Your unpopular takes? (PC Board Edition)

[PistolPeteJR]

Dikembe Mutombo was a legit all-nba level player at his peak and reached top 10 in his best years.

Nate Thurmond was the best player on his team in 1967.

Brook Lopez turned himself into a great defensive player and he's not a product of Giannis/Bud system.

Yeah that last one is gold. It's crazy how much he's adapted his game. I don't know that I've seen someone adapt their game the way Brook Lopez has. Went from 0 range to a prolific threat from deep; went from mediocre defender to DPOY candidate in his mid-30s. Absolutely phenomenal.

[70sFan]

Dikembe Mutombo was a legit all-nba level player at his peak and reached top 10 in his best years.

Nate Thurmond was the best player on his team in 1967.

Brook Lopez turned himself into a great defensive player and he's not a product of Giannis/Bud system.

Yeah that last one is gold. It's crazy how much he's adapted his game. I don't know that I've seen someone adapt their game the way Brook Lopez has. Went from 0 range to a prolific threat from deep; went from mediocre defender to DPOY candidate in his mid-30s. Absolutely phenomenal.

Yet for some personal agenda, some people can't give credit to one of the most hard-working player in the league right now. He did everything his team asked from him.

[AEnigma]

People were always onto something about Kobe being a Jordan approximation, but now most have lost their sense of the extreme era disparities between the two. Prime Kobe would have had more attractive “numbers” in Jordan’s era, and Jordan would have much less attractive “numbers” in Kobe’s era.

Relatedly, scoring bias has ruined (hyperbolic) basketball discourse in a way not present in any other sport, which tend to be far more engaged with total offensive impact.
70sFan would not be able to say he feels it is unpopular to put Thurmond above Barry in 1967 — a year in which the team collapsed without Thurmond in a way they never did without Barry, in which Thurmond was MVP runner-up, and in which basically everyone including Barry made a point to say “Thurmond is this team’s best player” — if not for people glancing at a point per game leaderboard and deciding the matter was settled.

Relatedly to that (only tepidly unpopular for this one): there is always a bias toward offence no matter the sport, but the failure to properly account for real disparities in defensive impact is at its most pronounced in basketball, where players individually have massive gulfs in their functional ability to affect a play but lack the same demarcation we see with goalies or pitchers (who everyone in those sports understands can individually swing entire defensive results) or in sports with strict offensive/defensive platoons (e.g. top level arena football).

Another one which seems to be uncommon is that people tend to overstate year-to-year variation in players because of shifts in role, scheme, surrounding talent, chemistry, effort, mood, random shot success, league evolution, etc., none of which tend to have any real bearing on what a player’s core abilities are in a given postseason setting. It is one thing when trying to project a specific athletic/age-related downturn, but people are weirdly willing to toss away or undersell seasons adjacent to a peak simply because they no longer perfectly conformed to that person’s idea of what a “peak” should be.
If we want to talk about peaks as narratives, fine, a season like 2003 Duncan stands alone, but realistically, there is good reason a more predictive and stable value measurer like DPM has 2003 as merely part of a gentle arc for Duncan from 2002 to 2007. And even DPM I think can overstate declines because of its commitment to those arcs once it feels a decline should start or a dip represents the end of a player’s evolution. A lot of lost athleticism can be overcome by experience and intelligence, and it is easy to misread adjustments made with an eye to future losses in athleticism as losses in athleticism in themselves. Mastering the intricacies and nuances of the game tends to be worth a lot more than a marginal trade-off in top end speed and explosiveness.

[eminence]

Guards/wings are generally overrated

Gobert was the ‘21 MVP

Oscar was notably better on offense than West

Mikan should be in the top 20

Sloan was not a particularly great coach (maybe just unpopular in Jazz circles) and he significantly stunted Stockton relative to what Layden would’ve

Curry is a notably better defensive player than often credited for (as in bordering on All-D level for most of his prime)

Tatum is by far the best Celtic and Brown being sold as a duo with him is ridiculous

[No-more-rings]

People were always onto something about Kobe being a Jordan approximation, but now most have lost their sense of the extreme era disparities between the two. Prime Kobe would have had more attractive “numbers” in Jordan’s era, and Jordan would have much less attractive “numbers” in Kobe’s era.

Extreme era differences? They literally played in the same league at the same time for a bit lol. Kobe made his first all star game the same year as the Bulls last championship. You’re talking like they played 50 years apart or something.

Beyond that I also want to know what “much less attractive numbers” looks like for Jordan. Instead of averaging 32/6/5 over his prime is he instead gonna average 25/5/4? Does he see significant decline in efficiency?

