RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #2 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)

rk2023 · Post #21 » by **rk2023** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 10:09 pm

trelos6 wrote:I threw together a spreadsheet to help rank everyone.

Would you mind sharing the link? It would be vastly appreciated if you feel comfortable doing so!

MyUniBroDavis · Post #22 » by **MyUniBroDavis** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 10:09 pm

I’m not following much but why is there a nominees pool?

rk2023 · Post #23 » by **rk2023** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 10:29 pm

Vote for #2- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:

I regard Kareem as the prominent, originally so, longevity-titan across NBA History - along with LBJ. Under the assumption longevity then is more ‘impressive’ than longevity now, one could craft a formidable argument that Kareem has the most additive value all-time (again, I see it as a 1a/1b situation with different angles to argue in either's favor). Just a few higher level longevity arguments for Kareem: all-time leader in Win Shares, 2nd in RS+PS Win Shares, 1st in Games and Minutes Played. Longevity is only one aspect however, and there’s a lot more to like when it comes to Kareem’s all-time case.

When exploring what is driving Kareem's 'goodness' as a player, scoring efficacy intuitively comes first. I feel the best attributes of Kareem’s scoring are the (1) game-to-game consistency HCL mentioned and (2) combination of volume and efficiency. When thinking of the former, a study depicting seasonal, game-to-game, distributions and variance(s) along with sensitivity analysis by defense(s) faced [something similar] would be a great way to validate this hypothesis - albeit tedious. In theory, it makes sense however (I'll elaborate upon this soon). True-Shooting add/added serves as a good proxy of the latter. In Doc’s TS-added sheet, Kareem comes out first for his career - where the gap between him and #2 Artis Gilmore [4718-3880] is almost as much as the gap between Gilmore and #7 Barkley [3880-2972] all-time. His peak values of ~460 and ~453 reached in Milwaukee have only been rivaled by 16 Curry, and his 82 game average value ranks 6th despite playing the most minutes & games all time and playing much more than those ahead of him. There's many other cool snippets of information I have come across regarding Kareem's scoring.

Volume/Efficiency across playoff series, courtesy of 70sFan:

Spoiler:

Thinking Basketball's ScoreVal intel, kudos to LukaTheGoat for the analysis which I agree with:

Spoiler:

Supporting the theory/hypothesis that Kareem was a consistent & lower-variance scorer, I believe the persistent efficacy central to his career was accrued through an economical scoring approach (eg. not wasting time of possession or his touches too much, hunting minor but important post-positioning advantages, his physical profile/stature coupled with one of the most unguardable moves ever seen and various counters).

The offensive foundation such an approach for inside-the-arc scoring and the resulting on/off-ball gravity effect which catalyzed his playmaking abilities makes Kareem one of the three Centers, along with O’Neal and Jokic, I would take as an offensive centerpiece. Furthermore, Kareem's ability to have different roles throughout an extremely extensive span - (1) playing with (and without) an aging Oscar, (2) as a lone star floor raising, (3) as Magic ascended - while being able to accrue formidable - all-time level team offensive ratings each season speaks volumes to his scalability. Defensively, I think Kareem’s physical stature made him a + value player for most of his prime except for its latter tails'-end. Even with incremental decline(s) in the ‘early-middle’ 80s, his career defensive value is astounding as a result of Kareem’s Bucks years and earlier Laker campaigns. A ton of Kareem's value was exerted as a rebounder / paint protector with his physical gifts already at the table, but motor [understandable, given the offensive responsibility] and lesser horizontal speed is more or less what holds him back from comparisons to some of the all-time defensive anchors.

When looking at impact, Kareem's ability to instantly catalyze the Bucks regardless of expansion/dilution) by checking off many macro-areas of basketball and be deployed as an effective release-valve scorer & effective decision maker in his older years alongside Magic and the 80s Lakers crew shows he's held value on some of the best teams of all times. As mentioned before too, Kareem's floor-raising due to the scoring potency (with resulting gravity) & semblance of paint protection made him fit to floor-raise a team either injured or bereft of talent during most of his first-half as a Laker.

