What impact metrics show MJ as a GOAT candidate?

[Blackmill]

So what bar are you applying for "strong GOAT candidate"?

As outlined above, none of the metrics that have been discussed as "Impact" over the last 12 pages have Jordan at #1, lineup-adjusted or otherwise(generally speaking)

I don't think current metrics are strong evidence for being or not being the GOAT. The "why" is such an old and tired topic that I'm not really interested in discussing it here. But I say that as someone whose background is mathematics. My point is, I don't need Jordan to be #1 on impact metrics for me to consider those metrics generally congruent with him being a strong GOAT candidate.

This reads to my non-mathematical mind as an eloquent way of saying "they may not help him, but they don't rule him out". Is that a fair representation?

Yes, I think that is fair.

[70sFan]

I have every Jordan playoff game on tape.

Total aside: Of the 1126 playoff games from 1975 through 1996, I have 918 of those on tape. If you know anyone who has any complete games from the 1980 Rockets-Celtics eastern conference series, I'd be happy to have a conversation with them.

I have only short clip (around 10 min) from 1980 Rockets vs Celtics series, but I don't think you will be interested in it.

That's extremely impressive collection. I wonder if you counted your pre-1975 playoff games as well. I'd appreciate it if you give us even an estimated number.

I have a few clips from that series, but I'd be happy to get full games.

Pre-1975... maybe 40 games, tops. The earliest is a Hawks-Celtics game from 1958, but the video itself was given under stipulation of never sharing it. Instead, I converted it into a play-by-play.

I have probably less than 30 games from that period and not all of them are full unfortunately. That's a great information that there are still so many games from that period.

I have been working on tracking Wilt and Russell shooting and defensive possessions from available footage, so if you can share at least PbP data, it would help me tremendously (as I assume you can't share footage).

[spree8]

A lot of my issue with people on this board weighing these metrics so heavily is that most don’t understand what they mean, how they arrived at the numbers, how accurate they even are, how skewed they can be, or how reliable they are when determining a players true impact. There’s too many variables and the game is just too complex to boil it all down to a few numbers and definitively say so and so is the goat based on these stats. It’s just not really quantifiable. Especially when a lot of these stats aren’t even available prior to a certain year.

My biggest gripe with this board is that people view the game of basketball as a mathematical equation and write dissertations on their “findings” which give a distorted view of the game and others regurgitate it if it supports their personal bias towards certain players. It just seems so far off from the “eye test” or watching and understanding what you’re seeing with true knowledge of the game, that it’s almost like we’re discussing a caricature of the game of basketball.

I really feel that if people are going to quote stats or metrics, they really ought to explain them in full detail and boil it down to the root to show exactly why and how a player is better than another. I don’t think the majority of people here can do that from what I’ve read over the years. And I don’t mean to just read the definition of what the stat says, but to actually know every aspect of that calculation and be able to attest to the accuracy, credibility, or reliability of it.

That’s just my personal opinion, but hey, what do I know?

[spree8]

For example:








So this is another stat that uses team data… so many factors to consider here. I don’t see how it could be put all on 1 player.

And am I really supposed to sit here and believe that Doc Rivers was more impactful than Kevin Garnett??? Or that Bob Lanier was more impactful than Shaq? Or even Stockton and Cp3 > impact than Kareem, Duncan & Shaq? Cmon. This is borderline insulting honestly.

[Owly]

And am I really supposed to sit here and believe ...

Well no you're not supposed to just take that as your player ranking, passively "sit ... and believe".

It is a problem if

people [using them] don’t understand what they mean

And to some extent that's going to be the case in terms of the complexity of some stats but people should at least have an idea of the limitations of their own knowledge and try to know the inputs and processes etc and their limitations ...

In this measure, which you are complaining about, you post an image which uses the phrases "statistically predictive factors" and "estimate". It should be clear then, that whilst precise evaluations of it's utility will vary (I won't pretend great expertise here) the author of that guide is not telling you to take the numbers as gospel. Ditto with any list in which the clear majority of players given (i.e. this list even after the filter applied, 17/25) are evaluated exclusively on fewer than 150 games ... that clearly isn't going to provide a perfect, fully informed list one can simply regurgitate.

[70sFan]

A lot of my issue with people on this board weighing these metrics so heavily is that most don’t understand what they mean, how they arrived at the numbers, how accurate they even are, how skewed they can be, or how reliable they are when determining a players true impact. There’s too many variables and the game is just too complex to boil it all down to a few numbers and definitively say so and so is the goat based on these stats. It’s just not really quantifiable. Especially when a lot of these stats aren’t even available prior to a certain year.

My biggest gripe with this board is that people view the game of basketball as a mathematical equation and write dissertations on their “findings” which give a distorted view of the game and others regurgitate it if it supports their personal bias towards certain players. It just seems so far off from the “eye test” or watching and understanding what you’re seeing with true knowledge of the game, that it’s almost like we’re discussing a caricature of the game of basketball.

I really feel that if people are going to quote stats or metrics, they really ought to explain them in full detail and boil it down to the root to show exactly why and how a player is better than another. I don’t think the majority of people here can do that from what I’ve read over the years. And I don’t mean to just read the definition of what the stat says, but to actually know every aspect of that calculation and be able to attest to the accuracy, credibility, or reliability of it.

That’s just my personal opinion, but hey, what do I know?

I don't see people treating basketball as a mathematical equation on this board at all. Using data doesn't negate eye test at all and we have plenty of people doing film analysis here.

[Dutchball97]

Honestly, I feel like I've been walking on egg-shells since I've been here. Olive branch, friendly emoji, cushioning most everything I say so you guys don't get offended. But tbh, I've probably been too passive.

I don't want to keep bringing up stuff that's over and done with but just to make things clear I've never been able to get rid of the bad taste left by our initial discussion that got way out of hand and had to be stopped by mods with warnings given out. When my "agree to disagree I guess" got answered with a "no, no, I can't allow that because you're setting a bad precedent" I was just sitting there eyes wide in confusion as to how anyone would think that's a normal position to take in a setting like a basketball board. I think being too passive is the opposite of what's going on.

