Updating my top 50

[trex_8063]

I will mention that I don't value BPM at all for what it's worth. I don't see 100 players better than KCP this year.

use whatever valuation system you want, that's not the point.
And not arguing where KCP ranks,
Trying to get the framework
You have

All-nba level - which should be up to about the 15th players
All-star level - which should be up to about 24 players
Sub all-star - - assuming that would be about guys 25-40 or so
Role player - I guessed you would have about the next 85 guys - The Athletic (Seth Partnow) and the Ringer each do a Top 125, maybe you have less.

My point is you have DEN with 2 or 3 of these 85 guys, so the odds of these guys being on a championship team aren't any better than guys rated 126-250.

I have a few thoughts on this topic, for whatever it's worth......

On levels
I don't think one should railroad himself into a certain number of players of the league for each designation, particularly when doing this exercise across eras (from an 8-team league, to a 30-team league). For example, let's look at the "All-Star level" designation:
Do we really believe the consenus 25th or 26th or even the 30th-best player in the league TODAY is worse than the 24th-best player in the league of 1963 (even relative to the league environment of their time)?

I surely hope not.

Nor should one get hung up on actual designations (i.e. Did he make the All-Star squad?). imo, "All-Star level" merely refers to a level of play that could "reasonably be expected to make the All-Star team in some [most?] years"...........doesn't mean they HAVE to make the team, or that they must be placed in a lower tier/level if they did NOT [in actuality] make the All-Star squad.
Note that Jimmy frickin' Butler did NOT make the All-Star team this year.
Note that Kevin Duckworth DID make the All-Star squad in both '89 and '91, that Michael Adams made it in '92, and BJ Armstrong made it in '94 (meanwhile Reggie Miller was snubbed ALL FOUR of those years, btw, and Kevin Johnson was snubbed in TWO of the FOUR).

imo, just look at their level of play and ask yourself: Would I be surprised (or perhaps even angry/disdainful) if they were selected to an All-Star squad based on that level of play?
If the answer is "No", then that's "All-Star level".

Forget about his league rank.


Re: semantics
"Role player", "average player"........po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to (often, at least). What I mean is: in many instances we'll be talking about the same level of player, *more or less. (*MPJ, I would say, is a little better than average......but he's probably not good enough to place in the "Sub All-Star level" designation. So he has to settle for the "Role player/Average player" designation, because that's [more or less] the one that fits him best).

Semantically though, I actually prefer using the "Average player" designation. The reason being: there are players who are "Sub All-Star level" who nonetheless are "role" players on their teams; and there are replacement level players who nonetheless fill a "role" on teams, even contender level teams (look at Christian Braun).

"Role player", for me, is far too broad a term and can refer to a relatively wide array of talent levels.

"Average player", otoh, is a bit more specific and more closely pegs the type of player we're referring to within this exercise: guys who clearly above replacement level, and capable of being relevant contributors on GOOD teams, but not quite good enough for "Sub All-Star" classification.

Could a truly league average player be contributing 20+ mpg on a contender-level team (and in many instances be viewed as a positive contributor)? Yes, often that is the case.
I don't think this necessarily needs to be strictly a top 85-100 player in the league. To refer back to what I stated above ("On levels"): don't get hung on on league rank.

For example, is Bruce Brown a top 100 player in the league? I haven't done a list, but off the cuff I would say probably not. Could he still garner a "role player" or "average player" designation for this exercise? I would say yes.


And do NOT make the mistake of confusing "league average player" with "league median player".
"Average" does NOT refer to anyone who is at least the 200th-220th best player in the league (because there's >400 players in the league). Again, don't get hung up on league rank; just look at their level of play.

Looking at some of the team rosters today: how many of the players listed are actually "Average [Role] player level" or better?

Let's start with a bad team, the Detroit Pistons.
Their bbref page shows 22 NBA players that got on the court at least once. How many of those guys appear to be Average players [or better]? I would say about FOUR, maybe five if we were super-generous [that's 18.2-22.7% of their roster]. And arguably NONE of them as good as "Sub All-Star", fwiw, with the possible exception of Bogdanovic (certainly no one BETTER than that level). That's why they suck: their roster is full of replacement level [or worse] players, with no particularly good players to lift them up.
This is typical of bad teams. We could look at the SA Spurs, too: 23 players, probably only 4-5 who are Average or better [17.4-21.7%], if that.

Let's look at an average team, the Minnesota Timberwolves. 20 NBA players took the court for the TWolves this year. I would say only 7-8 [35-40%] of them merit being called "league average" or better.

Now let's look at the NBA Champion Denver Nuggets. They have 18 players listed on their bbref page, yet I would gauge only SIX of those are Average or better: Jokic, Murray, Gordon, MPJ, KCP, and Bruce Brown.
So that's just 33.3% of their roster. So how could they be so good? Because of those six you have [probably] one guy in the "Sub All-Star" level, another in the "All-Star level", and then one "All-Timer". Basically, they're a little top-heavy (sort of like the first 3-peat Bulls).
We could look at the team they faced in the finals. The Heat have 20 players took the court for them this year......maybe SEVEN of them [35%] were Average or better.

We could look at another GOOD team that is more "ensemble" in their make-up, the Memphis Grizzlies.
Here's a team that:
a) doesn't have anyone as high as a "Weak MVP level" (arguably not even an "All-NBA level" player, depending on how you feel about Ja Morant [especially with 21 missed games]); and
b) doesn't have a plethora of "All-Star level" players either (at least, depending on how bullish you are about Desmond Bane and JJJ).
And yet they were awfully good this year. How do they manage that without that sturdy top [like the Nuggets]?

Well, they have 19 players that took the court this year; and I would say probably 10-11 are average or better [52.6-57.9% of their roster].
They're a bit unusual in that regard, however. As shown above, MOST rosters are made up mostly of BELOW "Average" players. Typically <40% of a team (for bad teams, <25%) is actually Average or better.

That is: less than half of the players in the league are actually "league average" [or better]. It's closer to a third of the league, in fact.

So does that mean we're talking about the top 135-150 players in the league? I don't know; I don't care.
Don't get hung up on league rank. Just look at their level of play.


Re: "Average" players moving the needle
It's been argued that these level of players don't matter. They don't help teams win titles, they're just along for the ride, so why do they get ANY credit within CORP% analysis.

I think the whole CORP principle is hard for many people to conceptualize. They see that "2%" listed as the CORP value of an "Average [Role] player", and they think that this principle is saying adding an "Average" player to any/all team's rosters increases that team's chances of winning a title by 2%. That's NOT what it says.

Firstly [minor point], it's not strictly that we're "adding" this player to a roster. The "RP" of "CORP" refers to "Replacement [level] Player". We're talking about switching out a "Replacement Player" for an "Average [Role] Player" (or a "Sub All-Star level player" or "All-Star level", etc).

But more to the point, it's not a +2% change that results in ALL scenarios; not +2% to ALL teams. It's the AVERAGE lift they provide [above RP] across the whole spectrum of potential scenarios/circumstances they could find themselves in.

Let's look at the '23 Detroit Pistons again.......I think we'd all agree that----except in some 1,000,000,000:1 scenario where the team rosters of ALL other teams [except maybe the Spurs and/or Rockets] are decimated by plane crashes or some such----they had precisely 0% chance of winning the title this year.

If we were to switch out one of their replacement level guys with a league-average player, the CORP% principle is NOT saying that they suddenly would have a 2% chance of winning a title. No, their chance is still basically 0% in that particular circumstance. The "Average" player does not move the needle at all.
And for that matter, if you replaced an RP on that roster with a "GOAT-level" player (a '13 LeBron or '91 Jordan or whatever [you pick]), they wouldn't suddenly have a 33% chance of winning the title last year. The supporting cast around our "GOAT-level" player is still too weak. They would definitely then have an >0% chance of winning, but still substantially less than 33%.

otoh, you add that "GOAT-level" player to an already decent team, and he may rocket their odds up by 40-50% [or more].

If we look at the Golden State Warriors of the mid-late 10's as an example: prior to adding Durant, they were already the favorite in the previous two seasons........but they weren't a guarantee (Cleveland proved it in '16, and damn near did in '15 as well). Maybe, given they split the two years, we could say their championship odds were 50% in those years.

Then they added Kevin Durant.
Even though he was a not a "GOAT-level" player, nor an "All-Timer", nor even necessarily an "MVP level" guy in the years they had him, he nonetheless suddenly made the Warriors-as-champions a foregone conclusion.

There's a precipice or threshold or tipping point level of talent for teams: championship odds begin rising more quickly the closer you get to it, and if they actually get past it.........they are now so far ahead of everyone else in terms of talent, that they're no longer merely contenders; they're the heavy favourites. It would basically take a disastrous and untimely injury to even reduce their odds to merely competitive contenders again.

Think of it like a line graph, with "talent added [above RP]" along the horizontal [X] axis, and championship odds along the vertical [Y] axis. Initially the line moves to the right without rising at all, just riding along the X-axis. Then eventually it begins to rise, albeit a very slow/gradual slope. Further along it begins to curve upward a little more: relatively smallish additions in talent---which at the START of the curve didn't raise a team's championship odds AT ALL---now raise a team's chances by a few %.

Still further along on the curve, the slope is rising even faster.......until eventually it seems like the slope is very steep indeed, and even small incremental increases in talent result in notable increases in championship odds, rising quickly above 50%, and continuing the steep climb before eventually levelling out closer to 100%.