Maybe this comment is meant as sarcasm, but it’s hard to tell these days honestly.

[rk2023]

Guards/wings are generally overrated

Gobert was the ‘21 MVP

Oscar was notably better on offense than West

Mikan should be in the top 20

Sloan was not a particularly great coach (maybe just unpopular in Jazz circles) and he significantly stunted Stockton relative to what Layden would’ve

Curry is a notably better defensive player than often credited for (as in bordering on All-D level for most of his prime)

Tatum is by far the best Celtic and Brown being sold as a duo with him is ridiculous

Could you elaborate more on the two I bolded?

[AEnigma]

People were always onto something about Kobe being a Jordan approximation, but now most have lost their sense of the extreme era disparities between the two. Prime Kobe would have had more attractive “numbers” in Jordan’s era, and Jordan would have much less attractive “numbers” in Kobe’s era.

Extreme era differences? They literally played in the same league at the same time for a bit lol. Kobe made his first all star game the same year as the Bulls last championship. You’re talking like they played 50 years apart or something.

No, I am pointing out the effect of rule changes and league evolution. I recognise that a lot of people see Jordan win MVP and Finals MVP and RPOtY as a +1 rTS scorer and then extrapolate his peak as a +7 rTS scorer, but the ease for isolation wings was not consistent even before the explosion of the past couple of years.

Beyond that I also want to know what “much less attractive numbers” looks like for Jordan. Instead of averaging 32/6/5 over his prime is he instead gonna average 25/5/4? Does he see significant decline in efficiency?

Maybe this comment is meant as sarcasm, but it’s hard to tell these days honestly.

Primarily efficiency (and then a resultant dip in raw point production) because I doubt he changes his shot volume. Kobe lacked Jordan’s peak athleticism and his mid-range acumen, so Jordan would still be a more efficient scorer than Kobe in basically any era, but the gap would not be +7 to +3.5 rTS. If Kobe is something like +5 in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Jordan is something like +5.5 in the 2000s, that should substantially affect how we assess both of them, just like most of us recognise that Jerry West would not be a +9 scorer in later eras and adjust accordingly. None of that should be unpopular, but the bar is unfortunately quite low.

[AEnigma]

Curry is a notably better defensive player than often credited for (as in bordering on All-D level for most of his prime)

Really hard for me to come up with any case supporting Curry as a top ten defensive guard.

Generally agree or sympathise with the rest though.

[eminence]

Guards/wings are generally overrated

Gobert was the ‘21 MVP

Oscar was notably better on offense than West

Mikan should be in the top 20

Sloan was not a particularly great coach (maybe just unpopular in Jazz circles) and he significantly stunted Stockton relative to what Layden would’ve

Curry is a notably better defensive player than often credited for (as in bordering on All-D level for most of his prime)

Tatum is by far the best Celtic and Brown being sold as a duo with him is ridiculous

Could you elaborate more on the two I bolded?

Mmkay, Gobert here, will try to come back on Oscar (boils down to O being an underrated shooter/scorer imo).

My rough MVP criteria - be on a contending/borderline contending team (this kneecaps Curry for that season in particular). Top 3 in the East and 4 in the West for 2021. Be the clear best player on your squad (this hurts Kawhi/George, and whomever you consider best on the Suns). Play enough (KD fully out, and certainly hurts Embiid/Kawhi/George). And in situations where it's a close contest I like to favor the guy with less award recognition to date (hurting Giannis here). This has my clear top 2 contenders as Jokic/Gobert. I'm not bothered by Jokic winning it over Gobert (though I do side with Gobert by a moderate amount), but I am bothered by the absolute lack of consideration Gobert received. I think he should've won, but I get the Jokic/Embiid/Curry/Giannis votes. CP3/Doncic/Dame? Not so much. Randle/Rose, you've got to be kidding me. 10th place was ridiculous.

Gobert winds up solidly leading the league in all APM variations I've seen and is still top 5 or so in most xRAPM variants. For a player who derives the vast majority of their value as a rim protector I'm not at all surprised to see him drop when adding in box-score stats. It's just an absolutely monster defensive season from Gobert taking that group to the #4 defense (Royce O'Neale is the only other guy in the top 9 I see as a + defender (maybe Ingles), and he's a pretty minor positive, some like Bojan are pretty clear negatives). Without Gobert I see that defense as a late 20s ranking D, and a fringe playoff squad overall instead of the #1 overall seed. I think it's quite arguable as the best individual defensive season (RS) of the 3pt era.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense-dash-overall?dir=D&sort=D_FGA&Season=2020-21

Gobert
52-19 in games played
2187 minutes
+16.6 on court
+19.1 on/off

Far out ahead of the rest of the Jazz players (Conley kind of close, but if one is siphoning impact it's Conley, who finished 2nd in the league in DRAPM and 4th overall per shotcharts)

And NBA award voters were like... 'Nah, looks like a 10th place MVP, 3rd team all-nba guy to me'. It was as good of chance as they'll ever get at acknowledging a defense alpha/omega player as one of the top players in the league and they couldn't do it.