I'd say go as hard in any discussion as you see fit, if someone is engaging you in a discussion/debate there shouldn't be a reason to try and placate them but when someone says "I'm not interested in this discussion" that's a pretty good hint you'd just be wasting your time on them by keeping it going.

I'm not trying to shift all blame because I know I've been an asshat as well in these discussions and I'd prefer to just leave things in the past but I'd be a happier person if I'd never had to sit through another discussion about Jordan's WOWY and AuPM again.

[TheGOATRises007]

The top 100 is going to be such a mess if half the board now gets mad at others even saying Jordan has an argument for being the GOAT.

Certainly a growing trend lately on here. A lot of people on here are very hardcore LeBron fans(which is fine, root for the player/team you want).

1 poster is responding with metrics(and in-depth reasoning) to validate someone's GOAT case, he's been accused of fanboying.

[TheGOATRises007]

The top 100 is going to be such a mess if half the board now gets mad at others even saying Jordan has an argument for being the GOAT.

As opposed to the other half saying that no one else has an argument, right? How dare someone challenge the holy numbers of MJ.

That's never happened on the PC board.

[spree8]

A lot of my issue with people on this board weighing these metrics so heavily is that most don’t understand what they mean, how they arrived at the numbers, how accurate they even are, how skewed they can be, or how reliable they are when determining a players true impact. There’s too many variables and the game is just too complex to boil it all down to a few numbers and definitively say so and so is the goat based on these stats. It’s just not really quantifiable. Especially when a lot of these stats aren’t even available prior to a certain year.

My biggest gripe with this board is that people view the game of basketball as a mathematical equation and write dissertations on their “findings” which give a distorted view of the game and others regurgitate it if it supports their personal bias towards certain players. It just seems so far off from the “eye test” or watching and understanding what you’re seeing with true knowledge of the game, that it’s almost like we’re discussing a caricature of the game of basketball.

I really feel that if people are going to quote stats or metrics, they really ought to explain them in full detail and boil it down to the root to show exactly why and how a player is better than another. I don’t think the majority of people here can do that from what I’ve read over the years. And I don’t mean to just read the definition of what the stat says, but to actually know every aspect of that calculation and be able to attest to the accuracy, credibility, or reliability of it.

That’s just my personal opinion, but hey, what do I know?

I don't see people treating basketball as a mathematical equation on this board at all. Using data doesn't negate eye test at all and we have plenty of people doing film analysis here.

Not every single poster obviously, but this applies to the vast majority without question. In this very thread there’s plenty of evidence for it.

I know people are going to defend the board, naturally, but I’ve been reading it for a very long time (genuinely trying to understand) and I’m simply reporting on my findings. You can disagree if you’d like, though I’m not just making it up. It’s a real concern for a reason.

[spree8]

And am I really supposed to sit here and believe ...

Well no you're not supposed to just take that as your player ranking, passively "sit ... and believe".

It is a problem if

people [using them] don’t understand what they mean

And to some extent that's going to be the case in terms of the complexity of some stats but people should at least have an idea of the limitations of their own knowledge and try to know the inputs and processes etc and their limitations ...

In this measure, which you are complaining about, you post an image which uses the phrases "statistically predictive factors" and "estimate". It should be clear then, that whilst precise evaluations of it's utility will vary (I won't pretend great expertise here) the author of that guide is not telling you to take the numbers as gospel. Ditto with any list in which the clear majority of players given (i.e. this list even after the filter applied, 17/25) are evaluated exclusively on fewer than 150 games ... that clearly isn't going to provide a perfect, fully informed list one can simply regurgitate.

Of course, but people absolutely tend to treat them as they should be gospel. For instance, this very poster who produced that particular list certainly did.

[70sFan]

A lot of my issue with people on this board weighing these metrics so heavily is that most don’t understand what they mean, how they arrived at the numbers, how accurate they even are, how skewed they can be, or how reliable they are when determining a players true impact. There’s too many variables and the game is just too complex to boil it all down to a few numbers and definitively say so and so is the goat based on these stats. It’s just not really quantifiable. Especially when a lot of these stats aren’t even available prior to a certain year.

My biggest gripe with this board is that people view the game of basketball as a mathematical equation and write dissertations on their “findings” which give a distorted view of the game and others regurgitate it if it supports their personal bias towards certain players. It just seems so far off from the “eye test” or watching and understanding what you’re seeing with true knowledge of the game, that it’s almost like we’re discussing a caricature of the game of basketball.

I really feel that if people are going to quote stats or metrics, they really ought to explain them in full detail and boil it down to the root to show exactly why and how a player is better than another. I don’t think the majority of people here can do that from what I’ve read over the years. And I don’t mean to just read the definition of what the stat says, but to actually know every aspect of that calculation and be able to attest to the accuracy, credibility, or reliability of it.

That’s just my personal opinion, but hey, what do I know?

I don't see people treating basketball as a mathematical equation on this board at all. Using data doesn't negate eye test at all and we have plenty of people doing film analysis here.

Not every single poster obviously, but this applies to the vast majority without question. In this very thread there’s plenty of evidence for it.

I know people are going to defend the board, naturally, but I’ve been reading it for a very long time (genuinely trying to understand) and I’m simply reporting on my findings. You can disagree if you’d like, though I’m not just making it up. It’s a real concern for a reason.

Disagree with "vast majority" and "without question" and "plenty evidence for it" and even "real concern". You said I may disagree, but you basically decided that your opinion is more valuable than mine.

Show me one person who decided to rank players all-time based strictly on mathematical formula.

[spree8]

I don't see people treating basketball as a mathematical equation on this board at all. Using data doesn't negate eye test at all and we have plenty of people doing film analysis here.

Not every single poster obviously, but this applies to the vast majority without question. In this very thread there’s plenty of evidence for it.

I know people are going to defend the board, naturally, but I’ve been reading it for a very long time (genuinely trying to understand) and I’m simply reporting on my findings. You can disagree if you’d like, though I’m not just making it up. It’s a real concern for a reason.

