question here is how much he contributed. And not name recognition. Rather I raise the possibility that all-stars become about "this team need representation", rather than judging on the merits of the players.
No-more-rings wrote:Owly wrote:2) FMVP. I could say ditto and ask where Maxwell or Iggy are. But there's also cynicism about whether Parker deserved that FMVP (cf: Thinking Basketball podcast) ... he played well, people will differ more in evaluations over a small sample ... but it's a fairly heavily disputed choice. Fwiw, Parker was ... less than stellar versus their toughest opponent (on paper and in reality) that year.
Yeah well fine, but we're still talking about career ranking which isn't completely devoid of awards, and accomplishments.
It was a good series, and he was still their best offensive player against an elite Cavs defense. He mattered a good deal.
On point one, that's your criteria, you shouldn't assume it's everyone's.
On a "good series", see the post you're responding to. That much isn't in question. On best offensive player, I don't know, would deffer to better minds and have to come to a better idea on what the best measures are for short samples. On "mattered" ... don't know what this means ... per above I don't think this was a series that as it transpired or conceptually if it were run over again is one the Spurs were likely to lose so any one of their stars playing their best matters less though all three played well. As alluded to above in small samples what your preferred measures are, what the best measures are will matter more, haven't really settled on anything here, I sometimes raise it in passing, haven't seen it discussed greatly, fwiw I believe TB (ep 131) had him below the other two in composite measures mention and was fairly dismissive of Parker's case. I'm open to whatever, I don't go in heavily on one series. Also as above I think versus Phoenix would be the greater threat and thus more significant if one were into focusing in on one series.
Owly wrote:3) Integral piece of all 4? Is he really though? The Spurs had a better points dif with Parker off the floor in 3 of the 4 title postseasons. And for 2003 in particular jarringly so (-16.9). Now this is a very noisy tool in player evaluation, especially in such small samples. But if the case is being made on the back of the team achievement and his role in it and the team at first glance seems to do better without him in those samples ... I'm not saying he isn't good or useful or that measure is perfect or the only tool, just that others might have had as many less heralded moments and some of the push factors for Parker might be things often not primarily down to his play/ability/contribution [titles, maybe ASG] or not hugely relevant to his total career (FMVP in a reasonably comfortable sweep - the two closest games were Cleveland winning the 4th quarter, in Cleveland, and SA already 2-0 then 3-0 up - against a not great on paper opponent and ... well just see above).
I don't really think Parker came into his prime until 2007 or so, and probably peaking in 2009 or 2013. He definitely had more importance to the later teams than than he did early on, especially considering Duncan's slow but steady decline. If you look at a year like 2009, I think most would agree Duncan was past prime at that point, and Manu missed a lot of games they managed a 112.4 ORTG with Parker on and running the show on offense. That was higher than Duncan, higher than Ginobili, etc. And then he had a pretty good series, averaging around 29/7 on 59 ts% but without Manu there wasn't really a reliable 2nd ball handler.
Or we can talk about 2012 where they were a 7+SRS and ran the best offense with Parker as the floor general. Or we can talk about what they were able to do in 2013 or 2014, a lot of which Parker doesn't seem to receive much credit for but his dribble penetration in those years more than ever was pretty critical to the Spurs ball movement.
I guess it depends on your definition of integral. 2003 probably isn't worth that much, but generally speaking I do think his mediocre or sometimes even bad on/off isn't a good representation of his value since the Spurs were usually a team with a good bench especially with someone like Manu coming off of it. Everyone agrees Manu is a better player, but his lack of minutes is something holding him back a lot.
Like I said though, it would take a lot of work to get 130 guys ahead of him. I'm leaving open the door of possibility, but I haven't really seen anything that makes me think that's the case.[/quote]
So ... I don't think there's a defense here to integral to all 4. There definitely are years where he's very good. On '14 disagree unless there's some semantic game where he's critical to ball movement but not their overall offense. GotBuckets luck-adjusted ORAPM is above average but not notably good (Manu's is elite) which suggests that offensive on-off is fairly mean (
https://www.cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/2837/onoff#tab-team_efficiency) but doesn't support that he was "critical" to what they were doing.
I've covered minutes (and minutes of quality) earlier in the thread. Ditto to a lesser extent 130 though I suppose the best way to feel confident would be having a criteria, doing it consistently to create that list and having some notion of ranges of uncertainty and then also having an understanding of what different criteria you think are reasonable for a GOAT list and doing or finding those. Suspect though that different criteria such as (for just one example) weighting of different eras and the much reduced gaps the further out you go mean much wider viable ranges get.
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