And to make it all worse it was on my own damn team

[Colbinii]

Guards/wings are generally overrated

Gobert was the ‘21 MVP

Oscar was notably better on offense than West

Mikan should be in the top 20

Sloan was not a particularly great coach (maybe just unpopular in Jazz circles) and he significantly stunted Stockton relative to what Layden would’ve

Curry is a notably better defensive player than often credited for (as in bordering on All-D level for most of his prime)

Tatum is by far the best Celtic and Brown being sold as a duo with him is ridiculous

Could you elaborate more on the two I bolded?

RE Gobert:

Here is what I wrote during/after the 2021 season.

Gobert simply is the anchor of the best team in the NBA--on both ends. He is the anchor on both ends of the floor.

[parsnips33]

Rockets were losing to the Warriors in 2018 with or without the CP3 injury

[Colbinii]

Rockets were losing to the Warriors in 2018 with or without the CP3 injury

Rockets beat the Warriors 8/10 times with the CP3 injury

[OhayoKD]

Curry is a notably better defensive player than often credited for (as in bordering on All-D level for most of his prime)

Really hard for me to come up with any case supporting Curry as a top ten defensive guard.

Generally agree or sympathise with the rest though.

Eh. Doesn't seem that hard. Low-error rate+lotta steals. Good positional matchup data. GOOD Defensive rebounding for postion!!!! D-RAPM/D-PIPM go brrr.

Imagine alot of that is based on the supporting cast but

Top 10 guard in a high-end year doesn't seem crazy

[parsnips33]

Rockets were losing to the Warriors in 2018 with or without the CP3 injury

Rockets beat the Warriors 8/10 times with the CP3 injury

Rockets wins were pretty much all eked out by <5 points, Warriors wins were all blowouts

They were a great team, but they were lucky to even push it to 7 games

[rate_]

Maybe an unpopular question:

It is often stated that advanced numbers vastly underrate Kobe. My question, is, if this is the case, why does Michael Jordan generally look so good in advanced numbers (no one really argues that they underrate him). It is generally suggested that Kobe's game is a near carbon-copy of MJ's.

They blame it on his shot selection as if he's the only superstar in history that took low percentage/bad shots.

[AEnigma]

Curry is a notably better defensive player than often credited for (as in bordering on All-D level for most of his prime)

Really hard for me to come up with any case supporting Curry as a top ten defensive guard.

Generally agree or sympathise with the rest though.

Eh. Doesn't seem that hard. Low-error rate+lotta steals. Good positional matchup data. GOOD Defensive rebounding for postion!!!! D-RAPM/D-PIPM go brrr.

Imagine alot of that is based on the supporting cast but

Top 10 guard in a high-end year doesn't seem crazy

None of that is an actual comparative argument or even based on anything you are bothering to quantify (apart from defensive rebounding). Right away I know his DPIPM, DLEBRON, and D-DPM has always hovered around neutral to mild positive outside of 2015, and that he gets worse in the postseason. His D-RAPM is better — but he tends to play with good defensive support and have rough backups — yet again without a comparative basis (or one which acknowledges that Marcus Smart having a lower DRAPM does not mean Curry is a better defender than Smart…) this is contributing nothing to the conversation.

[parsnips33]

Yeah Steph has always been super underrated defensively, that's a good one

[70sFan]

Yeah Steph has always been super underrated defensively, that's a good one

Not to this level though...

[parsnips33]

Yeah Steph has always been super underrated defensively, that's a good one

Not to this level though...

What do you peg the broad consensus on him defensively at? I think most people see him as a liability/negative defensively where I think he's a clear positive on that end - with the caveat that some years are stronger than others

[70sFan]

Yeah Steph has always been super underrated defensively, that's a good one

Not to this level though...

What do you peg the broad consensus on him defensively at? I think most people see him as a liability/negative defensively where I think he's a clear positive on that end - with the caveat that some years are stronger than others

He's definitely not a liability and in most seasons not negative either. He's not close to top 10 guards in the league either.