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Snakebites wrote:Seems to me that as an individual player Hakeem has a 4 year peak that is crazy good, and stands head and shoulders above the rest of his career.
All of the serious GOAT candidates have peaks of greatness longer than that.
He's on the fringes of the top 10 IMO.
DraymondGold wrote:But using RAPM in this way feels much more severely objectionable.
Say I take a “random” sample of Lebron’s NPI RAPM.
2005: slots in right around #60 even though he is averaging 27/7/7.
2008: #11
2014: #20
2018 (no postseason): #36
… damn, Lebron’s all-time impact suddenly looks pretty questionable.
Now imagine if we only had samples of 20% of games. How bad could I make him look?
Hakeem does not seem to show absolute top of the line regular season impact, no. At best, he might have a speculative one season at the top of the league in the regular season (1993) and a somewhat less speculative and possibly generous second place in 1994. But this is not a genuine way to frame that argument, relying on single-season RAPM samples from random fifths of seasons that might not even crack his personal top five.
I was pretty clear about the caveats of the sample size and year choice. Nothin much new here, but yes the sample size and year choice is poor.
So let's give a bit of consideration to this counter. If there's limits to including RAPM (when there's a poor sample), why include it at all? Why consider it?
The logic goes something like this: if we're to argue Hakeem's peak is GOAT level (and even moreso if we're to argue his career is GOAT level), we would expect (but not require) him to have GOAT-level or near-GOAT-level impact in a stat like RAPM, which is pretty much industry-standard good stat to use for judging impact. If we have limited samples from prime but not peak years (as we do), we would prefer (but again not require) him to have at least all-nba / MVP level impact in RAPM, to say nothing of strong MVP level, all-time impact, or GOAT-level impact.
The fact that he doesn't show anywhere near GOAT, All-time, or even strong-MVP level impact in the RAPM data we do have should give us pause.
It doesn't invalidate the entire argument for Hakeem! But it should raise some eyebrows, make us consider whether there are biases in the sample, make us question whether there's biases in our previous judgement of Hakeem (e.g. if his reputation as an offensive player overstates how good he actually is)
and most importantly... it should make us dig deeper.
For example, we might look at his other impact metrics (e.g. WOWY, PIPM-estimate, BPM) to see if those rate him higher. If Hakeem rates quite poorly (for a GOAT player) in all the stats we have, even if there's flaws in each individual one, that should give us much greater confidence that there is indeed something flawed in the idea that Hakeem is GOAT level. If we want to argue that Hakeem is GOAT level in both peak and career, we should be able to explain why all the stats across the board undervalue him....
for example, we'd have to find film analysis that makes Hakeem look so much more impressive than the other GOAT candidates that it justifies putting Hakeem in contention with the players who appear like GOATs both in the film and in the stats.
Personally, I just can't see interpreting the film of Hakeem that favorably to put him in contention with Jordan/LeBron/Kareem. But if you'd like to make the case, I'd love to see it! Always happy to see more film analysis on this board
Happy to share the source. I used Goldstein RAPM, which is pretty standard version of RAPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eK0i6L0q2Brih5nKOKZLGHVofY0JWKOlnnEaSMu1LTM/edit#gid=0. I searched for Hakeem, found his 1997 year, then searched for 1997 to find how many seasons rank above Hakeem's. When I search the spreadsheet, I find 61 years better in 1997 -- let me know if I miscounted!Once we have full-season RAPM data in 1997, Hakeem's not even in the Top 50 in the league.
Yeah you should source that because mine has him in the top thirty and roughly on par with Penny Hardaway, and that is of course with all the usual role-player filler (Terry Mills!).
Good catch! I meant to type Wilt. It's missing Wilt/Bird.Again, it's a small sample and in non-peak years, but Hakeem is last by a large margin in the RAPM data we have for the Top-12 peaks (which is only missing Russell/Bird)
Oh is it missing Bird? Because I could not help but notice that 1985 and 1988 Bird come across as quite underwhelming in those RAPM samples, even though those samples are much more complete than Hakeem’s and much more tied to his actual peak.