Kareem's Lakers and Bucks Teams in Sansterre's T-100:

Spoiler:

As for Kareem’s seasonal guesstimates - Fringe GOAT: 1974, 77 | All-Time: 1971-73, 76, 79-80 | Fringe All-Time: 1978 | MVP: 1970, 81 Fringe-MVP: 1975. This meaningful longevity with a twelve year gap in MVP-play (only replicated by James, perhaps Russell and Chamberlain) is supported by an additional weak-MVP year and 4 more All-NBA ones in the immediately following 5 year span of 1982-86. I find the 11 MVP+ years and 17 All-NBA+ years to both be second all-time - only to James. The latter is by a comfortable margin over whomever would be third, as well. For how I define prime quality, Russell and Jordan very well could have a better “average season” - but I believe Kareem’s aggregate body of work at the MVP+ threshold covers more value than either - let alone factoring in his longevity on top of that. This is what's moving the needle for me to vote him second here.

Vote for #3- Michael Jordan:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2306301&p=107502597#p107502597

Explained in this post.

Nomination - Hakeem Olajuwon:

Across all of NBA-History, the value of a defensive anchor-big and a two-way titan can’t be understated - especially in an era-relative sense. It makes sense Wilt and Duncan cracked 2020’s top 6 / 2023 first list of nominees as candidates. With all things considered, I felt the next best on the board was Hakeem - a two-way big comparable and deployed similarly (yet differently) as the two players mentioned. In terms of why I chose him over my other main nominee (Shaq; on the other hand, I can’t quite get there with Garnett and the perimeter players whom follow), it is my belief the defensive value as well as maxing out on that end before reaching his full potential on offense - in years such as 1989 & 90 - gives him the prime advantage. I further don’t see *too much* a disparity between Shaq and Hakeem’s best 3 year apexes of 1993-1995 and 2000-02 respectively. As i get to my 5-8 range of candidates which does include the three two-way bigs and Shaq, I’ll elaborate more upon them comparatively - as I feel this is a more close grouping than my Mount Rushmore from both an angle of play-style and an era (with the exception of Wilt in the latter).

One_and_Done · Post #24 » by **One_and_Done** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 10:38 pm

DQuinn1575 wrote:
One_and_Done wrote:[
Kareem’s 1970 season shows his floor raising ability, and the next year shows how he could lift your ceiling, but I think both efforts are inferior to Duncan’s peak in 2002 or 2003. Even years like 2001 or 1999 Duncan’s support casts are really rubbish

Duncan is playing with a top 25 player of all-time, and 2 other guys who started on a 59 win team without Duncan

Kareem is playing on expansion team, filled with players other teams didn't want.
It's not even close as to who did more.

I don't think the 02 or 03 Spurs could win 25 games without Duncan.

lessthanjake · Post #25 » by **lessthanjake** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 11:19 pm

Vote for #2: Michael Jordan

Vote for #3: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I made a lot of arguments in favor of Jordan in the #1 thread, so perhaps I don’t need to rehash (though a lot of those arguments were as compared to LeBron James as opposed to as compared to other players). I’ll aim to probably contribute more to discussion as this thread goes on, but for now I’ll refer back to my prior points about Jordan.

As for Kareem, he combines being the clear best player of a decade, with incredible longevity. To me, those early years with the Bucks were incredibly impressive. The team was immediately great the moment he stepped into the league, and it stayed great for 5 years. He was individually dominant, and the 1971 Bucks are on my shortlist for best team ever, and that of course starts with Kareem. They were great other years too but couldn’t quite get it done in the playoffs. The 1980’s Lakers years for Kareem are impressive too, but more from a longevity standpoint than anything, since only one of their titles really came in his prime, and Magic was the better player on the team for the last 3 or 4 titles. I find it hard to figure out what to do with the 1974-1975 to 1978-1979 years. Kareem basically had 5 years in his prime where he was putting up great numbers, but his teams just weren’t all that good despite not actually being particularly weak on paper. It’s hard to figure out what to do with that, and I do think that Kareem was very fortunate to have played most of his career with two players that are very top-tier all-time greats (Magic and Oscar), because what we saw from him the rest of his career was not all that incredible. I don’t dock him *too* much for it, since he was still really good individually in those years, and I put more emphasis on ceiling raising (which Kareem clearly could do well IMO). But it’s a bit of a black mark I’m not sure how to deal with, and I’m genuinely curious for others’ perspectives on it. Kareem was actually good in the playoffs in those years (when his teams made it—which wasn’t always the case), so maybe that ameliorates it a bit? It can be compared to LeBron’s first stint on the Cavs or Jordan’s early years with the Bulls, but I don’t find those years quite so perplexing, since (1) the rosters of LeBron’s and Jordan’s teams look manifestly inferior to me to a lot of the teams Kareem was playing for in those years; (2) LeBron’s and Jordan’s teams actually had a bit more success—making multiple conference finals and even a finals for LeBron; and (3) for LeBron and Jordan, while these included early prime years, it was still early in their careers, rather than smack in the middle of their prime.