Disagree with "vast majority" and "without question" and "plenty evidence for it" and even "real concern". You said I may disagree, but you basically decided that your opinion is more valuable than mine.

Show me one person who decided to rank players all-time based strictly on mathematical formula.

No I didn’t decide your opinion is less valuable than mine, just that if you feel how you feel then nothing I say is going to change your mind. I’m just letting you know that what I see is what I see (“vast majority”), how I feel (“concerned”) is how I feel, and that’s really all there is to it.

I can show you several people… go to any “Lebron is the goat” type discussion and you’ll see plenty (“of evidence”) there for starters. Like this post with 12 And1’s…

Spoiler:

Since mj-topics tend to boil over, i'd like to preface this with a request that we all try our best to be nice to each other

Now, to jump into the deep end...

Do any?

My short answer is no. But getting to that short answer is a more involved process. Let's start by establishing what should qualify as "GOAT" lvl data:

The better question is what impact metrics do not show MJ as a GOAT candidate? Literally all available data we have has MJ as a GOAT level candidate.

-Every single Plus/Minus stat we have shows MJ is an Elite

-Every single RAPM shows MJ as an Elite (I'm not counting Wizards MJ)

-He played on some of the best teams in NBA history. 3 10+ SRS teams, 6 teams with a 6+ SRS

Sure. Jordan looks elite. And if we consider being elite the same as being a goat candidate, then there's no metric I'm aware of that suggests he isn't. However, the G in "GOAT" stands for greatest not elite. I'd argue that "elite" isn't really the bar we should set here. And it's worth noting that none of what Colts cited has him scoring the "greatest" even when many of these metrics he references don't include historical candidates like kareem and russell.

The only "winning" metric where he actually looks like "the greatest" is if you go by team success as colts does in point 3, but consider that "impact" is usually considered distinct from "total success". Impact, as its commonly used, denotes "isolated influence" on winning, not the whole pie, and even then, if we focus on winning championships, as opposed to srs(which can fluctuate in how indicative it is of championship probablity from era to era), Jordan quite clearly loses to Russell who also seems to outpace him in all the available impact data we have.

So in short, no. I don't think there are impact metrics which generally suggest Jordan as "the greatest." There are box-metrics which put him in the range, but these are not extrapolated from winning. Typically "impact" denotes when you isolate "individual influence on winning". Not when you look at different box-stuff and ascribe this or that many points to this or that category working with assumptions such as "blocks from a guard must be more valuable than blocks from a center." With that in mind...

A. Plus-Minus Stats (and box estimates of plus-minus stats)
1. 3-Year Postseason Augmented Plus Minus: 2nd all-time. Using Jordan's actual playoff on/off data, Jordan is a hair behind Duncan at 1st (well within uncertainty ranges to put Jordan first) and above every 3-year stint from LeBron.
2. 3-Year Postseason PIPM: 3rd all time.* Jordan's ahead of Miami LeBron, which is usually considered LeBron's peak (although LeBron has other samples that creep ahead).
3. 3-year Postseason RAPTOR: 1st all time.*
4. 3-year Postseason On/off: 9th all time. This is a noisy stat that's clearly worse than RAPM/etc. However, we don't have playoff RAPM yet. In raw on/off, Jordan still places high, having a better "on" rating than all but 2 of the players ahead of him and having a better on/off than Miami and 2nd-stint-Cavs LeBron.

The data being referenced here does not have plus-minus before 1997 and even then, whatever data is present is heavily informed by priors from seasons. These metrics, as they exist for Jordan are effectively variants of stuff like PER. They are looking at Jordan's box-stuff and then extrapolating offensive and defensive value. This is notable as using available impact data as opposed to box-stuff, Jordan's defense does not compare well to Lebron's at any point in his prime. As Lebron and Jordan are virtually tied on the offensive portion of all these metrics, simply replacing the defensive component with actual impact data, knocks Jordan off his perch. And remember, this is not including Kareem whose defenses were 4 points better, or Russell who won the most, by a landslide, on the strength of his team's defense.

Furthermore, if we use a more general frame as opposed to a specific one(3 year consecutive)...

Ben only lists 1 three year sample for jordan

Jordan's average from 89-91 is +7.7 in backpicks bpm and +7 in aupm, averaging to +7.35

For Lebron Ben lists three different three year samples(08-10, 12-14, 15-17) in AUPM:

08-10:+6.8, 16-18:+6.7, 12-14:+5.1

He only lists 12-14 for both bpm and aupm:

12-14: +5.8

So if we just use his three year averages, we see that lebron has a bunch of three-year stretches close to MJ but MJ's 89-91 scores highest. However it's interesting that lebron has three 3 year stretches that rank so high(2nd, 3rd, and 7th) and the lowest score came from the years ben rated as Lebron's peak. If we take a look at lebron's best two years from each of those three year stretches...(aupm/bpm is averaged)

Lebron's 09, 10, 12, 13, 16 and 17 are at +10, +8, +7.5, +7, +7.5, and +7.7 respectively.

You get 5 different seasons which would boost the average of MJ's 89-91 peak.

As draymond has covered with PIPM, even using a three-year frame, Lebron has 2 better samples, and the gap naturally widens when we just look at the best years as opposed to a 3-year lens. Notably, DPIPM's weightings are most closely tied to DRAPM making it the most "impacty" of the metrics in question. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that Jordan does the worst here looking at these box-score proxies. Playoff PIPM is also notably the one box-metric where Hakeem, arguably the most valuable defender since Bill Russell, has the second highest career average after...Lebron.


If we go onto actual plus-minus data, Jordan falls short in playoff on/off with 88-93 coming significantly behind 16-21 Lebron and being on par with the on/off for shaq and curry. Notably, Lebron's teams were as good with Lebron on the court as the Bulls were with Jordan. Keep in mind we don't have the data for players like Kareem, Hakeem, Bill, Magic, Bird, Walton, Wilt, or Russell. Jordan is competing in a very, very narrow field here and still doesn't look the best.