I respect Squared’s work in trying to put that together, but I wish he had held back on sharing any data that was far short of usual sample standards, because this scattering of games has so far pretty much only worsened discourse.
But to your point, yes Bird does rank worse than expected... still better than Hakeem at his best, but worse than expected.
AEnigma wrote:LukaTheGOAT wrote:Yeah and Jordan was another level from 88-92 lol. I said all-time level years, and I'm not eager to push 88-92 Hakeem into the same territory as Jordan. I didn't mention 96-98 Jordan where Jordan was clear of Hakeem either because I didn't think that stretch was in the same tier.
And as I said, I think those all-time level years are exponentially more valuable than just MVP level years. Hakeem's extra years don't do it for me. Same is true when comparing MVP years to All-NBA years, etc.
Except we are comparing two all-time years to one nothing year and another near nothing year. If you and you specifically are grading 1988-92 as like a 100, no complaints, whatever, and say 1988-92 Hakeem is on average only like a… what… 70… okay, that gives your individual assessment of the two a solid 150 cumulative value difference, or something like that. Arbitrary numbers but illustrates a point if you sincerely think that Jordan over that period was close to 1.5 times as valuable (which I would not agree with in the slightest, but that is tangential to this exercise).
That cumulative value should be pretty much entirely wiped away by 1994 and 1995, and that is without throwing 1986 in there too.
This would be taking a "linear" approach to career value (i.e. weighting longevity >> peak). This is far from what most people do (most people give extra weighting to having a higher peak), and there's strong evidence that we should actually not take career value linearly.
The best article I've seen on the topic can be found here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/. It's a bit out of date from Thinking Basketball's recent rankings (e.g. since the article, he has LeBron passing Kareem), but it should explain the idea in more detail.
OhayoKD wrote:Owly wrote:FuShengTHEGreat wrote:
How anyone would see barely beating the Cavaliers in 88 or 89 seem more of an achievement than toppling peak defending champions Los Angeles that were in the midst of winning 3 out of 4 titles in a more dominating fashion be more impressive is beyond me.
A possible argument would be that Cavs were an 7.95 SRS team, 6.84.
I feel like that this is alot harder to push when you remember price missed a game and wasn't healthy for the series
SHAQ32 wrote:Owly wrote:FuShengTHEGreat wrote:
How anyone would see barely beating the Cavaliers in 88 or 89 seem more of an achievement than toppling peak defending champions Los Angeles that were in the midst of winning 3 out of 4 titles in a more dominating fashion be more impressive is beyond me.
A possible argument would be that Cavs were an 7.95 SRS team, 6.84. Now one can argue LAL weren't maxing RS as defending champs, nor pushing points margin in a schedule tilted towards the softer west. Wilkens has noted Nance had an ankle issue and Price a hamstring injury which meant the '89 playoff Cavs were something less than their paper strength (others have hypothesized a concussion from a reportedly brutal Mahorn mid-court elbow changed the Cavaliers and Price's fortunes though this wasn't immediately obvious, provable at first glance iirc).
That said and without venturing an opinion it is argued not that the team overcome is necessarily better but what Jordan did "singlehandedly" (as an individual, and it is presumably argued with less support) was better than what Olajuwon did, not that the opponents themselves were necessarily tougher which seems to be your framing of what was said.
Well, yeah, he didn't have Ralph Sampson.
AEnigma wrote:I do not see that as an clear case for Jordan, let alone a “far and away” one.
Owly wrote:OhayoKD wrote:Owly wrote:A possible argument would be that Cavs were an 7.95 SRS team, 6.84.
I feel like that this is alot harder to push when you remember price missed a game and wasn't healthy for the series
This is covered. See the paragraph quoted, without your early cutoff, for contextual Cavalier info including but not limited to Price's hamstring.
ty 4191 wrote:AEnigma wrote:I do not see that as an clear case for Jordan, let alone a “far and away” one.