Dr Positivity · Post #26 » by **Dr Positivity** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 11:24 pm

Biggest case for Kareem - Easily better longevity, Kareem retiring after 1980 would have put him close in number of star seasons, and he did a lot after that, although not at GOAT level.

Biggest case for Jordan - I'm more impressed by this era's competition, more athletic, internationals, real 3pt shooting, no ABA diluting talent.

I'm pretty torn on which one to treat more important of those.

ceoofkobefans · Post #27 » by **ceoofkobefans** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 11:33 pm

Sorry I missed the first vote, I’ve been busy. This is my voting post and I’ll give brief explanations (I’ll be more in-depth when we get to more fun discussions)

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem gets my vote at two simply because he is able to have the most longevity outside of LeBron for a player with a top 5-10 peak. Kareem has the 4th best peak ever to me and he’s playing at an mvp level or better for a longer length than the length of most players career. He’s giving you t3 scoring peak ever with DPOY+ level defense depending on the year you look at. I’d prefer MJ P4P but Kareem’s huge longevity gap closes that bridge and then some

2. Michael Jordan

MJ is 2nd on my peaks list (just behind Lebron) and 3rd all time because although he has a t2 peak clearly, MJs longevity isn’t good enough to keep him on quite the same level as LeBron and Kareem

Edit: I misread the prompt and thought you voted for 2 nominated players not 1 player and one player to be nominated. My player to be nominated is Shaquille O’Neal

Reason why I nominate Shaq is because he has a top 3 peak with solid longevity as well. He’s a 7’2 300lb wrecking ball that can likely out run you if you aren’t an athletic guard/wing. He’s also a master of positioning off the ball and has a solid post bag. He’s one of the greatest 5 scorers ever and an all time playmaker for a big. He’s playing at an mvp+ level for a decade+ which just makes him a top 5 worthy player

eminence · Post #28 » by **eminence** » Tue Jul 4, 2023 11:57 pm

My big question for the thread - How good was early career Russell, and what does his early career arc look like (how quickly/much does he improve)?

I'd say we generally have quite strong evidence that mid to late career Russell was a strong MVP type of player at least. I'm impressed by how he aged, and obviously by the team level success.

But the evidence for early career Russell is not so impressive (team change from '56 to '57 and how the team was doing prior to his arrival in '57).

How do others feel on the above question, and how do you arrive at your answer?

Post #29 » by **trex_8063** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 1:35 am

I can see three potential candidates (the rest of my Mt. Rushmore) for this spot.

I'm going with Jordan. idk, I don't think I need to go into great depth (or at least: I'm not going to). He's one of the greatest individual scorers ever, repeatedly leading the league in ppg while maintaining something close to +5-6% rTS each year, and also having a GOAT-tier turnover economy [among wings], and a fair bit of gravity (some of the open looks for BJ and Pax [later Harper or Kerr] came as fall-out from the attention given to Jordan).
Was also a good playmaker (passing out of double/triple-teams, or on penetrate and dish), good rebounding wing, and when locked in was nearly without compare [at his position] on defense. His box-composite profile is without compare [in terms of rate metrics].

The impact profile seems to be valid, too: in '96 is rs AuPM is a close 2nd to only peakish David Robinson; in '97 his NPI RAPM is 2nd in the league [to a dubious Christian Laettner]; in '98 [arguably not even in his prime anymore] he's 4th in PI RAPM [6th in NPI]. Bear in mind NONE of these are his peak.

Obviously his record of successes puts him in contention.

And I'm not sure anyone left a bigger imprint on the game [considering global popularity, etc].

Immediately on his heels for me are Kareem and Duncan. I typically go with Kareem in front between those two; partly because his durability/longevity was marginally better, and perhaps just habit to some degree. I do think Duncan was the greatest team leader of all-time, though. Will post [re-post an oldie, actually] on him at a later date.

Vote #1: Michael Jordan
Vote #2: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Nomination: Tim Duncan (pointless, given he's already a nominee; but there's no one else in contention for me, so I'm not going to needlessly expand the pool).

trelos6 · Post #30 » by **trelos6** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 1:44 am

rk2023 wrote:
trelos6 wrote:I threw together a spreadsheet to help rank everyone.

Would you mind sharing the link? It would be vastly appreciated if you feel comfortable doing so!