We have regular season on/off for Jordan's 97/98 and again, this doesn't look GOAT-worthy. Using Lebron as a reference, 98 scores lower than 18 different Lebron seasons. 97 scores lower than 17.

What we have from Jordan in RAPM, including data from 2 years often included in GOAT regular season conversations, also doesn't compare well to what we have for Lebron:

From the peaks project...
LeBron:

+8.84 in 2009 (would be 4th all time), +9.73 in 2011 (would be 2nd all time), +9.5 in 2012 (would be 2nd all time), +6.4 in 2013 (would be 13th all time), 6.79 in 2014, 8.7 in 2015, +8.62 in 2016 (would be 4th all time), 6.62 in 2017, 1.56 in 2018 (holy coasting! wow!), 3.44 in 2019.

Jordan:

+7.47 in 1988 (would be 8th all time. 43 game sample where Bulls just barely performed better than their average season level), +6.40 in 1991 (57 games where Bulls drastically underperformed their average season level), +7.17 in 1996 (21 games sample where Bulls performed at their average season level), +5.85 in 1997 (full season sample), +6.15 in 1998.```

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse. With an optimistic appraisal of 23 win lift using an 82 game sample in 84(going by record instead of srs and assuming no improvement despite Oakley spiking the Bulls D-rating), Jordan comes out about even with post-prime Duncan(30 games 04/05), somewhat behind the best stuff we see from Hakeem(25 and 30 game lift in 20 game samples in 88 and 90), consistently behind Kareem throughout the 70's(30 win lift in 75, a 29 win improvement with a player similar to oakley as a rookie, 62 wins without his co-star, and takes the depleted remnants of a 30 win team to 45 wins in 77), and a pretty sizable gap compared to Lebron who has multiple 40 win signals for 09 and 10, 30 win signals in his second cavs stint, and is mostly operating at, at least 20+ win lift throughout his prime leading multiple teams to 60 or near-60 win basketball without co-stars on top-heavy rosters(cavs, heatles).

Then we have Russell, leader of the greatest team ever, who, using an 82 game WOWY sample, seems to have beat two superteams on his last-legs with subpar help in 69, who has the best pre-nba impact alongside kareem in a more stacked league, saw the highest point differential at the olympics, and was able to consistently succeed with teammates going in and out of the lineup.

There are various other players who look alright in different frames, but to keep this succinct, WOWY(and the various derivations you can use to estimate it) really marks the "purest" family of impact signals and Jordan just doesn't look like the best, or even close to the best here. This holds true even if you insist on operating with the tiniest possible samples.

And just like we can "adjust" raw plus-minus to create APM and RAPM to correct for the other players, we can do the same for WOWY.

Except you can't, because WOWYR does not use lineup-level data, it utilizes game-level data. Even RAPM has various limitations that makes treating it like a "better" version of WOWY misguided. But this is just malpractice with WOWYR:

Instead of using results from lineups within a game (play-by-play data) like traditional APM, game-level plus-minus uses final scores from game to game for the players from that game. This allows for a historical, apple-to-apples comparison of per-game impact from before play-by-play was available (1997).

What this means is that you only really get data for a player when they aren't in the starting lineup. The adjustment's "correction" is marginal, and the sample of data we're working with here is realtively tiny. With Jordan, even including the 82 game samples from 1984 and 1994(not included in the WOWYR dray lists), we only have 8 games without MJ per season to work off. Take out that 164 game boost, and it's probably more like 4 games per season. For Bill, we only have 2.2 games a season. You are making the sample exponentially smaller, for a marginal improvement in "noise". This is a much, much smaller sample to work with than the unfavorable partial rapm data Dray quickly dismisses, and even then, Jordan does not really look like the greatest. Notably, if we take WOWYR seriously, Bill Russell led the greatest team ever with 35 win help throughout his prime while Jordan barely won half as much with 40-50 win help. While Jordan looks marginally better than Lebron, he's not really within range of GOAThood.

This is not to say the statistics universally favor Jordan over other GOAT candidates like LeBron or Kareem or Russell. They don't. I'm sure you could find a similar array of stats to support LeBron.

This is a wierd characterization. The statistics you've referenced near-universally favor Lebron in the majority of comparative frames with the vast majority of nba history not included in your sample. Moreover the impacty data we have consistently favors Lebron by virtually any frame and, when it is available, also favors Kareem and Russell with similar consistency. Notably the gap widens the more "impacty" data becomes with Jordan's relative statistical profile looking worse relative to other greats the more inclusive the data becomes.

Even if we stick to what you characterize as box-metrics(not really relevant but fine), Lebron wins out in a variety of frames(looks better in the playoffs with most frameworks), and Kareem remains competitive despite being bogged down with incomplete data.

If you want to define "GOAT TIER" as broadly as Colts has, fine. But otherwise, I don't really see how you can say the impact data is Goaty. Or let me put this another way...

But if you're just asking do the impact metrics we have portray Jordan as a GOAT candidate, then yes. Absolutely. At his best, Jordan was absolutely GOAT-tier player.

...Duncan scores higher in aupm despite aupm being partially constructed with BPM, scores as high as a pretty optimistic MJ WOWY appraisal in injury plagued 04/05, looks similarly dominant in RAPM stuff(though this gets very noisy with different scales), and won 57 and 62 wins at his most valuable looking stretch as opposed to 50 for Jordan in 1988.

Hakeem looks better if you use his very best WOWY samples, looks better in his first three years, and looks similarly impactful throughout his prime, while scoring higher in postseason PIPM(the box metric which most closely is tied to actual defensive impact.(remember that pre 97, none of the "plus-minus" stats you reference have plus minus(or film tracking)). Hakeem also scores similarly in 97/98 on/off despite arguably being further from his peak than Jordan was those years.


IIRC, you have dismissed both Duncan and Hakeem as having GOAT-level data on multiple occasions. If Jordan's impact stats potray him as "absolutely GOAT-Level at his best", why don't you extend that for Hakeem and Duncan who do just as well if not better using data which actually has "impact" in it.[/quote]

[70sFan]

Not every single poster obviously, but this applies to the vast majority without question. In this very thread there’s plenty of evidence for it.