The further along a team is on that curve, the more relevant even small additions in talent become.
Let's look at a few potentially tangible examples from some high-profile playoff runs....

the '16 Cavaliers
I mean, they were on the ropes, dying. It took a Herculean achievement by LeBron, AND some good games/plays by guys like Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love to pull off that third straight victory.
What if we replaced Tristan Thompson ("Average [Role] player", or slightly better) with.......Jonas Jerebko? Do they still win the title? Maybe......but it's enough of a downgrade to put it in doubt.
Or what if JR Smith were replaced with.......Austin Rivers. It doesn't seem like a huge shift [and it's not]; could it be enough that they now lose the series (and thus the title), though? It could be.
Or what if we replaced Kevin Love ("Sub All-Star" or "All-Star") with......the late stages of David West [somewhere between "Average" and "Sub All-Star" in '16.....so basically the same shift in CORP% as going from Average to RP]? Do they still win the title?

the '93 Bulls
What if we replaced BJ Armstrong with a guard somewhere around Troy Hudson level?
Seeing as every single Bulls victory in the Finals was single-digits (the last one by a mere 1 pt, with a hypothetical game 7 played in Phoenix), do they still win with that switch? Or for that matter, do they still beat the Knicks in the ECF?

the '98 Bulls
Well, I'm of the opinion that the Bulls probably don't win this series even with the existing cast if the refs don't blow to shot-clock calls [in the Bulls' favour] in game 6 (with no replay allowed).
But suppose we again use a Troy Hudson-level player to replace Ron Harper? Do the Bulls still win that series?


Those are just a few examples of small changes that could have made all the difference: BJ Armstrong [or Ron Harper] instead of a Troy Hudson type; JR Smith instead of Austin Rivers; Tristan Thompson instead of Jerebko; Kevin Love instead of David West........any one of these could have been the difference between winning and losing the title for those teams.

When the total talent on the team is nearing a certain point, those small additions can begin to mean a lot. In some of those instances, depending on league environment [e.g. is there a monstrous super-team in our way], the addition of a single "Average" player [instead of a RP] can raise that team's chances by 3-6% [or more??] in THOSE types of circumstances.

In others, as mentioned above, it may raise their chances 0%.
Other scenarios, it will be somewhere in between.
Hence, the 2%.


Bottom line: they matter.
They don't matter near as much as star-level players, but they matter.

[Doctor MJ]

So one thing with Connie Hawkins in the ABA:

It's important to recognize that we never actually got to see a full season of him just doing his thing.

In '67-68, he averaged 23.7 PPG before the all-star break, and 30.5 after.
In '68-69, he averaged 33.4 PPG before the all-star break, and 19.9 after.

Basically in his first year on teams in the ABA and NBA, it takes a while before the team re-arranges itself around everything Hawkins can do, and in the 2nd ABA year, you have that injury that totally messes him up.

Another important thing in the comparison with Hawkins & Barry in the ABA:

Hawkins played on an absolute trainwreck of a team on the Pipers. Yeah he led them to a title, but Charlie Williams and Chico Vaughn were godawful chuckers who basically wanted to just hog the ball and shoot, and the coach didn't have control of the team, let alone a well-thought out system.

By contrast, Barry was on the Oakland Oaks, coached by Alex Hannum - arguably the best coach in the world at the time - and the team won the ABA title with room to spare even after Barry went down.

None of this is to say that Barry wasn't the best player on the Oaks, or that he wasn't an amazing player in general, but he was in a much better situation than Hawkins, and the general consensus in the ABA was that Hawkins was the more impressive player.

[penbeast0]

On the subject of “they won without him then were worse and lost in the first round with him”: Yes, after losing Doug Moe for the entire season, losing Warren Jabali for half the season and the playoffs, and also losing one of the two best coaches in the history of the sport at that point, they were in fact unable to recreate the same success with (a less comparatively productive) Barry, and rather than again defeating the team they beat in seven games the prior year, they instead lost in seven games to that same team which had since added the league MVP. How damning.

On the subject of “Connie’s team collapsed and Barry’s did not, ergo, Connie was better”: If we were sincerely committed to this logic, 1969 Warren Jabali was a much better player than Connie and the true superstar of that Oaks team anyway, and by a similar process, Bill Walton was much better than Kareem.

1977/78 Blazers: +15.7 (champions) with Walton, -4.8 (first round exit) without Walton
1977/78 Lakers: +6.7 with Kareem, -1.5 without Kareem

With further reflection, I do not even need to restrict myself to Walton.

1977/78 Pistons: +0.5 with Lanier, -17.4 without Lanier

Those thing weren't dispositive, just additional evidence to back up the conclusion I had reached. Other than anecdotal evidence, we look at the limited evidence we have, especially in the ABA where there isn't that much. As I said, Barry is the 2nd best player in the ABA, but to me, Hawkins had another level (defense and leadership) that Barry didn't. To be fair, I freely admit I don't like Barry's public personality and probably tend to look for negatives with him.

[AEnigma]

The question is not really whether Connie was better than Barry in 1969. I agree he was, although we can debate to what precise degree. The question is how valuable that qualifies him for a peak assessment when the peak occurs in a parallel league with the second-best talent being a prime but not peak Rick Barry and the third best talent being… a rookie/sophomore Mel Daniels? A league where Jabali and Moe and Jimmy Jones and Spencer Haywood were all top tier superstars to an extent they would never recapture as the league‘s talent rapidly improved or as they moved over to the NBA. Why would Connie be especially analogous to Bill Walton qualifying as a somewhat similar outlier in a fully merged league?

So one thing with Connie Hawkins in the ABA:

It's important to recognize that we never actually got to see a full season of him just doing his thing.

In '67-68, he averaged 23.7 PPG before the all-star break, and 30.5 after.
In '68-69, he averaged 33.4 PPG before the all-star break, and 19.9 after.

Basically in his first year on teams in the ABA and NBA, it takes a while before the team re-arranges itself around everything Hawkins can do

If you are glancing at 1968 splits then you should also see that the team played much faster after the all-star break. Okay, that can be an element of working themselves around Connie, but they went from outscoring teams by 2.33% to outscoring them by 3.48%. An appreciable change, yes, but not in line with what the raw numbers would suggest from Connie.

Another important thing in the comparison with Hawkins & Barry in the ABA:

Hawkins played on an absolute trainwreck of a team on the Pipers. Yeah he led them to a title, but Charlie Williams and Chico Vaughn were godawful chuckers who basically wanted to just hog the ball and shoot, and the coach didn't have control of the team, let alone a well-thought out system.

It was the 1968 ABA lol. Barry obviously had the better team by a distance (given that they were still demonstrably the league’s best team even without him), but in the Finals, Charlie Williams arguably outplayed Jimmy Jones and outperformed Connie himself in the deciding Game 7. No, they were not talented, but that is kind-of the point: no one really was in 1968, and 1969 only added so much. That Jimmy Jones, Doug Moe, and Larry Brown trio captained the overall best team in the league, then the latter two went to the Oaks and won a comfortable title with Warren Jabali. I generally like these players, and Jabali in particular, but we are a ways off of Gilmore, Erving, and Gervin here.

[70sFan]

Curious on your Walton rating, I have him as 1 MVP, 1 All-NBA (I can't give MVP to a player who couldn't stay healthy for a quarter of a season AND missed the playoffs), 1 All-Star (SMOY reserve year). I loved the Portland team game but don't see it as a GOAT level peak. I'm assuming that with hindsight, we count playoffs toward awards like the RPOY project?

Bill Walton:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 1 (1977)
MVP: 0
Weak MVP: 1 (1978)
All-nba: 0
All-star: 1 (1976)
Sub all-star: 1 (1985)
Role player: 4 (1975, 1983, 1984, 1986)

I didn't give Walton all-star year for 1986 because he didn't play enough minutes.

Connie Hawkins, 1MVP, 1 All-NBA, 1 All-ABA (very arguable, half a year rather than 3/4 but similar to Walton only even more MVP level than Walton's 78 when healthy), 2 All-Star . . . should be higher than Walton if we are ignoring league strengths here.

I thought about him, but he's not the real threat for most of the players on my list. I included Walton because he's a popular figure. I also included Doncic to see how far he is... and he's very far from top 70. My list doesn't say that Luka is 88th player or Walton is 87th player, Luka wouldn't make my top 100. I just don't think it's constructive to go further with that methodology, because we get less and less separation between players and it's tough to compare two all-star level players with similar longevity this way.

Walton played almost as many minutes in 86 versus 85, and was good enough to take minutes away from Parish.

Walton played 5 mpg less in 1986 than 1985, that's a lot for per game production. If anything, maybe I should downgrade his 1985 year.

[DQuinn1575]

I will mention that I don't value BPM at all for what it's worth. I don't see 100 players better than KCP this year.

use whatever valuation system you want, that's not the point.
And not arguing where KCP ranks,
Trying to get the framework
You have

All-nba level - which should be up to about the 15th players
All-star level - which should be up to about 24 players
Sub all-star - - assuming that would be about guys 25-40 or so
Role player - I guessed you would have about the next 85 guys - The Athletic (Seth Partnow) and the Ringer each do a Top 125, maybe you have less.

My point is you have DEN with 2 or 3 of these 85 guys, so the odds of these guys being on a championship team aren't any better than guys rated 126-250.

I have a few thoughts on this topic, for whatever it's worth......

On levels
I don't think one should railroad himself into a certain number of players of the league for each designation, particularly when doing this exercise across eras (from an 8-team league, to a 30-team league). For example, let's look at the "All-Star level" designation:
Do we really believe the consenus 25th or 26th or even the 30th-best player in the league TODAY is worse than the 24th-best player in the league of 1963 (even relative to the league environment of their time)?


I surely hope not.

Nor should one get hung up on actual designations (i.e. Did he make the All-Star squad?). imo, "All-Star level" merely refers to a level of play that could "reasonably be expected to make the All-Star team in some [most?] years"...........doesn't mean they HAVE to make the team, or that they must be placed in a lower tier/level if they did NOT [in actuality] make the All-Star squad.
Note that Jimmy frickin' Butler did NOT make the All-Star team this year.
Note that Kevin Duckworth DID make the All-Star squad in both '89 and '91, that Michael Adams made it in '92, and BJ Armstrong made it in '94 (meanwhile Reggie Miller was snubbed ALL FOUR of those years, btw, and Kevin Johnson was snubbed in TWO of the FOUR).

imo, just look at their level of play and ask yourself: Would I be surprised (or perhaps even angry/disdainful) if they were selected to an All-Star squad based on that level of play?
If the answer is "No", then that's "All-Star level".

Forget about his league rank.


Re: semantics
"Role player", "average player"........po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to (often, at least). What I mean is: in many instances we'll be talking about the same level of player, *more or less. (*MPJ, I would say, is a little better than average......but he's probably not good enough to place in the "Sub All-Star level" designation. So he has to settle for the "Role player/Average player" designation, because that's [more or less] the one that fits him best).