1987-1988 through 1989-1990:
Regular Season:
Win Shares:
Jordan: 60.0 (1st, by a huge margin)
Magic: 43.5 (5th)
WS/48:
Jordan: .295 (1st, by a huge margin)
Magic: .247 (3rd)
BPM:
Jordan: 12.0 (1st, insane 30% lead)
Magic: 8.6 (T2nd with Stockton)
VORP:
Jordan: 34.5 (1st, massive margin)
Magic: 22.5 (4th)
PER:
Jordan: 31.5 (1st, massive margin)
Magic: 25.6 (4th)
Playoffs:
Win Shares:
Jordan: 10.1 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 7.9 (2nd)
WS/48:
Jordan: .267 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: .204 (2nd)
BPM:
Jordan: 12.7 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 7.5 (2nd)
VORP:
Jordan: 6.8 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 5.0 (2nd, 500 more MP)
PER:
Jordan: 30.2 (1st, ridiculous margin)
Magic: 23.4 (2nd)
You were saying about Magic vs. Jordan, 87'-88' through 89'-90'?
ty 4191 wrote:AEnigma wrote:I do not see that as an clear case for Jordan, let alone a “far and away” one.
1987-1988 through 1989-1990:
Regular Season:
Win Shares:
Jordan: 60.0 (1st, by a huge margin)
Magic: 43.5 (5th)
WS/48:
Jordan: .295 (1st, by a huge margin)
Magic: .247 (3rd)
BPM:
Jordan: 12.0 (1st, insane 30% lead)
Magic: 8.6 (T2nd with Stockton)
VORP:
Jordan: 34.5 (1st, massive margin)
Magic: 22.5 (4th)
PER:
Jordan: 31.5 (1st, massive margin)
Magic: 25.6 (4th)
Playoffs:
Win Shares:
Jordan: 10.1 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 7.9 (2nd)
WS/48:
Jordan: .267 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: .204 (2nd)
BPM:
Jordan: 12.7 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 7.5 (2nd)
VORP:
Jordan: 6.8 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 5.0 (2nd, 500 more MP)
PER:
Jordan: 30.2 (1st, ridiculous margin)
Magic: 23.4 (2nd)
You were saying about Magic vs. Jordan, 87'-88' through 89'-90'?
AEnigma wrote:ty 4191 wrote:AEnigma wrote:I do not see that as an clear case for Jordan, let alone a “far and away” one.
1987-1988 through 1989-1990:
Regular Season:
Win Shares:
Jordan: 60.0 (1st, by a huge margin)
Magic: 43.5 (5th)
WS/48:
Jordan: .295 (1st, by a huge margin)
Magic: .247 (3rd)
BPM:
Jordan: 12.0 (1st, insane 30% lead)
Magic: 8.6 (T2nd with Stockton)
VORP:
Jordan: 34.5 (1st, massive margin)
Magic: 22.5 (4th)
PER:
Jordan: 31.5 (1st, massive margin)
Magic: 25.6 (4th)
Playoffs:
Win Shares:
Jordan: 10.1 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 7.9 (2nd)
WS/48:
Jordan: .267 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: .204 (2nd)
BPM:
Jordan: 12.7 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 7.5 (2nd)
VORP:
Jordan: 6.8 (1st, huge margin)
Magic: 5.0 (2nd, 500 more MP)
PER:
Jordan: 30.2 (1st, ridiculous margin)
Magic: 23.4 (2nd)
You were saying about Magic vs. Jordan, 87'-88' through 89'-90'?
Oh thanks for quoting basketball-reference at me, that settles that.