I know people are going to defend the board, naturally, but I’ve been reading it for a very long time (genuinely trying to understand) and I’m simply reporting on my findings. You can disagree if you’d like, though I’m not just making it up. It’s a real concern for a reason.

Disagree with "vast majority" and "without question" and "plenty evidence for it" and even "real concern". You said I may disagree, but you basically decided that your opinion is more valuable than mine.

Show me one person who decided to rank players all-time based strictly on mathematical formula.

No I didn’t decide your opinion is less valuable than mine, just that if you feel how you feel then nothing I say is going to change your mind. I’m just letting you know that what I see is what I see (“vast majority”), how I feel (“concerned”) is how I feel, and that’s really all there is to it.

I can show you several people… go to any “Lebron is the goat” type discussion and you’ll see plenty (“of evidence”) there for starters. Like this post with 12 And1’s…

Spoiler:

Since mj-topics tend to boil over, i'd like to preface this with a request that we all try our best to be nice to each other

Now, to jump into the deep end...

Do any?

My short answer is no. But getting to that short answer is a more involved process. Let's start by establishing what should qualify as "GOAT" lvl data:

The better question is what impact metrics do not show MJ as a GOAT candidate? Literally all available data we have has MJ as a GOAT level candidate.

-Every single Plus/Minus stat we have shows MJ is an Elite

-Every single RAPM shows MJ as an Elite (I'm not counting Wizards MJ)

-He played on some of the best teams in NBA history. 3 10+ SRS teams, 6 teams with a 6+ SRS

Sure. Jordan looks elite. And if we consider being elite the same as being a goat candidate, then there's no metric I'm aware of that suggests he isn't. However, the G in "GOAT" stands for greatest not elite. I'd argue that "elite" isn't really the bar we should set here. And it's worth noting that none of what Colts cited has him scoring the "greatest" even when many of these metrics he references don't include historical candidates like kareem and russell.

The only "winning" metric where he actually looks like "the greatest" is if you go by team success as colts does in point 3, but consider that "impact" is usually considered distinct from "total success". Impact, as its commonly used, denotes "isolated influence" on winning, not the whole pie, and even then, if we focus on winning championships, as opposed to srs(which can fluctuate in how indicative it is of championship probablity from era to era), Jordan quite clearly loses to Russell who also seems to outpace him in all the available impact data we have.

So in short, no. I don't think there are impact metrics which generally suggest Jordan as "the greatest." There are box-metrics which put him in the range, but these are not extrapolated from winning. Typically "impact" denotes when you isolate "individual influence on winning". Not when you look at different box-stuff and ascribe this or that many points to this or that category working with assumptions such as "blocks from a guard must be more valuable than blocks from a center." With that in mind...

The data being referenced here does not have plus-minus before 1997 and even then, whatever data is present is heavily informed by priors from seasons. These metrics, as they exist for Jordan are effectively variants of stuff like PER. They are looking at Jordan's box-stuff and then extrapolating offensive and defensive value. This is notable as using available impact data as opposed to box-stuff, Jordan's defense does not compare well to Lebron's at any point in his prime. As Lebron and Jordan are virtually tied on the offensive portion of all these metrics, simply replacing the defensive component with actual impact data, knocks Jordan off his perch. And remember, this is not including Kareem whose defenses were 4 points better, or Russell who won the most, by a landslide, on the strength of his team's defense.

Furthermore, if we use a more general frame as opposed to a specific one(3 year consecutive)...

Ben only lists 1 three year sample for jordan


For Lebron Ben lists three different three year samples(08-10, 12-14, 15-17) in AUPM:

He only lists 12-14 for both bpm and aupm:


So if we just use his three year averages, we see that lebron has a bunch of three-year stretches close to MJ but MJ's 89-91 scores highest. However it's interesting that lebron has three 3 year stretches that rank so high(2nd, 3rd, and 7th) and the lowest score came from the years ben rated as Lebron's peak. If we take a look at lebron's best two years from each of those three year stretches...(aupm/bpm is averaged)


You get 5 different seasons which would boost the average of MJ's 89-91 peak.

As draymond has covered with PIPM, even using a three-year frame, Lebron has 2 better samples, and the gap naturally widens when we just look at the best years as opposed to a 3-year lens. Notably, DPIPM's weightings are most closely tied to DRAPM making it the most "impacty" of the metrics in question. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that Jordan does the worst here looking at these box-score proxies. Playoff PIPM is also notably the one box-metric where Hakeem, arguably the most valuable defender since Bill Russell, has the second highest career average after...Lebron.


If we go onto actual plus-minus data, Jordan falls short in playoff on/off with 88-93 coming significantly behind 16-21 Lebron and being on par with the on/off for shaq and curry. Notably, Lebron's teams were as good with Lebron on the court as the Bulls were with Jordan. Keep in mind we don't have the data for players like Kareem, Hakeem, Bill, Magic, Bird, Walton, Wilt, or Russell. Jordan is competing in a very, very narrow field here and still doesn't look the best.

We have regular season on/off for Jordan's 97/98 and again, this doesn't look GOAT-worthy. Using Lebron as a reference, 98 scores lower than 18 different Lebron seasons. 97 scores lower than 17.

What we have from Jordan in RAPM, including data from 2 years often included in GOAT regular season conversations, also doesn't compare well to what we have for Lebron:

From the peaks project...
LeBron:

Jordan:

Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse. With an optimistic appraisal of 23 win lift using an 82 game sample in 84(going by record instead of srs and assuming no improvement despite Oakley spiking the Bulls D-rating), Jordan comes out about even with post-prime Duncan(30 games 04/05), somewhat behind the best stuff we see from Hakeem(25 and 30 game lift in 20 game samples in 88 and 90), consistently behind Kareem throughout the 70's(30 win lift in 75, a 29 win improvement with a player similar to oakley as a rookie, 62 wins without his co-star, and takes the depleted remnants of a 30 win team to 45 wins in 77), and a pretty sizable gap compared to Lebron who has multiple 40 win signals for 09 and 10, 30 win signals in his second cavs stint, and is mostly operating at, at least 20+ win lift throughout his prime leading multiple teams to 60 or near-60 win basketball without co-stars on top-heavy rosters(cavs, heatles).