Semantically though, I actually prefer using the "Average player" designation. The reason being: there are players who are "Sub All-Star level" who nonetheless are "role" players on their teams; and there are replacement level players who nonetheless fill a "role" on teams, even contender level teams (look at Christian Braun).

"Role player", for me, is far too broad a term and can refer to a relatively wide array of talent levels.

"Average player", otoh, is a bit more specific and more closely pegs the type of player we're referring to within this exercise: guys who clearly above replacement level, and capable of being relevant contributors on GOOD teams, but not quite good enough for "Sub All-Star" classification.

Could a truly league average player be contributing 20+ mpg on a contender-level team (and in many instances be viewed as a positive contributor)? Yes, often that is the case.
I don't think this necessarily needs to be strictly a top 85-100 player in the league. To refer back to what I stated above ("On levels"): don't get hung on on league rank.

For example, is Bruce Brown a top 100 player in the league? I haven't done a list, but off the cuff I would say probably not. Could he still garner a "role player" or "average player" designation for this exercise? I would say yes.


And do NOT make the mistake of confusing "league average player" with "league median player".
"Average" does NOT refer to anyone who is at least the 200th-220th best player in the league (because there's >400 players in the league). Again, don't get hung up on league rank; just look at their level of play.

Looking at some of the team rosters today: how many of the players listed are actually "Average [Role] player level" or better?

Let's start with a bad team, the Detroit Pistons.
Their bbref page shows 22 NBA players that got on the court at least once. How many of those guys appear to be Average players [or better]? I would say about FOUR, maybe five if we were super-generous [that's 18.2-22.7% of their roster]. And arguably NONE of them as good as "Sub All-Star", fwiw, with the possible exception of Bogdanovic (certainly no one BETTER than that level). That's why they suck: their roster is full of replacement level [or worse] players, with no particularly good players to lift them up.
This is typical of bad teams. We could look at the SA Spurs, too: 23 players, probably only 4-5 who are Average or better [17.4-21.7%], if that.

Let's look at an average team, the Minnesota Timberwolves. 20 NBA players took the court for the TWolves this year. I would say only 7-8 [35-40%] of them merit being called "league average" or better.

Now let's look at the NBA Champion Denver Nuggets. They have 18 players listed on their bbref page, yet I would gauge only SIX of those are Average or better: Jokic, Murray, Gordon, MPJ, KCP, and Bruce Brown.
So that's just 33.3% of their roster. So how could they be so good? Because of those six you have [probably] one guy in the "Sub All-Star" level, another in the "All-Star level", and then one "All-Timer". Basically, they're a little top-heavy (sort of like the first 3-peat Bulls).
We could look at the team they faced in the finals. The Heat have 20 players took the court for them this year......maybe SEVEN of them [35%] were Average or better.

We could look at another GOOD team that is more "ensemble" in their make-up, the Memphis Grizzlies.
Here's a team that:
a) doesn't have anyone as high as a "Weak MVP level" (arguably not even an "All-NBA level" player, depending on how you feel about Ja Morant [especially with 21 missed games]); and
b) doesn't have a plethora of "All-Star level" players either (at least, depending on how bullish you are about Desmond Bane and JJJ).
And yet they were awfully good this year. How do they manage that without that sturdy top [like the Nuggets]?

Well, they have 19 players that took the court this year; and I would say probably 10-11 are average or better [52.6-57.9% of their roster].
They're a bit unusual in that regard, however. As shown above, MOST rosters are made up mostly of BELOW "Average" players. Typically <40% of a team (for bad teams, <25%) is actually Average or better.

That is: less than half of the players in the league are actually "league average" [or better]. It's closer to a third of the league, in fact.

So does that mean we're talking about the top 135-150 players in the league? I don't know; I don't care.
Don't get hung up on league rank. Just look at their level of play.


Re: "Average" players moving the needle
It's been argued that these level of players don't matter. They don't help teams win titles, they're just along for the ride, so why do they get ANY credit within CORP% analysis.

I think the whole CORP principle is hard for many people to conceptualize. They see that "2%" listed as the CORP value of an "Average [Role] player", and they think that this principle is saying adding an "Average" player to any/all team's rosters increases that team's chances of winning a title by 2%. That's NOT what it says.

Firstly [minor point], it's not strictly that we're "adding" this player to a roster. The "RP" of "CORP" refers to "Replacement [level] Player". We're talking about switching out a "Replacement Player" for an "Average [Role] Player" (or a "Sub All-Star level player" or "All-Star level", etc).

But more to the point, it's not a +2% change that results in ALL scenarios; not +2% to ALL teams. It's the AVERAGE lift they provide [above RP] across the whole spectrum of potential scenarios/circumstances they could find themselves in.

Let's look at the '23 Detroit Pistons again.......I think we'd all agree that----except in some 1,000,000,000:1 scenario where the team rosters of ALL other teams [except maybe the Spurs and/or Rockets] are decimated by plane crashes or some such----they had precisely 0% chance of winning the title this year.

If we were to switch out one of their replacement level guys with a league-average player, the CORP% principle is NOT saying that they suddenly would have a 2% chance of winning a title. No, their chance is still basically 0% in that particular circumstance. The "Average" player does not move the needle at all.
And for that matter, if you replaced an RP on that roster with a "GOAT-level" player (a '13 LeBron or '91 Jordan or whatever [you pick]), they wouldn't suddenly have a 33% chance of winning the title last year. The supporting cast around our "GOAT-level" player is still too weak. They would definitely then have an >0% chance of winning, but still substantially less than 33%.

otoh, you add that "GOAT-level" player to an already decent team, and he may rocket their odds up by 40-50% [or more].

If we look at the Golden State Warriors of the mid-late 10's as an example: prior to adding Durant, they were already the favorite in the previous two seasons........but they weren't a guarantee (Cleveland proved it in '16, and damn near did in '15 as well). Maybe, given they split the two years, we could say their championship odds were 50% in those years.

Then they added Kevin Durant.
Even though he was a not a "GOAT-level" player, nor an "All-Timer", nor even necessarily an "MVP level" guy in the years they had him, he nonetheless suddenly made the Warriors-as-champions a foregone conclusion.

There's a precipice or threshold or tipping point level of talent for teams: championship odds begin rising more quickly the closer you get to it, and if they actually get past it.........they are now so far ahead of everyone else in terms of talent, that they're no longer merely contenders; they're the heavy favourites. It would basically take a disastrous and untimely injury to even reduce their odds to merely competitive contenders again.

Think of it like a line graph, with "talent added [above RP]" along the horizontal [X] axis, and championship odds along the vertical [Y] axis. Initially the line moves to the right without rising at all, just riding along the X-axis. Then eventually it begins to rise, albeit a very slow/gradual slope. Further along it begins to curve upward a little more: relatively smallish additions in talent---which at the START of the curve didn't raise a team's championship odds AT ALL---now raise a team's chances by a few %.

Still further along on the curve, the slope is rising even faster.......until eventually it seems like the slope is very steep indeed, and even small incremental increases in talent result in notable increases in championship odds, rising quickly above 50%, and continuing the steep climb before eventually levelling out closer to 100%.

The further along a team is on that curve, the more relevant even small additions in talent become.
Let's look at a few potentially tangible examples from some high-profile playoff runs....

the '16 Cavaliers
I mean, they were on the ropes, dying. It took a Herculean achievement by LeBron, AND some good games/plays by guys like Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love to pull off that third straight victory.
What if we replaced Tristan Thompson ("Average [Role] player", or slightly better) with.......Jonas Jerebko? Do they still win the title? Maybe......but it's enough of a downgrade to put it in doubt.
Or what if JR Smith were replaced with.......Austin Rivers. It doesn't seem like a huge shift [and it's not]; could it be enough that they now lose the series (and thus the title), though? It could be.
Or what if we replaced Kevin Love ("Sub All-Star" or just slightly better) with......Jared Sullinger [merely an "Average" or slightly better player in '16.....so basically the same shift in CORP% as going from Average to RP]? Do they still win the title?

the '93 Bulls
What if we replaced BJ Armstrong with a guard somewhere around Troy Hudson level?
Seeing as every single Bulls victory in the Finals was single-digits (the last one by a mere 1 pt, with a hypothetical game 7 played in Phoenix), do they still win with that switch? Or for that matter, do they still beat the Knicks in the ECF?

the '98 Bulls
Well, I'm of the opinion that the Bulls probably don't win this series even with the existing cast if the refs don't blow to shot-clock calls [in the Bulls' favour] in game 6 (with no replay allowed).
But suppose we again use a Troy Hudson-level player to replace Ron Harper? Do the Bulls still win that series?


Those are just a few examples of small changes that could have made all the difference: BJ Armstrong [or Ron Harper] instead of a Troy Hudson type; JR Smith instead of Austin Rivers; Tristan Thompson instead of Jerebko; Kevin Love instead of Jared Sullinger........any one of these could have been the difference between winning and losing the title for those teams.

When the total talent on the team is nearing a certain point, those small additions can begin to mean a lot. In some of those instances, depending on league environment [e.g. is there a monstrous super-team in our way], the addition of a single "Average" player [instead of a RP] can raise that team's chances by 3-6% [or more??] in THOSE types of circumstances.

In others, as mentioned above, it may raise their chances 0%.
Other scenarios, it will be somewhere in between.
Hence, the 2%.


Bottom line: they matter.
They don't matter near as much as star-level players, but they matter.

I said about to approximate, there is no exact numbers on any of these, but you need some approximate numbers to do math.
All-Star might be 23 or 29, but calling it an all-star (or all-nba) gives you ranges.

Yes, Tristan Thompson and B.J. Armstrong help a team win a title.

My point is that they are still at a somewhat non scarce level. There are 60-90 or so Thompsons, Armstrongs etc.in the league. Virtually every team has a couple.

In 1993 only one guy in that range was a champion, so your chances of winning in 1993 being that level of player was worse than
the odds of a replacement player. Trying not to look at one year. so tried to do it for 10 years.