OhayoKD wrote:SHAQ32 wrote:Owly wrote:A possible argument would be that Cavs were an 7.95 SRS team, 6.84. Now one can argue LAL weren't maxing RS as defending champs, nor pushing points margin in a schedule tilted towards the softer west. Wilkens has noted Nance had an ankle issue and Price a hamstring injury which meant the '89 playoff Cavs were something less than their paper strength (others have hypothesized a concussion from a reportedly brutal Mahorn mid-court elbow changed the Cavaliers and Price's fortunes though this wasn't immediately obvious, provable at first glance iirc).
That said and without venturing an opinion it is argued not that the team overcome is necessarily better but what Jordan did "singlehandedly" (as an individual, and it is presumably argued with less support) was better than what Olajuwon did, not that the opponents themselves were necessarily tougher which seems to be your framing of what was said.
Well, yeah, he didn't have Ralph Sampson.
the rockets with ralph sampson were a 29 win team roughly on par with the 27 win 94 bulls. Bulls then added oakley for 98, saw pippen and grant increase their minuites and then, with the introduction of the triangle saw their srs skyrocket over time with jordan's two-way impact declining(apm/on/off goes down, more breakdowns with less plays at the rim or the perimiter per film-tracking)
AEnigma wrote:Oh thanks for quoting basketball-reference at me, that settles that.
SHAQ32 wrote:Owly wrote:FuShengTHEGreat wrote:
How anyone would see barely beating the Cavaliers in 88 or 89 seem more of an achievement than toppling peak defending champions Los Angeles that were in the midst of winning 3 out of 4 titles in a more dominating fashion be more impressive is beyond me.
A possible argument would be that Cavs were an 7.95 SRS team, 6.84. Now one can argue LAL weren't maxing RS as defending champs, nor pushing points margin in a schedule tilted towards the softer west. Wilkens has noted Nance had an ankle issue and Price a hamstring injury which meant the '89 playoff Cavs were something less than their paper strength (others have hypothesized a concussion from a reportedly brutal Mahorn mid-court elbow changed the Cavaliers and Price's fortunes though this wasn't immediately obvious, provable at first glance iirc).
That said and without venturing an opinion it is argued not that the team overcome is necessarily better but what Jordan did "singlehandedly" (as an individual, and it is presumably argued with less support) was better than what Olajuwon did, not that the opponents themselves were necessarily tougher which seems to be your framing of what was said.
Well, yeah, he didn't have Ralph Sampson.
Then for him to be considered a GOAT candidate, his playoffs should be all the more valuable to make up for the fact that he's so much worse in the regular season.AEnigma wrote:DraymondGold wrote:...For example, we might look at his other impact metrics (e.g. WOWY, PIPM-estimate, BPM) to see if those rate him higher. If Hakeem rates quite poorly (for a GOAT player) in all the stats we have, even if there's flaws in each individual one, that should give us much greater confidence that there is indeed something flawed in the idea that Hakeem is GOAT level. If we want to argue that Hakeem is GOAT level in both peak and career, we should be able to explain why all the stats across the board undervalue him....
But Hakeem has never been pushed as a top tier regular season player.
for example, we'd have to find film analysis that makes Hakeem look so much more impressive than the other GOAT candidates that it justifies putting Hakeem in contention with the players who appear like GOATs both in the film and in the stats.
Personally, I just can't see interpreting the film of Hakeem that favorably to put him in contention with Jordan/LeBron/Kareem. But if you'd like to make the case, I'd love to see it! Always happy to see more film analysis on this board
I think film analysis of bigs versus offensive creators will never be weighed anything close to objectively, but I would think a Backpicks follower would be quite familiar with Hakeem’s film analysed against other bigs.
Ah, well that's a different argument! Previously it seemed like the thread was focusing on whether Hakeem had a case for GOAT career (with GOAT peak being an important consideration when evaluating careers). But this is quite an interesting comparison, so let's discuss a bit moreAEnigma wrote:DraymondGold wrote:AEnigma wrote:Except we are comparing two all-time years to one nothing year and another near nothing year. If you and you specifically are grading 1988-92 as like a 100, no complaints, whatever, and say 1988-92 Hakeem is on average only like a… what… 70… okay, that gives your individual assessment of the two a solid 150 cumulative value difference, or something like that. Arbitrary numbers but illustrates a point if you sincerely think that Jordan over that period was close to 1.5 times as valuable (which I would not agree with in the slightest, but that is tangential to this exercise).