Then we have Russell, leader of the greatest team ever, who, using an 82 game WOWY sample, seems to have beat two superteams on his last-legs with subpar help in 69, who has the best pre-nba impact alongside kareem in a more stacked league, saw the highest point differential at the olympics, and was able to consistently succeed with teammates going in and out of the lineup.

There are various other players who look alright in different frames, but to keep this succinct, WOWY(and the various derivations you can use to estimate it) really marks the "purest" family of impact signals and Jordan just doesn't look like the best, or even close to the best here. This holds true even if you insist on operating with the tiniest possible samples.

And just like we can "adjust" raw plus-minus to create APM and RAPM to correct for the other players, we can do the same for WOWY.

Except you can't, because WOWYR does not use lineup-level data, it utilizes game-level data. Even RAPM has various limitations that makes treating it like a "better" version of WOWY misguided. But this is just malpractice with WOWYR:

Instead of using results from lineups within a game (play-by-play data) like traditional APM, game-level plus-minus uses final scores from game to game for the players from that game. This allows for a historical, apple-to-apples comparison of per-game impact from before play-by-play was available (1997).

What this means is that you only really get data for a player when they aren't in the starting lineup. The adjustment's "correction" is marginal, and the sample of data we're working with here is realtively tiny. With Jordan, even including the 82 game samples from 1984 and 1994(not included in the WOWYR dray lists), we only have 8 games without MJ per season to work off. Take out that 164 game boost, and it's probably more like 4 games per season. For Bill, we only have 2.2 games a season. You are making the sample exponentially smaller, for a marginal improvement in "noise". This is a much, much smaller sample to work with than the unfavorable partial rapm data Dray quickly dismisses, and even then, Jordan does not really look like the greatest. Notably, if we take WOWYR seriously, Bill Russell led the greatest team ever with 35 win help throughout his prime while Jordan barely won half as much with 40-50 win help. While Jordan looks marginally better than Lebron, he's not really within range of GOAThood.

This is not to say the statistics universally favor Jordan over other GOAT candidates like LeBron or Kareem or Russell. They don't. I'm sure you could find a similar array of stats to support LeBron.

This is a wierd characterization. The statistics you've referenced near-universally favor Lebron in the majority of comparative frames with the vast majority of nba history not included in your sample. Moreover the impacty data we have consistently favors Lebron by virtually any frame and, when it is available, also favors Kareem and Russell with similar consistency. Notably the gap widens the more "impacty" data becomes with Jordan's relative statistical profile looking worse relative to other greats the more inclusive the data becomes.

Even if we stick to what you characterize as box-metrics(not really relevant but fine), Lebron wins out in a variety of frames(looks better in the playoffs with most frameworks), and Kareem remains competitive despite being bogged down with incomplete data.

If you want to define "GOAT TIER" as broadly as Colts has, fine. But otherwise, I don't really see how you can say the impact data is Goaty. Or let me put this another way...

But if you're just asking do the impact metrics we have portray Jordan as a GOAT candidate, then yes. Absolutely. At his best, Jordan was absolutely GOAT-tier player.

...Duncan scores higher in aupm despite aupm being partially constructed with BPM, scores as high as a pretty optimistic MJ WOWY appraisal in injury plagued 04/05, looks similarly dominant in RAPM stuff(though this gets very noisy with different scales), and won 57 and 62 wins at his most valuable looking stretch as opposed to 50 for Jordan in 1988.

Hakeem looks better if you use his very best WOWY samples, looks better in his first three years, and looks similarly impactful throughout his prime, while scoring higher in postseason PIPM(the box metric which most closely is tied to actual defensive impact.(remember that pre 97, none of the "plus-minus" stats you reference have plus minus(or film tracking)). Hakeem also scores similarly in 97/98 on/off despite arguably being further from his peak than Jordan was those years.


IIRC, you have dismissed both Duncan and Hakeem as having GOAT-level data on multiple occasions. If Jordan's impact stats potray him as "absolutely GOAT-Level at his best", why don't you extend that for Hakeem and Duncan who do just as well if not better using data which actually has "impact" in it.

[eminence]

This is a bit of an aside, but I was a bit confused by that playoff PIPM chart (it isn't up to date, and after a light dig it appears to be from about halfway through the 2nd round in 2018), could we get an updated version of that?

[spree8]

Disagree with "vast majority" and "without question" and "plenty evidence for it" and even "real concern". You said I may disagree, but you basically decided that your opinion is more valuable than mine.

Show me one person who decided to rank players all-time based strictly on mathematical formula.

No I didn’t decide your opinion is less valuable than mine, just that if you feel how you feel then nothing I say is going to change your mind. I’m just letting you know that what I see is what I see (“vast majority”), how I feel (“concerned”) is how I feel, and that’s really all there is to it.

I can show you several people… go to any “Lebron is the goat” type discussion and you’ll see plenty (“of evidence”) there for starters. Like this post with 12 And1’s…

Spoiler:

Since mj-topics tend to boil over, i'd like to preface this with a request that we all try our best to be nice to each other

Now, to jump into the deep end...

My short answer is no. But getting to that short answer is a more involved process. Let's start by establishing what should qualify as "GOAT" lvl data:

Sure. Jordan looks elite. And if we consider being elite the same as being a goat candidate, then there's no metric I'm aware of that suggests he isn't. However, the G in "GOAT" stands for greatest not elite. I'd argue that "elite" isn't really the bar we should set here. And it's worth noting that none of what Colts cited has him scoring the "greatest" even when many of these metrics he references don't include historical candidates like kareem and russell.

The only "winning" metric where he actually looks like "the greatest" is if you go by team success as colts does in point 3, but consider that "impact" is usually considered distinct from "total success". Impact, as its commonly used, denotes "isolated influence" on winning, not the whole pie, and even then, if we focus on winning championships, as opposed to srs(which can fluctuate in how indicative it is of championship probablity from era to era), Jordan quite clearly loses to Russell who also seems to outpace him in all the available impact data we have.