I tried to show it in taking everyone at theory helping a team be better than average, without being a star (bpm 0.0-1,9)
Those guys on average were on a champ team 3.6% of the team, a random slightly above replacement player would be 3.3%/


Being as good as B.J. doesnt mean you have a better chance to win a title than being as good as Jud Buechler. The key to winning NBA titles is really to have guys who are better than that.

[70sFan]

Added players:

69 Tracy McGrady
70 Alex English
71 Hal Greer
73 Tony Parker
76 Dominique Wilkins
77 Bobby Jones
78 Damian Lillard
81 Sam Jones
84 Kevin Johnson
85 Bob McAdoo
87 Bill Walton

Full list (Manu and Cowens went up due to the re-evaluation of their peaks):

Spoiler:

1 LeBron James 381,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 354,0
3 Bill Russell 310,5
4 Michael Jordan 288,0
5 Tim Duncan 283,0
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 278,5
7 Wilt Chamberlain 266,5
8 Shaquille O'Neal 266,0
9 Kevin Garnett 247,5
10 Magic Johnson 213,0
11 Kobe Bryant 211,5
12 Oscar Robertson 208,0
13 Karl Malone 200,0
14 Stephen Curry 199,0
15 Dirk Nowitzki 198,5
16 Julius Erving 198,0
17 Jerry West 196,0
18 Larry Bird 196,0
19 Chris Paul 192,5
20 David Robinson 191,5
21 Kevin Durant 188,0
22 Moses Malone 178,0
23 Charles Barkley 171,0
24 Steve Nash 163,5
25 Dwyane Wade 160,0
26 James Harden 152,5
27 John Stockton 146,0
28 Patrick Ewing 144,5
29 Artis Gilmore 140,5
30 John Havlicek 139,5
31 Reggie Miller 137,5
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 135,5
33 George Mikan 134,5
34 Jason Kidd 131,0
35 Scottie Pippen 128,0
36 Rick Barry 127,0
37 Anthony Davis 122,5
38 Nikola Jokic 122,5
39 Bob Pettit 121,0
40 Paul Pierce 121,0
41 George Gervin 118,5
42 Ray Allen 117,0
43 Dolph Schayes 115,5
44 Nate Thurmond 113,5
45 Walt Frazier 111,5
46 Dikembe Mutombo 111,5
47 Elgin Baylor 111,5
48 Bob Lanier 110,5
49 Russell Westbrook 108,0
50 Dwight Howard 107,0
51 Pau Gasol 106,5
52 Clyde Drexler 104,5
53 Jimmy Butler 104,0
54 Gary Payton 104,0
55 Kawhi Leonard 102,5
56 Rasheed Wallace 101,0
57 Wes Unseld 100,5
58 Kevin McHale 100,0
59 Paul Arizin 98,5
60 Elvin Hayes 97,5
61 Robert Parish 97,0
62 Bob Cousy 94,0
63 Alonzo Mourning 90,0
64 Isiah Thomas 89,5
65 Adrian Dantley 89,5
66 Manu Ginobili 89,5
67 Dave Cowens 89,0
68 Allen Iverson 88,5
69 Tracy McGrady 87,5
70 Alex English 87,0
71 Hal Greer 87,0
72 Draymond Green 84,5
73 Tony Parker 83,0
74 Chauncey Billups 82,0
75 Rudy Gobert 81,5
76 Dominique Wilkins 81,0
77 Bobby Jones 80,0
78 Damian Lillard 80,0
79 Vince Carter 78,5
80 Dennis Rodman 77,5
81 Sam Jones 77,0
82 Willis Reed 75,5
83 Ben Wallace 75,0
84 Kevin Johnson 75,0
85 Bob McAdoo 71,5
86 Dennis Rodman 66,5
87 Bill Walton 65,0
88 Luka Doncic 57,5

I think that's all, at this point this methodology doesn't give us clear picture anymore. If you think I missed anyone else, feel free to tell me but I don't think I did.

Since they are contemporaries, I'd like to see your year by year for Bird and Magic, and then Michael and Hakeem,
Thanks

Larry Bird:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1984, 1986, 1987)
MVP: 2 (1985, 1988)
Weak MVP: 3 (1981-83)
All-nba: 2 (1980, 1990)
All-star: 2 (1991, 1992)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 0


Magic Johnson:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1987, 1988, 1990)
MVP: 4 (1985, 1986, 1989, 1991)
Weak MVP: 2 (1983, 1984)
All-nba: 1 (1982)
All-star: 1 (1980)
Sub all-star: 2 (1981, 1996)
Role player


Michael Jordan:

GOAT-level: 3 (1989-91)
All-time: 4 (1988, 1992, 1993, 1996)
MVP: 2 (1997, 1998)
Weak MVP: 1 (1987)
All-nba: 1 (1985)
All-star: 1 (1995)
Sub all-star: 3 (1986, 2002, 2003)
Role player: 0


Hakeem Olajuwon:

GOAT-level: 2 (1993, 1994)
All-time: 3 (1989, 1990, 1995)
MVP: 2 (1987, 1988)
Weak MVP: 4 (1986, 1992, 1996, 1997)
All-nba: 2 (1985, 1991)
All-star: 2 (1998, 1999)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 1 (2001)

[70sFan]

I will mention that I don't value BPM at all for what it's worth. I don't see 100 players better than KCP this year.

use whatever valuation system you want, that's not the point.
And not arguing where KCP ranks,
Trying to get the framework
You have

All-nba level - which should be up to about the 15th players
All-star level - which should be up to about 24 players
Sub all-star - - assuming that would be about guys 25-40 or so
Role player - I guessed you would have about the next 85 guys - The Athletic (Seth Partnow) and the Ringer each do a Top 125, maybe you have less.

My point is you have DEN with 2 or 3 of these 85 guys, so the odds of these guys being on a championship team aren't any better than guys rated 126-250.

I have a few thoughts on this topic, for whatever it's worth......

On levels
I don't think one should railroad himself into a certain number of players of the league for each designation, particularly when doing this exercise across eras (from an 8-team league, to a 30-team league). For example, let's look at the "All-Star level" designation:
Do we really believe the consenus 25th or 26th or even the 30th-best player in the league TODAY is worse than the 24th-best player in the league of 1963 (even relative to the league environment of their time)?

I surely hope not.

Nor should one get hung up on actual designations (i.e. Did he make the All-Star squad?). imo, "All-Star level" merely refers to a level of play that could "reasonably be expected to make the All-Star team in some [most?] years"...........doesn't mean they HAVE to make the team, or that they must be placed in a lower tier/level if they did NOT [in actuality] make the All-Star squad.
Note that Jimmy frickin' Butler did NOT make the All-Star team this year.
Note that Kevin Duckworth DID make the All-Star squad in both '89 and '91, that Michael Adams made it in '92, and BJ Armstrong made it in '94 (meanwhile Reggie Miller was snubbed ALL FOUR of those years, btw, and Kevin Johnson was snubbed in TWO of the FOUR).

imo, just look at their level of play and ask yourself: Would I be surprised (or perhaps even angry/disdainful) if they were selected to an All-Star squad based on that level of play?
If the answer is "No", then that's "All-Star level".

Forget about his league rank.


Re: semantics
"Role player", "average player"........po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to (often, at least). What I mean is: in many instances we'll be talking about the same level of player, *more or less. (*MPJ, I would say, is a little better than average......but he's probably not good enough to place in the "Sub All-Star level" designation. So he has to settle for the "Role player/Average player" designation, because that's [more or less] the one that fits him best).

Semantically though, I actually prefer using the "Average player" designation. The reason being: there are players who are "Sub All-Star level" who nonetheless are "role" players on their teams; and there are replacement level players who nonetheless fill a "role" on teams, even contender level teams (look at Christian Braun).

"Role player", for me, is far too broad a term and can refer to a relatively wide array of talent levels.

"Average player", otoh, is a bit more specific and more closely pegs the type of player we're referring to within this exercise: guys who clearly above replacement level, and capable of being relevant contributors on GOOD teams, but not quite good enough for "Sub All-Star" classification.

Could a truly league average player be contributing 20+ mpg on a contender-level team (and in many instances be viewed as a positive contributor)? Yes, often that is the case.
I don't think this necessarily needs to be strictly a top 85-100 player in the league. To refer back to what I stated above ("On levels"): don't get hung on on league rank.

For example, is Bruce Brown a top 100 player in the league? I haven't done a list, but off the cuff I would say probably not. Could he still garner a "role player" or "average player" designation for this exercise? I would say yes.


And do NOT make the mistake of confusing "league average player" with "league median player".
"Average" does NOT refer to anyone who is at least the 200th-220th best player in the league (because there's >400 players in the league). Again, don't get hung up on league rank; just look at their level of play.

Looking at some of the team rosters today: how many of the players listed are actually "Average [Role] player level" or better?

Let's start with a bad team, the Detroit Pistons.
Their bbref page shows 22 NBA players that got on the court at least once. How many of those guys appear to be Average players [or better]? I would say about FOUR, maybe five if we were super-generous [that's 18.2-22.7% of their roster]. And arguably NONE of them as good as "Sub All-Star", fwiw, with the possible exception of Bogdanovic (certainly no one BETTER than that level). That's why they suck: their roster is full of replacement level [or worse] players, with no particularly good players to lift them up.
This is typical of bad teams. We could look at the SA Spurs, too: 23 players, probably only 4-5 who are Average or better [17.4-21.7%], if that.

Let's look at an average team, the Minnesota Timberwolves. 20 NBA players took the court for the TWolves this year. I would say only 7-8 [35-40%] of them merit being called "league average" or better.

Now let's look at the NBA Champion Denver Nuggets. They have 18 players listed on their bbref page, yet I would gauge only SIX of those are Average or better: Jokic, Murray, Gordon, MPJ, KCP, and Bruce Brown.
So that's just 33.3% of their roster. So how could they be so good? Because of those six you have [probably] one guy in the "Sub All-Star" level, another in the "All-Star level", and then one "All-Timer". Basically, they're a little top-heavy (sort of like the first 3-peat Bulls).
We could look at the team they faced in the finals. The Heat have 20 players took the court for them this year......maybe SEVEN of them [35%] were Average or better.

