nate33 wrote:...
Amazing. You still won't answer the question.
Is Brandon Clarke the 5th best player in the league?
Since you won't answer, I'm going to assume your answer is yes. And I will take that into consideration whenever you offer you critique my player rankings.
Ooops, sorry -- I didn't see your post.
Of course Brandon Clarke is not the 5th best player in the game, nate.
Nor is Robert Williams a better NBA player than Nikola Jokic (from the same list, or so I presume).
For that matter, great though he is, Jimmy Butler (who's at #1 on the same list) isn't better than Nikola Jokic.
As I've written many times, schemas like PER, WP48, Win Shares, etc. compare
sets of numbers not people. They're only useful if you keep that in mind.
As I've also written many times, no such schema, applied to a player, encompasses the whole truth about that player. How much less, then, can it be wholly accurate about a list of hundreds of them!
The only thing you compare one analytical framework to is another analytical framework, not to "reality." & you only do it based on what you're trying to learn by using either of them. Above all, you don't ask any analytical framework focused on human performance to be adequate to reality in individual cases, nate. Only fools & ideologues do that. In fact, if we could do that, there would be no need to play the games!
If I compare the tensile strength of two pieces of steel, the results I get can be applied in building or making something tomorrow. Nor will they change the following day or the following week. If I make a knife blade out of CPM S110V, I can predict its characteristics & compare outcomes to what I'd get with, let's say, VG10 steel instead. & those differences, because they actually inhere in the substance, will remain & never change.
Even epm, which is trying to do something quite different from what wp48 tries to do, btw, can't begin to accomplish w/ human beings (nba players) what the analysis of steel accomplishes.
I've got a 100-year old Barlow in my right-hand jeans pocket. It'll do today exactly what it did yesterday -- & what it wouldn't do yesterday it won't do today.
On the other hand, Spencer Dinwiddie may be a better player than Jalen Brunson & Lamelo Ball, yet who knows? The order may change as the seasons pass.
For that matter, although Spence is also better than Bam Adebayo, Draymond Green, & Marcus Smart, even thatmay not last.
Same thing with Kyle Kuzma being a better player than Andrew Wiggins. Who knows, maybe Wiggins will improve & actually surpass Kuz. Maybe even Klay Thompson also has a shot to become as good as Kuz -- who knows?
After all, in none of the above cases would anyone have to improve nearly as much as, let's say, Domantas Sabonis or Pascal Siakam or Mikal Bridges or Tyrese Maxey has to if any of them hopes to rise all the way up to the level of Luka Garza!
Finally... nate you're one of my favorite contributors here. Have I ever taken a tone with you like the one you're taking with me in this thread? I don't think so -- in any case I certainly hope not! But, if I have, it's to be regretted, & I won't do it again.