So in short, no. I don't think there are impact metrics which generally suggest Jordan as "the greatest." There are box-metrics which put him in the range, but these are not extrapolated from winning. Typically "impact" denotes when you isolate "individual influence on winning". Not when you look at different box-stuff and ascribe this or that many points to this or that category working with assumptions such as "blocks from a guard must be more valuable than blocks from a center." With that in mind...


The data being referenced here does not have plus-minus before 1997 and even then, whatever data is present is heavily informed by priors from seasons. These metrics, as they exist for Jordan are effectively variants of stuff like PER. They are looking at Jordan's box-stuff and then extrapolating offensive and defensive value. This is notable as using available impact data as opposed to box-stuff, Jordan's defense does not compare well to Lebron's at any point in his prime. As Lebron and Jordan are virtually tied on the offensive portion of all these metrics, simply replacing the defensive component with actual impact data, knocks Jordan off his perch. And remember, this is not including Kareem whose defenses were 4 points better, or Russell who won the most, by a landslide, on the strength of his team's defense.

Furthermore, if we use a more general frame as opposed to a specific one(3 year consecutive)...


As draymond has covered with PIPM, even using a three-year frame, Lebron has 2 better samples, and the gap naturally widens when we just look at the best years as opposed to a 3-year lens. Notably, DPIPM's weightings are most closely tied to DRAPM making it the most "impacty" of the metrics in question. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that Jordan does the worst here looking at these box-score proxies. Playoff PIPM is also notably the one box-metric where Hakeem, arguably the most valuable defender since Bill Russell, has the second highest career average after...Lebron.


If we go onto actual plus-minus data, Jordan falls short in playoff on/off with 88-93 coming significantly behind 16-21 Lebron and being on par with the on/off for shaq and curry. Notably, Lebron's teams were as good with Lebron on the court as the Bulls were with Jordan. Keep in mind we don't have the data for players like Kareem, Hakeem, Bill, Magic, Bird, Walton, Wilt, or Russell. Jordan is competing in a very, very narrow field here and still doesn't look the best.

We have regular season on/off for Jordan's 97/98 and again, this doesn't look GOAT-worthy. Using Lebron as a reference, 98 scores lower than 18 different Lebron seasons. 97 scores lower than 17.

What we have from Jordan in RAPM, including data from 2 years often included in GOAT regular season conversations, also doesn't compare well to what we have for Lebron:


Finally we have WOWY, which offers us the largest and most inclusive samples of data per-game and per-season and which isn't subject to in-era bias as long as you keep in-era srs fluctuation in mind(The Celtics were the greatest team ever at 50-60 wins a season while the Bulls, Lakers, and Warriors were not close at 60-70 wins a season). And here, when pre-97 greats finally get their shot, Jordan looks significantly worse. With an optimistic appraisal of 23 win lift using an 82 game sample in 84(going by record instead of srs and assuming no improvement despite Oakley spiking the Bulls D-rating), Jordan comes out about even with post-prime Duncan(30 games 04/05), somewhat behind the best stuff we see from Hakeem(25 and 30 game lift in 20 game samples in 88 and 90), consistently behind Kareem throughout the 70's(30 win lift in 75, a 29 win improvement with a player similar to oakley as a rookie, 62 wins without his co-star, and takes the depleted remnants of a 30 win team to 45 wins in 77), and a pretty sizable gap compared to Lebron who has multiple 40 win signals for 09 and 10, 30 win signals in his second cavs stint, and is mostly operating at, at least 20+ win lift throughout his prime leading multiple teams to 60 or near-60 win basketball without co-stars on top-heavy rosters(cavs, heatles).

Then we have Russell, leader of the greatest team ever, who, using an 82 game WOWY sample, seems to have beat two superteams on his last-legs with subpar help in 69, who has the best pre-nba impact alongside kareem in a more stacked league, saw the highest point differential at the olympics, and was able to consistently succeed with teammates going in and out of the lineup.

There are various other players who look alright in different frames, but to keep this succinct, WOWY(and the various derivations you can use to estimate it) really marks the "purest" family of impact signals and Jordan just doesn't look like the best, or even close to the best here. This holds true even if you insist on operating with the tiniest possible samples.

Except you can't, because WOWYR does not use lineup-level data, it utilizes game-level data. Even RAPM has various limitations that makes treating it like a "better" version of WOWY misguided. But this is just malpractice with WOWYR:

Instead of using results from lineups within a game (play-by-play data) like traditional APM, game-level plus-minus uses final scores from game to game for the players from that game. This allows for a historical, apple-to-apples comparison of per-game impact from before play-by-play was available (1997).

What this means is that you only really get data for a player when they aren't in the starting lineup. The adjustment's "correction" is marginal, and the sample of data we're working with here is realtively tiny. With Jordan, even including the 82 game samples from 1984 and 1994(not included in the WOWYR dray lists), we only have 8 games without MJ per season to work off. Take out that 164 game boost, and it's probably more like 4 games per season. For Bill, we only have 2.2 games a season. You are making the sample exponentially smaller, for a marginal improvement in "noise". This is a much, much smaller sample to work with than the unfavorable partial rapm data Dray quickly dismisses, and even then, Jordan does not really look like the greatest. Notably, if we take WOWYR seriously, Bill Russell led the greatest team ever with 35 win help throughout his prime while Jordan barely won half as much with 40-50 win help. While Jordan looks marginally better than Lebron, he's not really within range of GOAThood.

This is not to say the statistics universally favor Jordan over other GOAT candidates like LeBron or Kareem or Russell. They don't. I'm sure you could find a similar array of stats to support LeBron.

This is a wierd characterization. The statistics you've referenced near-universally favor Lebron in the majority of comparative frames with the vast majority of nba history not included in your sample. Moreover the impacty data we have consistently favors Lebron by virtually any frame and, when it is available, also favors Kareem and Russell with similar consistency. Notably the gap widens the more "impacty" data becomes with Jordan's relative statistical profile looking worse relative to other greats the more inclusive the data becomes.