We could look at another GOOD team that is more "ensemble" in their make-up, the Memphis Grizzlies.
Here's a team that:
a) doesn't have anyone as high as a "Weak MVP level" (arguably not even an "All-NBA level" player, depending on how you feel about Ja Morant [especially with 21 missed games]); and
b) doesn't have a plethora of "All-Star level" players either (at least, depending on how bullish you are about Desmond Bane and JJJ).
And yet they were awfully good this year. How do they manage that without that sturdy top [like the Nuggets]?

Well, they have 19 players that took the court this year; and I would say probably 10-11 are average or better [52.6-57.9% of their roster].
They're a bit unusual in that regard, however. As shown above, MOST rosters are made up mostly of BELOW "Average" players. Typically <40% of a team (for bad teams, <25%) is actually Average or better.

That is: less than half of the players in the league are actually "league average" [or better]. It's closer to a third of the league, in fact.

So does that mean we're talking about the top 135-150 players in the league? I don't know; I don't care.
Don't get hung up on league rank. Just look at their level of play.


Re: "Average" players moving the needle
It's been argued that these level of players don't matter. They don't help teams win titles, they're just along for the ride, so why do they get ANY credit within CORP% analysis.

I think the whole CORP principle is hard for many people to conceptualize. They see that "2%" listed as the CORP value of an "Average [Role] player", and they think that this principle is saying adding an "Average" player to any/all team's rosters increases that team's chances of winning a title by 2%. That's NOT what it says.

Firstly [minor point], it's not strictly that we're "adding" this player to a roster. The "RP" of "CORP" refers to "Replacement [level] Player". We're talking about switching out a "Replacement Player" for an "Average [Role] Player" (or a "Sub All-Star level player" or "All-Star level", etc).

But more to the point, it's not a +2% change that results in ALL scenarios; not +2% to ALL teams. It's the AVERAGE lift they provide [above RP] across the whole spectrum of potential scenarios/circumstances they could find themselves in.

Let's look at the '23 Detroit Pistons again.......I think we'd all agree that----except in some 1,000,000,000:1 scenario where the team rosters of ALL other teams [except maybe the Spurs and/or Rockets] are decimated by plane crashes or some such----they had precisely 0% chance of winning the title this year.

If we were to switch out one of their replacement level guys with a league-average player, the CORP% principle is NOT saying that they suddenly would have a 2% chance of winning a title. No, their chance is still basically 0% in that particular circumstance. The "Average" player does not move the needle at all.
And for that matter, if you replaced an RP on that roster with a "GOAT-level" player (a '13 LeBron or '91 Jordan or whatever [you pick]), they wouldn't suddenly have a 33% chance of winning the title last year. The supporting cast around our "GOAT-level" player is still too weak. They would definitely then have an >0% chance of winning, but still substantially less than 33%.

otoh, you add that "GOAT-level" player to an already decent team, and he may rocket their odds up by 40-50% [or more].

If we look at the Golden State Warriors of the mid-late 10's as an example: prior to adding Durant, they were already the favorite in the previous two seasons........but they weren't a guarantee (Cleveland proved it in '16, and damn near did in '15 as well). Maybe, given they split the two years, we could say their championship odds were 50% in those years.

Then they added Kevin Durant.
Even though he was a not a "GOAT-level" player, nor an "All-Timer", nor even necessarily an "MVP level" guy in the years they had him, he nonetheless suddenly made the Warriors-as-champions a foregone conclusion.

There's a precipice or threshold or tipping point level of talent for teams: championship odds begin rising more quickly the closer you get to it, and if they actually get past it.........they are now so far ahead of everyone else in terms of talent, that they're no longer merely contenders; they're the heavy favourites. It would basically take a disastrous and untimely injury to even reduce their odds to merely competitive contenders again.

Think of it like a line graph, with "talent added [above RP]" along the horizontal [X] axis, and championship odds along the vertical [Y] axis. Initially the line moves to the right without rising at all, just riding along the X-axis. Then eventually it begins to rise, albeit a very slow/gradual slope. Further along it begins to curve upward a little more: relatively smallish additions in talent---which at the START of the curve didn't raise a team's championship odds AT ALL---now raise a team's chances by a few %.

Still further along on the curve, the slope is rising even faster.......until eventually it seems like the slope is very steep indeed, and even small incremental increases in talent result in notable increases in championship odds, rising quickly above 50%, and continuing the steep climb before eventually levelling out closer to 100%.

The further along a team is on that curve, the more relevant even small additions in talent become.
Let's look at a few potentially tangible examples from some high-profile playoff runs....

the '16 Cavaliers
I mean, they were on the ropes, dying. It took a Herculean achievement by LeBron, AND some good games/plays by guys like Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love to pull off that third straight victory.
What if we replaced Tristan Thompson ("Average [Role] player", or slightly better) with.......Jonas Jerebko? Do they still win the title? Maybe......but it's enough of a downgrade to put it in doubt.
Or what if JR Smith were replaced with.......Austin Rivers. It doesn't seem like a huge shift [and it's not]; could it be enough that they now lose the series (and thus the title), though? It could be.
Or what if we replaced Kevin Love ("Sub All-Star" or "All-Star") with......the late stages of David West [somewhere between "Average" and "Sub All-Star" in '16.....so basically the same shift in CORP% as going from Average to RP]? Do they still win the title?

the '93 Bulls
What if we replaced BJ Armstrong with a guard somewhere around Troy Hudson level?
Seeing as every single Bulls victory in the Finals was single-digits (the last one by a mere 1 pt, with a hypothetical game 7 played in Phoenix), do they still win with that switch? Or for that matter, do they still beat the Knicks in the ECF?

the '98 Bulls
Well, I'm of the opinion that the Bulls probably don't win this series even with the existing cast if the refs don't blow to shot-clock calls [in the Bulls' favour] in game 6 (with no replay allowed).
But suppose we again use a Troy Hudson-level player to replace Ron Harper? Do the Bulls still win that series?


Those are just a few examples of small changes that could have made all the difference: BJ Armstrong [or Ron Harper] instead of a Troy Hudson type; JR Smith instead of Austin Rivers; Tristan Thompson instead of Jerebko; Kevin Love instead of David West........any one of these could have been the difference between winning and losing the title for those teams.

When the total talent on the team is nearing a certain point, those small additions can begin to mean a lot. In some of those instances, depending on league environment [e.g. is there a monstrous super-team in our way], the addition of a single "Average" player [instead of a RP] can raise that team's chances by 3-6% [or more??] in THOSE types of circumstances.

In others, as mentioned above, it may raise their chances 0%.
Other scenarios, it will be somewhere in between.
Hence, the 2%.


Bottom line: they matter.
They don't matter near as much as star-level players, but they matter.

Thank you so much for this post, I couldn't have explained it any better. I have to save it in case of future discussions.

[DQuinn1575]

Added players:

69 Tracy McGrady
70 Alex English
71 Hal Greer
73 Tony Parker
76 Dominique Wilkins
77 Bobby Jones
78 Damian Lillard
81 Sam Jones
84 Kevin Johnson
85 Bob McAdoo
87 Bill Walton

Full list (Manu and Cowens went up due to the re-evaluation of their peaks):

Spoiler:

1 LeBron James 381,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 354,0
3 Bill Russell 310,5
4 Michael Jordan 288,0
5 Tim Duncan 283,0
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 278,5
7 Wilt Chamberlain 266,5
8 Shaquille O'Neal 266,0
9 Kevin Garnett 247,5
10 Magic Johnson 213,0
11 Kobe Bryant 211,5
12 Oscar Robertson 208,0
13 Karl Malone 200,0
14 Stephen Curry 199,0
15 Dirk Nowitzki 198,5
16 Julius Erving 198,0
17 Jerry West 196,0
18 Larry Bird 196,0
19 Chris Paul 192,5
20 David Robinson 191,5
21 Kevin Durant 188,0
22 Moses Malone 178,0
23 Charles Barkley 171,0
24 Steve Nash 163,5
25 Dwyane Wade 160,0
26 James Harden 152,5
27 John Stockton 146,0
28 Patrick Ewing 144,5
29 Artis Gilmore 140,5
30 John Havlicek 139,5
31 Reggie Miller 137,5
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 135,5
33 George Mikan 134,5
34 Jason Kidd 131,0
35 Scottie Pippen 128,0
36 Rick Barry 127,0
37 Anthony Davis 122,5
38 Nikola Jokic 122,5
39 Bob Pettit 121,0
40 Paul Pierce 121,0
41 George Gervin 118,5
42 Ray Allen 117,0
43 Dolph Schayes 115,5
44 Nate Thurmond 113,5
45 Walt Frazier 111,5
46 Dikembe Mutombo 111,5
47 Elgin Baylor 111,5
48 Bob Lanier 110,5
49 Russell Westbrook 108,0
50 Dwight Howard 107,0
51 Pau Gasol 106,5
52 Clyde Drexler 104,5
53 Jimmy Butler 104,0
54 Gary Payton 104,0
55 Kawhi Leonard 102,5
56 Rasheed Wallace 101,0
57 Wes Unseld 100,5
58 Kevin McHale 100,0
59 Paul Arizin 98,5
60 Elvin Hayes 97,5
61 Robert Parish 97,0
62 Bob Cousy 94,0
63 Alonzo Mourning 90,0
64 Isiah Thomas 89,5
65 Adrian Dantley 89,5
66 Manu Ginobili 89,5
67 Dave Cowens 89,0
68 Allen Iverson 88,5
69 Tracy McGrady 87,5
70 Alex English 87,0
71 Hal Greer 87,0
72 Draymond Green 84,5
73 Tony Parker 83,0
74 Chauncey Billups 82,0
75 Rudy Gobert 81,5
76 Dominique Wilkins 81,0
77 Bobby Jones 80,0
78 Damian Lillard 80,0
79 Vince Carter 78,5
80 Dennis Rodman 77,5
81 Sam Jones 77,0
82 Willis Reed 75,5
83 Ben Wallace 75,0
84 Kevin Johnson 75,0
85 Bob McAdoo 71,5
86 Dennis Rodman 66,5
87 Bill Walton 65,0
88 Luka Doncic 57,5

I think that's all, at this point this methodology doesn't give us clear picture anymore. If you think I missed anyone else, feel free to tell me but I don't think I did.