That cumulative value should be pretty much entirely wiped away by 1994 and 1995, and that is without throwing 1986 in there too.
This would be taking a "linear" approach to career value (i.e. weighting longevity >> peak). This is far from what most people do (most people give extra weighting to having a higher peak), and there's strong evidence that we should actually not take career value linearly.
The best article I've seen on the topic can be found here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/. It's a bit out of date from Thinking Basketball's recent rankings (e.g. since the article, he has LeBron passing Kareem), but it should explain the idea in more detail.
Yes, I am familiar, but are you confident that analysis would put Jordan ahead if he stayed retired the first time and if Hakeem had decided to retire after 1995? Hakeem dropped off while Jordan did not and subsequently gained much more championship equity than Hakeem did.
ty 4191 wrote:AEnigma wrote:Oh thanks for quoting basketball-reference at me, that settles that.
Quote "better" metrics then, same years. And explain why they're more valid/accurate.
Well, from what I understand it's actually the other way around. Pure box aggregates like PER and the like still do the worst however you split it, but box-heavy impact metrics are better able to account for role players due to stability while less box-based metrics like PIPM, AUPM, On/Off, and RAPM do better with stars because they can better account for defense.
Raw signals in particular have an advantage over RAPM when looking at the most valuable seasons as RAPM(and all plus-minus based stuff really) set artificial caps which end up misattributing superstar value as role player value(lebron and hakeem see this happen several times)
The most predictive metrics are epm and rpm specifically because they draw directly from rapm as opposed to using a bunch of box stuff, though they too, suffer due to setting aritifical caps.
I think the big thing to consider here, is that the specfic metrics you are choosing here, consistently rate primary paint protectors low relative to their raw impact signals, or less offense-skewed data. Steph Curry and Jordan look as good as anyone in say PER(at least in the regular season), but Lebron and Duncan score higher in RAPM, on/off, and AUPM, and then when we go to raw impact, Hakeem, Russell, and Kareem all look as good or better. Considering that Jordan has the least discernable defensive imapct of anyone we've talked about in this thread, relying heavily on box-stuff and dismissing everything else seems questionable.
DraymondGold wrote:AEnigma wrote:DraymondGold wrote:
In sum: I'm open to discussion that 11 Hakeem years > 9 Jordan years. I still don't see any case for Hakeem being over MJ in peak or overall career... And since the thread was originally asking whether Hakeem's a GOAT level career, I similarly also don't see a case for taking him over LeBron or Kareem. Do you disagree here?
OhayoKD wrote:Not going to weigh in too much on the magic vs mj quesiton though without an understanding of what the impact stuff actually looks like, i'd guess mj was more impactful but am skeptical the difference was massive
ty 4191 wrote:OhayoKD wrote:Not going to weigh in too much on the magic vs mj quesiton though without an understanding of what the impact stuff actually looks like, i'd guess mj was more impactful but am skeptical the difference was massive
Quote "better" metrics then, same years. 1987-1988 through 1989-1990. Magic vs. Jordan. RS and playoffs.
AEnigma wrote:Oh thanks for quoting basketball-reference at me, that settles that.
ty 4191 wrote:AEnigma wrote:Oh thanks for quoting basketball-reference at me, that settles that.
PS: I won't be holding my breath.
Because you've got nothing to back up the argument the Magic was better than Jordan 1987-1988 through 1989-1990. Nothing but ephemera and conjecture/hype.
Zero. Data and facts.