Even if we stick to what you characterize as box-metrics(not really relevant but fine), Lebron wins out in a variety of frames(looks better in the playoffs with most frameworks), and Kareem remains competitive despite being bogged down with incomplete data.

If you want to define "GOAT TIER" as broadly as Colts has, fine. But otherwise, I don't really see how you can say the impact data is Goaty. Or let me put this another way...

But if you're just asking do the impact metrics we have portray Jordan as a GOAT candidate, then yes. Absolutely. At his best, Jordan was absolutely GOAT-tier player.

...Duncan scores higher in aupm despite aupm being partially constructed with BPM, scores as high as a pretty optimistic MJ WOWY appraisal in injury plagued 04/05, looks similarly dominant in RAPM stuff(though this gets very noisy with different scales), and won 57 and 62 wins at his most valuable looking stretch as opposed to 50 for Jordan in 1988.

Hakeem looks better if you use his very best WOWY samples, looks better in his first three years, and looks similarly impactful throughout his prime, while scoring higher in postseason PIPM(the box metric which most closely is tied to actual defensive impact.(remember that pre 97, none of the "plus-minus" stats you reference have plus minus(or film tracking)). Hakeem also scores similarly in 97/98 on/off despite arguably being further from his peak than Jordan was those years.


IIRC, you have dismissed both Duncan and Hakeem as having GOAT-level data on multiple occasions. If Jordan's impact stats potray him as "absolutely GOAT-Level at his best", why don't you extend that for Hakeem and Duncan who do just as well if not better using data which actually has "impact" in it.

[Owly]

And am I really supposed to sit here and believe ...

Well no you're not supposed to just take that as your player ranking, passively "sit ... and believe".

It is a problem if

people [using them] don’t understand what they mean

And to some extent that's going to be the case in terms of the complexity of some stats but people should at least have an idea of the limitations of their own knowledge and try to know the inputs and processes etc and their limitations ...

In this measure, which you are complaining about, you post an image which uses the phrases "statistically predictive factors" and "estimate". It should be clear then, that whilst precise evaluations of it's utility will vary (I won't pretend great expertise here) the author of that guide is not telling you to take the numbers as gospel. Ditto with any list in which the clear majority of players given (i.e. this list even after the filter applied, 17/25) are evaluated exclusively on fewer than 150 games ... that clearly isn't going to provide a perfect, fully informed list one can simply regurgitate.

Of course, but people absolutely tend to treat them as they should be gospel. For instance, this very poster who produced that particular list certainly did.

Can't say I've read every post in this thread closely (time and some detail intense stuff and it's a bit heated and my prior impression has been that there isn't enough/good enough impact data on Jordan to draw very strong conclusions one way or the other). Suggest that you quote the person/people directly if you wish to engage with them over their use if you think that is what they are doing and think the conversation could be constructive.

I suppose I would be surprised if any respected poster were treating a single number as gospel, especially off such a small sample.


Could a mod edit the spoiler to get rid of this distorted page mess? Probably best for everyone I would think.

[ShaqAttac]

DAAAM so much "impact" yall broke the internat

[Owly]

That’s why I’ve had posters like this tell me that what I watch (phrased it as eye-witness testimony) is unreliable? I’m not deeply mistaken… gaslighting attempts are too frequent around here.

Furthermore, d'you know how unreliable eye witness testimony is? D'you know how unreliable eye witness testimony is after a month? D'you know how unreliable it is after decades? If a human being can choose between their own observations and memories for a large set of information, OR a libraries worth of recorded data and statistics, they should choose the latter every time. That's kinda why we started writing stuff down.

The foundations you're laying down are unsubstantiated. "What my eyes have told me can't be a lie" becaauuuse, why exactly, you don't want them to be?

He’s not the only one either. I’ve had “reputable” posters here try to convince me that what I’ve been watching wasn’t truly the case.

Hmmm ...

I don't quite understand. Are you say your output on what you saw isn't your testimony, through your brain, of things that you witnessed? That your brain isn't fallible? You seem to simultaneously take personally a criticism of eyewitness testimony and ... I don't know, are you objecting to it as characterizing what your recollections of events are ("what I watch"/"what I've been watching" perhaps being distinct, being stored somewhere other than your head, perfectly preserved, with no personal interpretation or difference from any other "eye-test"?).

This post wasn't about gaslighting you or about you in particular at all. It's about recording things versus any one person's memory. It's how reliable is the human brain at tracking every detail and then preserving it perfectly. Now box-scores don't track everything and the don't track everything they do track perfectly and some stuff is fuzzy at the edges. And impact side stuff is noisy, especially on smaller samples. But, for myself, I do tend to trust that it's generally tracked accurately and the data has access to far more basketball than any of us can have watched.

Without writing stuff down down (and without others doing so) do I think I'd know the difference between a 44% 3pt shooter over a season and a 38% one (heck even just seeing the shots in a compilation, rather than over a season, seeing the games I happen to see or imagining I catch them all, and am remembering over the months)? Or even who's winning a game and by how much if no one tracks (i.e. so not informed by play-style because of those who are tracking it) nor displays it until the end? My guess, for myself, would be no in each case.

As has been outlined watching and looking at data aren't mutually exclusive. It's just a matter of what information is most reliable and how can it be best aggregated. And that's tricky and complex which is why everyone's lists differ.


And hopefully you'll all be on a new page soon and so long as no-one quotes the spoilery stuff, there'll be a readable page.

[Gregoire]

The truth is: awareness that Lebron likely wouldnt win another ring or something major (hence wouldnt match Jordan level and legacy) coupled with him just took another longevity milestone forced Lebron fans went berserk...instead of enjoying the final years of the second-third greatest player ever, they are searching for anything, comparing and discrediting Jordan achievements to Lebron+Kareem+Russell glories, demanding for perfection for Jordan...anyway, keep this agenda if it alleviates the frustration.