Since they are contemporaries, I'd like to see your year by year for Bird and Magic, and then Michael and Hakeem,
Thanks

Larry Bird:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1984, 1986, 1987)
MVP: 2 (1985, 1988)
Weak MVP: 3 (1981-83)
All-nba: 2 (1980, 1990)
All-star: 2 (1991, 1992)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 0


Magic Johnson:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1987, 1988, 1990)
MVP: 4 (1985, 1986, 1989, 1991)
Weak MVP: 2 (1983, 1984)
All-nba: 1 (1982)
All-star: 1 (1980)
Sub all-star: 2 (1981, 1996)
Role player


Michael Jordan:

GOAT-level: 3 (1989-91)
All-time: 4 (1988, 1992, 1993, 1996)
MVP: 2 (1997, 1998)
Weak MVP: 1 (1987)
All-nba: 1 (1985)
All-star: 1 (1995)
Sub all-star: 3 (1986, 2002, 2003)
Role player: 0


Hakeem Olajuwon:

GOAT-level: 2 (1993, 1994)
All-time: 3 (1989, 1990, 1995)
MVP: 2 (1987, 1988)
Weak MVP: 4 (1986, 1992, 1996, 1997)
All-nba: 2 (1985, 1991)
All-star: 2 (1998, 1999)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 1 (2001)

Thanks, Bird Magic always interests me in that Bird came in better, but Magic winds up catching him, and "suffers" by not doing too much to help his case after 1988. Lifelong Bird fan, getting to the point to say maybe Magic did have the better career.

You do have Hakeem over Jordan in both 87 and 93. Just think that scoring 37 a game on better than league average shooting is better than a weak MVP. Watching it in real time, I thought MJ was def at Larry/Magic level in 87.

And in 86, Jordan played enough to get his team in playoffs, then scored over 40 a game, I'm changing my thinking to weigh playoffs more than I did before, so think that would move him up a notch, but def see the argument otherwise.

Thanks again

[trex_8063]

Bottom line: they matter.
They don't matter near as much as star-level players, but they matter.

I said about to approximate, there is no exact numbers on any of these, but you need some approximate numbers to do math.
All-Star might be 23 or 29, but calling it an all-star (or all-nba) gives you ranges.

I still disagree with the above. In the league of the late 50s/early 60s there were basically league-average [or scarcely better] players being selected as All-Stars, simply because they needed 20 or so guys to fill the All-Star rosters......but they ran out of guys truly deserving of such distinction after about 10-12 or so.

That guy who's 23rd-best in 1960 [even in era-relative terms] is a comically lesser player than the 29th-best player of 2023.

Consequently, if/when I get far enough down my CORP-list that I run into guys who were 20th-24th in the league circa-1960, I'm not giving them credit for an "All-Star level" season for those years simply because they were top 24.

You're free to do so, of course. But to me, rating a clearly worse player better [than the other player he's worse than] is kinda bonkers.

It's worthwhile looking at the degree of parity in the league in given years (i.e. don't take raw metrics at face value, as though the numbers mean exactly the same thing from decade to decade), sure. But I'm just not going to take that as far as settling on a number of persons (give or take a few) in the league, when the league is nearly 4x larger today.

My point is that they are still at a somewhat non scarce level. There are 60-90 or so Thompsons, Armstrongs etc.in the league. Virtually every team has a couple.

So?
Again, I think you're too hung up on proportion of the league. Being relatively common in the league does not = unvaluable.

And fwiw, some CORP methodologies have slightly different values for the various tiers, if that makes you feel better about it. For example, I read one where a "GOAT-level" season was given 40% CORP, while "Average [Role] player" seasons only 1.5% (instead of the 33% and 2% cited by 70sFan).

Personally, I'm going with this range (which is in between): 35% [GOAT]/29% [All-Time Great]/21% [MVP]/16% [weak MVP]/10% [All-NBA]/6.5% [All-Star]/4% [Sub All-Star]/1.5% [Average player]

Yes, Tristan Thompson and B.J. Armstrong help a team win a title......

......Being as good as B.J. doesnt mean you have a better chance to win a title than being as good as Jud Buechler. The key to winning NBA titles is really to have guys who are better than that.

This seems like, "Yes, they help.....except that they don't help."

OBVIOUSLY you need guys [multiple guys] better than "Average" on your team to have any legit shot at a title. Precisely NO ONE is suggesting otherwise. The principle of CORP% analysis is absolutely NOT suggesting otherwise.

It does, however, recognize that even GOAT-tier players need help; look at '89 and '90 Jordan, '77 Kareem, '09 LeBron, '64 Wilt. All of those are at least "All-Time Great" seasons, if not even "GOAT-level", yet NONE of them won the title ['64 Wilt is the ONLY one among them who even made it to the Finals, losing soundly].

Having Armstrong [or Harper] instead of Hudson, Smith instead of Rivers, Thompson instead of Jerebko, or Love instead of West, etc: either you agree these things make a difference, maybe even enough to turn those particular series's in a different direction........or you don't.

If you DO agree they do, then that is acknowledging the core of the CORP analysis view of average players. Because again: MOST of the league [in ANY year] is replacement level or worse. So even though there may be, as you say, 60-90 "Average" players in the league, they're still more scarce than the guys who are WORSE (if you insist on keeping focus on scarcity).

[Cavsfansince84]

One thing I want to bring up re the value of role players is contracts. Getting quality role player performance from a guy who is paid like a role player is going to have a lot more value than getting it from a guy who is getting paid to perform like a top 15 player.

[homecourtloss]

Larry Bird:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1984, 1986, 1987)
MVP: 2 (1985, 1988)
Weak MVP: 3 (1981-83)
All-nba: 2 (1980, 1990)
All-star: 2 (1991, 1992)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 0

Magic Johnson:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1987, 1988, 1990)
MVP: 4 (1985, 1986, 1989, 1991)
Weak MVP: 2 (1983, 1984)
All-nba: 1 (1982)
All-star: 1 (1980)
Sub all-star: 2 (1981, 1996)
Role player

Michael Jordan:

GOAT-level: 3 (1989-91)
All-time: 4 (1988, 1992, 1993, 1996)
MVP: 2 (1997, 1998)
Weak MVP: 1 (1987)
All-nba: 1 (1985)
All-star: 1 (1995)
Sub all-star: 3 (1986, 2002, 2003)
Role player: 0


Hakeem Olajuwon:

GOAT-level: 2 (1993, 1994)
All-time: 3 (1989, 1990, 1995)
MVP: 2 (1987, 1988)
Weak MVP: 4 (1986, 1992, 1996, 1997)
All-nba: 2 (1985, 1991)
All-star: 2 (1998, 1999)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 1 (2001)

Really enjoying read these and comparing to how I have them—thank you for these, ‘70s. Do you have the breakdowns for LeBron, Kareem, Russell, and Wilt?

[trex_8063]

Karl Malone

I meant to bring this player up, having seen your ratings for him. I noted that while you credit him with a number of weak MVP level seasons, you don't credit him with even one MVP-level year.

I'm going to strongly suggest that under-credits him.

Let's take a look at '96-'99, in particular.....

'96 bullet-points
*25.7 pts @ +3.3% rTS, 9.8 reb, 4.2 ast, only 2.4 tov [regular season, not missing a single game].
**Is 4th in league in PER and WS/48, 5th in league in both BPM and AuPM [closest thing we have to RAPM].......this in a league with prime [near-peak] versions of Michael Jordan and David Robinson, as well as prime Shaq, Hakeem, Pippen, Stockton, peak Penny Hardaway, etc.
***Shooting efficiency dips badly in ps, but production goes UP: 26.5 pts, 10.3 reb, 4.4 ast, only 2.5 tov in playoffs, reaching the WCF where they lost in 7 games to outstanding Seattle team (whom they outscored in the series).

'97 bullet-points
*27.4 pts @ +6.4% rTS, 9.9 rpg, 4.5 apg, 2.8 topg, while also being awarded [not sure if deserved, but jsia] 1st-Team All-Defensive Team (and not missing a single game, btw).
**He actually does win MVP this year, taking a hefty .857 share, narrowly edging out a prime Michael Jordan (no one else is remotely close).
***He leads the league in PER this year, while being 2nd [to only Jordan] in both WS/48 and BPM. His league rank in RAPM is 14th, although it's an NPI sample with a few wonky results (e.g. Christian Laettner is #1 in the league, Terry Mills is #3, and Malone's teammate Greg Ostertag is #13), and there's relatively little without sample in Malone's case because he plays big minutes and never misses a game.
****His metrics take a notable dip in the playoffs, mostly just his shooting efficiency suffering; still averaged 26.0 ppg/11.4 rpg/2.9 apg/2.7 topg through the playoffs.
*****His team goes to the Finals, and lasts six games against probably one of the 10 best teams ever.

'98 bullet-points
*27.0 pts @ +7.3% rTS, 10.3 rpg, 3.9 apg, 3.0 topg, and another All-Defensive 1st Team selection (and missing just 1 game).
**Is 2nd in the league in all of PER, WS/48, and BPM (behind Shaq for PER, a lower-minute David Robinson in the other two--->with the minute edge, Malone actually leads the league in BOTH WS and VORP this year), 8th in PI RAPM.
***He is close 2nd [to Jordan] in the MVP vote this year.
****Shooting efficiency dips in playoffs again, though still ABOVE league average, while averaging 26.3 pts, 10.9 reb, 3.4 ast, 3.0 tov in the playoffs.
*****Team is again in the NBA Finals where, as I've argued elsewhere, they perhaps only lost because the officiating blew TWO crucial/costly shotclock calls [BOTH in Chicago's favour] in game 6 (which the Jazz lost by a single point; game 7 would have been in Salt Lake City, and Pippen was injured). Malone had averaged 25.0/11.5/3.8 in the series, and on nearly 4% better shooting efficiency than Michael Jordan, fwiw.