DraymondGold wrote:Then for him to be considered a GOAT candidate, his playoffs should be all the more valuable to make up for the fact that he's so much worse in the regular season.AEnigma wrote:DraymondGold wrote:For example, we might look at his other impact metrics (e.g. WOWY, PIPM-estimate, BPM) to see if those rate him higher. If Hakeem rates quite poorly (for a GOAT player) in all the stats we have, even if there's flaws in each individual one, that should give us much greater confidence that there is indeed something flawed in the idea that Hakeem is GOAT level. If we want to argue that Hakeem is GOAT level in both peak and career, we should be able to explain why all the stats across the board undervalue him....
But Hakeem has never been pushed as a top tier regular season player.
Is he? What do the stats say?
In 1-yr peak PS BPM, 3-yr peak PS BPM, 1-yr peak PS PIPM, and 3-yr peak PS PIPM, LeBron, Jordan, Kareem, and Bird are universally above Hakeem. Duncan's ahead in 3/4 stats, and Curry's clearly ahead in PIPM while only being 0.1 behind in BPM. Hakeem's highest PS ranking in any of these stats is.. 6th out of the Top 12 peaks (while missing Wilt/Russell's numbers).
Where's this statistical dominance in the playoffs? Now you might say: "these stats underrate Hakeem's defense!" To which we could turn to the incomplete RAPM and more complete WOWY numbers, both of which suggest his defense and offense combined is not GOAT level. It's great stuff! But not GOAT level.
for example, we'd have to find film analysis that makes Hakeem look so much more impressive than the other GOAT candidates that it justifies putting Hakeem in contention with the players who appear like GOATs both in the film and in the stats.
Personally, I just can't see interpreting the film of Hakeem that favorably to put him in contention with Jordan/LeBron/Kareem. But if you'd like to make the case, I'd love to see it! Always happy to see more film analysis on this board
I think film analysis of bigs versus offensive creators will never be weighed anything close to objectively, but I would think a Backpicks follower would be quite familiar with Hakeem’s film analysed against other bigs.
Well, at this point I've provided a fairly thorough evaluation of the available statistics and found no evidence that Hakeem's the GOAT, in either peak or career.
You've now said you wouldn't trust film analysis of Hakeem.
At this point you've offered no evidence that Hakeem has a GOAT level peak or GOAT-level career, while rejected my arguments that Hakeem isn't the GOAT.
To be blunt: I can't see any compelling argument that Hakeem has the GOAT peak or GOAT career. You can disagree with my arguments -- that's perfectly fine. But as you've yet to offer any evidence that Hakeem is the GOAT... well, that's not much of a starting point for a discussion.
Are you confident that analysis would put Jordan ahead if he stayed retired the first time and if Hakeem had decided to retire after 1995? Hakeem dropped off while Jordan did not and subsequently gained much more championship equity than Hakeem did.
Ah, well that's a different argument! Previously it seemed like the thread was focusing on whether Hakeem had a case for GOAT career (with GOAT peak being an important consideration when evaluating careers). But this is quite an interesting comparison, so let's discuss a bit more
Thinking Basketball gives Hakeem the 4th best peak of all time, which is a clear step higher than the average (e.g. this 2022 GOAT Peaks project here had Hakeem 7th, and more casual rankings have Hakeem even lower). Per the link I sent, even if we take the least-friendly methodology for Jordan as we can and do a completely linear weighting of career value (so if we value longevity >> peak), Jordan still comes out ahead of Hakeem for his career.
The same is true when comparing 8-year primes. If we took Jordan's first 9 years vs Hakeem's first 11 and compared them linearly (again, this is the most anti-Jordan approach we can take), then Hakeem just barely edges out.... 212% CORP to 206.7% CORP. So basically any non-linear approach that weighted peaks more highly would push Jordan over Hakeem. Again, this is all approximate stuff using CORP as a ballpark-estimate.
In sum: I'm open to discussion that 11 Hakeem years > 9 Jordan years. I still don't see any case for Hakeem being over MJ in peak or overall career... And since the thread was originally asking whether Hakeem's a GOAT level career, I similarly also don't see a case for taking him over LeBron or Kareem. Do you disagree here?