'99 bullet-points
*23.8 pts @ +6.6% rTS, 9.4 reb, 4.1 ast, 3.3 tov in a sluggish defensive grudge-match hold-out season, again All-Defensive 1st Team (and missing just 1 game).
**He is 2nd [to Shaq] in PER and BPM, 3rd in WS/48 (though again because of his minutes edge he leads the league in BOTH WS and VORP). Is 16th in PI RAPM.
***Is again the actual winner of the MVP award, fwiw.
***Numbers dip in playoffs, though still near All-NBA level in limited ps sample.


Out of these four seasons, you can't find even ONE year that is worthy of "MVP-level"?

I have difficulty reconciling that when I see [for example] '89, '90, and '95 Hakeem, as well as '88 Magic being credited not just "MVP-level", but "All-Time Great" level.

Perhaps ALL of '96-'98 Malone seasons look better than '96 or '97 Hakeem, which both get the same category.
For instance, in '96 Hakeem trails Malone by virtually every measure (including the AuPM), and follows it up with a notably slumped playoff performance (probably moreso than Malone), but is still credited with the same tier that season.
I could arguably make similar statements regarding '81-'83 Larry Bird.

idk......just seems like Malone is undervalued by these rankings relative to some of his peers.

[krii]

Bottom line: they matter.
They don't matter near as much as star-level players, but they matter.

I said about to approximate, there is no exact numbers on any of these, but you need some approximate numbers to do math.
All-Star might be 23 or 29, but calling it an all-star (or all-nba) gives you ranges.

I still disagree with the above. In the league of the late 50s/early 60s there were basically league-average [or scarcely better] players being selected as All-Stars, simply because they needed 20 or so guys to fill the All-Star rosters......but they ran out of guys truly deserving of such distinction after about 10-12 or so.

That guy who's 23rd-best in 1960 [even in era-relative terms] is a comically lesser player than the 29th-best player of 2023.

Consequently, if/when I get far enough down my CORP-list that I run into guys who were 20th-24th in the league circa-1960, I'm not giving them credit for an "All-Star level" season for those years simply because they were top 24.

You're free to do so, of course. But to me, rating a clearly worse player better [than the other player he's worse than] is kinda bonkers.

It's worthwhile looking at the degree of parity in the league in given years (i.e. don't take raw metrics at face value, as though the numbers mean exactly the same thing from decade to decade), sure. But I'm just not going to take that as far as settling on a number of persons (give or take a few) in the league, when the league is nearly 4x larger today.

My point is that they are still at a somewhat non scarce level. There are 60-90 or so Thompsons, Armstrongs etc.in the league. Virtually every team has a couple.

So?
Again, I think you're too hung up on proportion of the league. Being relatively common in the league does not = unvaluable.

And fwiw, some CORP methodologies have slightly different values for the various tiers, if that makes you feel better about it. For example, I read one where a "GOAT-level" season was given 40% CORP, while "Average [Role] player" seasons only 1.5% (instead of the 33% and 2% cited by 70sFan).

Personally, I'm going with this range (which is in between): 35% [GOAT]/29% [All-Time Great]/21% [MVP]/16% [weak MVP]/10% [All-NBA]/6.5% [All-Star]/4% [Sub All-Star]/1.5% [Average player]

Yes, Tristan Thompson and B.J. Armstrong help a team win a title......

......Being as good as B.J. doesnt mean you have a better chance to win a title than being as good as Jud Buechler. The key to winning NBA titles is really to have guys who are better than that.

This seems like, "Yes, they help.....except that they don't help."

OBVIOUSLY you need guys [multiple guys] better than "Average" on your team to have any legit shot at a title. Precisely NO ONE is suggesting otherwise. The principle of CORP% analysis is absolutely NOT suggesting otherwise.

It does, however, recognize that even GOAT-tier players need help; look at '89 and '90 Jordan, '77 Kareem, '09 LeBron, '64 Wilt. All of those are at least "All-Time Great" seasons, if not even "GOAT-level", yet NONE of them won the title ['64 Wilt is the ONLY one among them who even made it to the Finals, losing soundly].

Having Armstrong [or Harper] instead of Hudson, Smith instead of Rivers, Thompson instead of Jerebko, or Love instead of West, etc: either you agree these things make a difference, maybe even enough to turn those particular series's in a different direction........or you don't.

If you DO agree they do, then that is acknowledging the core of the CORP analysis view of average players. Because again: MOST of the league [in ANY year] is replacement level or worse. So even though there may be, as you say, 60-90 "Average" players in the league, they're still more scarce than the guys who are WORSE (if you insist on keeping the focus on scarcity).

Just out of curiosity, as I'm not sure if a similar system has already been proposed, wouldn't this problem be solved by estimating the level/power of the league's specific season in a numerical value, e.g. on a scale of 0.00-1.00? Each season would have to be given an appropriate valorisation relative to the other seasons. Many factors would have to be taken into account that is usually used for player evaluation and can be quantified in some way - what was the offensive/defensive level of the season, what model of play prevailed and what type of players this system favoured and benefited*, what was the average pace, what was the relative scale of talent (e.g. volume of players with corresponding levels per season - e.g. how many players have MVP/subpar MVP levels in a given season, compared to other seasons – think, how many great all-time runs you had in 2015 or 1978). Then the seasons would have to be compared to each other to be sure that, for example, the 1996/97 season compared to the 2011/12 season had such and such value (e.g. 0.76-0.68).

Once the strength of the season had been worked out, the player's rating would not only relate to the season's rating in the context of the entire history of the league (i.e. as the rating now takes into account) but also in comparison to the specific 'strength' rating of the season. The season 'strength' indicator would not necessarily have the same weight as the overall-history rating but would be relevant in comparing the achievements of players from different eras.

* - that could be used for yet another comparison in which players playing in different eras might be compared more thoroughly. If we have a player like Stockton, who is proving on low volume that he can be an effective three-point shooter, but focuses on pure playmaking rather than throwing - is this a result of the dominant model of play in the league, and if so, does this affect the evaluation of his play in space usage, and volume scoring; compared to, say, the 2010s and 2020s, when the premise of the playmaker is basically a dominant 3p shooting and perimeter space-passing?

[Cavsfansince84]

I think the thing that the corp method being used addresses is how player value takes on a curve past about all star level(even more so since most all top 25 players all make max money) rather than a straight line like most metrics will go in though not all work that way. The issue is what criteria we use to fill in the subjective nature of how we want to award points on a curve and how we want to incorporate playoff performance into it. It's hard to say for instance how to compare a season like Embiid just had where he is mvp yet sort of injured and very uneven in the playoffs to someone like Murray who is basically all star level then plays like a top 10 player throughout a run that ends in a title.

[SHAQ32]

Wade's way too high.

[AEnigma]

Karl Malone

I meant to bring this player up, having seen your ratings for him. I noted that while you credit him with a number of weak MVP level seasons, you don't credit him with even one MVP-level year.

I'm going to strongly suggest that under-credits him.

Let's take a look at '96-'99, in particular.....

'96 bullet-points
*25.7 pts @ +3.3% rTS, 9.8 reb, 4.2 ast, only 2.4 tov [regular season, not missing a single game].
**Is 4th in league in PER and WS/48, 5th in league in both BPM and AuPM [closest thing we have to RAPM].......this in a league with prime [near-peak] versions of Michael Jordan and David Robinson, as well as prime Shaq, Hakeem, Pippen, Stockton, peak Penny Hardaway, etc.
***Shooting efficiency dips badly in ps, but production goes UP: 26.5 pts, 10.3 reb, 4.4 ast, only 2.5 tov in playoffs, reaching the WCF where they lost in 7 games to outstanding Seattle team (whom they outscored in the series).

'97 bullet-points
*27.4 pts @ +6.4% rTS, 9.9 rpg, 4.5 apg, 2.8 topg, while also being awarded [not sure if deserved, but jsia] 1st-Team All-Defensive Team (and not missing a single game, btw).
**He actually does win MVP this year, taking a hefty .857 share, narrowly edging out a prime Michael Jordan (no one else is remotely close).
***He leads the league in PER this year, while being 2nd [to only Jordan] in both WS/48 and BPM. His league rank in RAPM is 14th, although it's an NPI sample with a few wonky results (e.g. Christian Laettner is #1 in the league, Terry Mills is #3, and Malone's teammate Greg Ostertag is #13), and there's relatively little without sample in Malone's case because he plays big minutes and never misses a game.
****His metrics take a notable dip in the playoffs, mostly just his shooting efficiency suffering; still averaged 26.0 ppg/11.4 rpg/2.9 apg/2.7 topg through the playoffs.
*****His team goes to the Finals, and lasts six games against probably one of the 10 best teams ever.

'98 bullet-points
*27.0 pts @ +7.3% rTS, 10.3 rpg, 3.9 apg, 3.0 topg, and another All-Defensive 1st Team selection (and missing just 1 game).
**Is 2nd in the league in all of PER, WS/48, and BPM (behind Shaq for PER, a lower-minute David Robinson in the other two--->with the minute edge, Malone actually leads the league in BOTH WS and VORP this year), 8th in PI RAPM.
***He is close 2nd [to Jordan] in the MVP vote this year.
****Shooting efficiency dips in playoffs again, though still ABOVE league average, while averaging 26.3 pts, 10.9 reb, 3.4 ast, 3.0 tov in the playoffs.
*****Team is again in the NBA Finals where, as I've argued elsewhere, they perhaps only lost because the officiating blew TWO crucial/costly shotclock calls [BOTH in Chicago's favour] in game 6 (which the Jazz lost by a single point; game 7 would have been in Salt Lake City, and Pippen was injured). Malone had averaged 25.0/11.5/3.8 in the series, and on nearly 4% better shooting efficiency than Michael Jordan, fwiw.

'99 bullet-points
*23.8 pts @ +6.6% rTS, 9.4 reb, 4.1 ast, 3.3 tov in a sluggish defensive grudge-match hold-out season, again All-Defensive 1st Team (and missing just 1 game).
**He is 2nd [to Shaq] in PER and BPM, 3rd in WS/48 (though again because of his minutes edge he leads the league in BOTH WS and VORP). Is 16th in PI RAPM.
***Is again the actual winner of the MVP award, fwiw.
***Numbers dip in playoffs, though still near All-NBA level in limited ps sample.

Out of these four seasons, you can't find even ONE year that is worthy of "MVP-level"?

I have difficulty reconciling that when I see [for example] '89, '90, and '95 Hakeem, as well as '88 Magic being credited not just "MVP-level", but "All-Time Great" level.

Do you not think replacing Malone and Jazz centre rotation with those Hakeem years and an equivalent power forward rotation produce multiples titles? I certainly do, and 1995 in particular seems like an odd pull when we saw a comfortable disparity between Hakeem and essentially peak Malone. This reads as you being low on Hakeem more than anything.

Perhaps ALL of '96-'98 Malone seasons look better than '96 or '97 Hakeem, which both get the same category.
For instance, in '96 Hakeem trails Malone by virtually every measure (including the AuPM), and follows it up with a notably slumped playoff performance (probably moreso than Malone), but is still credited with the same tier that season.
I could arguably make similar statements regarding '81-'83 Larry Bird.

idk......just seems like Malone is undervalued by these rankings relative to some of his peers.

Might be the problem with relying too heavily on regular season composites to form a base for a player assessment.

Will pull up 2008 Kobe (and surrounding years), whom I am guessing falls in 70s’ MVP tier.
- Never top three in raw win shares (fourth each year 2006-08)
- Never first in VORP (second in 2006 and third in 2008)
- Never top four in BPM (fifth in 2006 and 2009)
- Never top two in PER (third in 2006 and fifth in 2007)
- Never top three in AuPM (best results in 2006 and 2009)
- Never top ten in NPI RAPM (best results in 2008 and 2009)
- Never top three in PI RAPM (fourth in 2008, although could quibble with minutes load for Manu and potentially even Garnett ahead)

Kobe will also lose basically any head-to-head comparison with Malone by these composites, and of course if we acknowledge that all the box composites at least tend to have a heavy skew toward offensive production, Kobe has a notable defensive disadvantage compared to Malone (as opposed to Hakeem’s substantial defensive advantage). Yet somehow, Kobe is consistently placed ~ten spots ahead of Malone in most of this site’s peak rankings — even though in the most consistent peak seasons by that approach, 2006 and 2008, he had no advantage in postseason success.

Should we treat that as a mystery, or should we acknowledge that most of these assessments look at how a player handles themselves in the postseason, where, yes, I think Kobe at his peak established himself a tier of performance higher than anything we ever really saw of Malone, and Hakeem a tier (or maybe even two) higher than that.

For my own part, I would probably say 1998 Malone edges into the “MVP” tier above “weak MVP”, but even there, it is still “low-end MVP without quite being weak MVP”, and pushing back on that level of disagreement feels unproductive for what it ultimately the rough equivalent of a 1% gap in comparative CORP (or whatever).

[70sFan]

And fwiw, some CORP methodologies have slightly different values for the various tiers, if that makes you feel better about it. For example, I read one where a "GOAT-level" season was given 40% CORP, while "Average [Role] player" seasons only 1.5% (instead of the 33% and 2% cited by 70sFan).

Personally, I'm going with this range (which is in between): 35% [GOAT]/29% [All-Time Great]/21% [MVP]/16% [weak MVP]/10% [All-NBA]/6.5% [All-Star]/4% [Sub All-Star]/1.5% [Average player]

I will make the list with these values later to see how much it would change compared to the one I already posted.

[70sFan]

Larry Bird:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1984, 1986, 1987)
MVP: 2 (1985, 1988)
Weak MVP: 3 (1981-83)
All-nba: 2 (1980, 1990)
All-star: 2 (1991, 1992)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 0

Magic Johnson:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 3 (1987, 1988, 1990)
MVP: 4 (1985, 1986, 1989, 1991)
Weak MVP: 2 (1983, 1984)
All-nba: 1 (1982)
All-star: 1 (1980)
Sub all-star: 2 (1981, 1996)
Role player

Michael Jordan:

GOAT-level: 3 (1989-91)
All-time: 4 (1988, 1992, 1993, 1996)
MVP: 2 (1997, 1998)
Weak MVP: 1 (1987)
All-nba: 1 (1985)
All-star: 1 (1995)
Sub all-star: 3 (1986, 2002, 2003)
Role player: 0


Hakeem Olajuwon:

GOAT-level: 2 (1993, 1994)
All-time: 3 (1989, 1990, 1995)
MVP: 2 (1987, 1988)
Weak MVP: 4 (1986, 1992, 1996, 1997)
All-nba: 2 (1985, 1991)
All-star: 2 (1998, 1999)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 1 (2001)

Really enjoying read these and comparing to how I have them—thank you for these, ‘70s. Do you have the breakdowns for LeBron, Kareem, Russell, and Wilt?

I do and I will share them tomorrow for you.

[70sFan]

Karl Malone

I meant to bring this player up, having seen your ratings for him. I noted that while you credit him with a number of weak MVP level seasons, you don't credit him with even one MVP-level year.

I'm going to strongly suggest that under-credits him.

Let's take a look at '96-'99, in particular.....

'96 bullet-points
*25.7 pts @ +3.3% rTS, 9.8 reb, 4.2 ast, only 2.4 tov [regular season, not missing a single game].
**Is 4th in league in PER and WS/48, 5th in league in both BPM and AuPM [closest thing we have to RAPM].......this in a league with prime [near-peak] versions of Michael Jordan and David Robinson, as well as prime Shaq, Hakeem, Pippen, Stockton, peak Penny Hardaway, etc.
***Shooting efficiency dips badly in ps, but production goes UP: 26.5 pts, 10.3 reb, 4.4 ast, only 2.5 tov in playoffs, reaching the WCF where they lost in 7 games to outstanding Seattle team (whom they outscored in the series).

'97 bullet-points
*27.4 pts @ +6.4% rTS, 9.9 rpg, 4.5 apg, 2.8 topg, while also being awarded [not sure if deserved, but jsia] 1st-Team All-Defensive Team (and not missing a single game, btw).
**He actually does win MVP this year, taking a hefty .857 share, narrowly edging out a prime Michael Jordan (no one else is remotely close).
***He leads the league in PER this year, while being 2nd [to only Jordan] in both WS/48 and BPM. His league rank in RAPM is 14th, although it's an NPI sample with a few wonky results (e.g. Christian Laettner is #1 in the league, Terry Mills is #3, and Malone's teammate Greg Ostertag is #13), and there's relatively little without sample in Malone's case because he plays big minutes and never misses a game.
****His metrics take a notable dip in the playoffs, mostly just his shooting efficiency suffering; still averaged 26.0 ppg/11.4 rpg/2.9 apg/2.7 topg through the playoffs.
*****His team goes to the Finals, and lasts six games against probably one of the 10 best teams ever.

'98 bullet-points
*27.0 pts @ +7.3% rTS, 10.3 rpg, 3.9 apg, 3.0 topg, and another All-Defensive 1st Team selection (and missing just 1 game).
**Is 2nd in the league in all of PER, WS/48, and BPM (behind Shaq for PER, a lower-minute David Robinson in the other two--->with the minute edge, Malone actually leads the league in BOTH WS and VORP this year), 8th in PI RAPM.
***He is close 2nd [to Jordan] in the MVP vote this year.
****Shooting efficiency dips in playoffs again, though still ABOVE league average, while averaging 26.3 pts, 10.9 reb, 3.4 ast, 3.0 tov in the playoffs.
*****Team is again in the NBA Finals where, as I've argued elsewhere, they perhaps only lost because the officiating blew TWO crucial/costly shotclock calls [BOTH in Chicago's favour] in game 6 (which the Jazz lost by a single point; game 7 would have been in Salt Lake City, and Pippen was injured). Malone had averaged 25.0/11.5/3.8 in the series, and on nearly 4% better shooting efficiency than Michael Jordan, fwiw.

'99 bullet-points
*23.8 pts @ +6.6% rTS, 9.4 reb, 4.1 ast, 3.3 tov in a sluggish defensive grudge-match hold-out season, again All-Defensive 1st Team (and missing just 1 game).
**He is 2nd [to Shaq] in PER and BPM, 3rd in WS/48 (though again because of his minutes edge he leads the league in BOTH WS and VORP). Is 16th in PI RAPM.
***Is again the actual winner of the MVP award, fwiw.
***Numbers dip in playoffs, though still near All-NBA level in limited ps sample.


Out of these four seasons, you can't find even ONE year that is worthy of "MVP-level"?

I have difficulty reconciling that when I see [for example] '89, '90, and '95 Hakeem, as well as '88 Magic being credited not just "MVP-level", but "All-Time Great" level.

Perhaps ALL of '96-'98 Malone seasons look better than '96 or '97 Hakeem, which both get the same category.
For instance, in '96 Hakeem trails Malone by virtually every measure (including the AuPM), and follows it up with a notably slumped playoff performance (probably moreso than Malone), but is still credited with the same tier that season.
I could arguably make similar statements regarding '81-'83 Larry Bird.

idk......just seems like Malone is undervalued by these rankings relative to some of his peers.

I have been thinking about Malone placement and I struggled to rate his best seasons, because he's on the edge of MVP and weak MVP tier to me with his best years (1996-98). That's one of the times where this ranking doesn't show the exact evaluation and these estimations fail to do a perfect job.

With that being said - I agree with AEnigma. Malone had very, very good RS performances but I don't see him as the better player than 1997, Hakeem once you actually look at their skillsets and how capable in their roles they were in the playoffs. I often mention that Malone underperformances are overstated on this forum, but it doesn't change the fact that his raw numbers (as well as all boxscore composites) overrate his actual offensive impact.

I always think that Malone, Barkley, Dirk and Pettit peaked on similar level, but in this project two of them finished with MVP-level peaks (Dirk and Barkley) and two of them with weak MVP peaks. It doesn't mean that the actual gap is this big, but more than Dirk and Barkley peaked as "weak" MVP level players, while Bob and Karl reached the height of "very strong" weak MVP players.

That's why I always say that it's only an estimation and not my final ranking.