I basically gave a player a point for an all-star level season, another 3 for each of those seasons where they were all-nba level, another 5 if they were arguably a top 3 player, and another 7 if they were undoubtably the best player in the world.

I also gave 1.5 points per all D level season.

The rough results look promising, and help with the initial rankings.

Lebron
Kareem, MJ
Russell, Duncan
Shaq
Hakeem
KG
Kobe, Wilt, K. Malone
Bird, Dr J, D Rob, Magic
West, Oscar

It’s a balance between peak and longevity. And by no means is it the final list I’m going with.

Post #31 » by **trex_8063** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 1:50 am

eminence wrote:My big question for the thread - How good was early career Russell, and what does his early career arc look like (how quickly/much does he improve)?

I'd say we generally have quite strong evidence that mid to late career Russell was a strong MVP type of player at least. I'm impressed by how he aged, and obviously by the team level success.

But the evidence for early career Russell is not so impressive (team change from '56 to '57 and how the team was doing prior to his arrival in '57).

How do others feel on the above question, and how do you arrive at your answer?

I posted at length about rookie Russell in post #68 of this thread (some of the discussion starts earlier, fwiw). I'm personally of the opinion that he improved substantially in the first 2-3 years after that season (even relative to the league that was improving around him), and that the "Russell" we tend to refer to wasn't really there yet in '57.

f4p · Post #32 » by **f4p** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 2:08 am

Well since I've already seen a Tim Duncan vote at #2, I suppose it's time I don my finest Playa Haters' Ball regalia and dive in. Was Tim Duncan a wonderful player? Sure. Did he win a lot? Most definitely. Is he beloved by APM, AuPM, RAPM, GPM, AM/PM, ESPM? Of course. But to whom much is given, much is expected.

Now certainly, the returns were great. But no one enjoyed a better organizational infrastructure, for more years than Tim Duncan. Most generational #1 picks are greeted by a smoldering crater of a franchise and asked to build it from the ground up. The Spurs had spent the better part of a decade winning 50 and 60 games, before tanking due to injuries for one season, and then bringing the best parts of that core back. And, oh yeah, adding possibly the greatest coach of all time. Was David Robinson quite peak David Robinson any more? No. But it's hard to imagine a much better situation for a #1 overall pick. Other than maybe Magic with Kareem and then James Worthy with Magic and Kareem, I don't know who had it better.

Duncan gets to immediately leap in with the core of a previous 59 win team with the GOAT coach in tow. And by year 2, the field is clear of any serious contenders and the Spurs romp their way through. Now, the downside to having your #1 pick join a veteran-laden squad is that their timelines are incompatible. But never fear. Right as that veteran squad was about to age out, the GOAT coach, who also happens to be a fine GM (in league with the very fine actual GM RC Buford), builds a time machine to go back in time a few years and use a #57 pick on a little known european star named Manu Ginobili, who is now ready to make the leap to the NBA. The Spurs use essentially a non-asset to obtain a future hall of famer who finished #53 in the last Top 100 project. But wait, there's more. With a #29 pick, they find another foreign future hall of famer who finished in the top 75 of the last Top 100 project. How do you rebuild around your mega-star without ever actually rebuilding? You pick up 2 future hall of famers for essentially nothing.

Now you're 2 titles in and also have your star and his co-stars on the right timeline. In fact, Ginobili being an older rookie puts him exactly on Duncan's timeline. Now you get to watch 3 stars play out their primes together with possibly the best coach ever. Of course you should win a lot. And yet, by 2008, storm clouds were brewing. 3 stars and a GOAT coach seemingly stopped being enough. A meek WCF exit here, a first round loss there, a 2nd round sweep back over here, a loss to an 8th seed back over there. Is the dynasty over? Well...

Not when the front office adds Danny Green and Tiago Splitter and Boris Diaw and Patty Mills and, umm, who am I forgetting? Oh, it's future hall of fame, future multiple time Finals MVP, #42 on the previous Top 100 and only that low because he can't stay healthy, it's playoff performer extraordinaire Kawhi Leonard. That looks like a good team in and of itself, much less added to a hall of fame trio. Especially when the coach can seamlessly shift from defensive guru to "beautiful game" coach like it's nothing. Now Tim Duncan is free to gracefully end his career, never asked to do too much on his super deep, super well-coached team. It helps him maintain value and play on winning teams all the way to the end. By the time he is ready to exit the stage in year 19, they have even added another likely hall of famer in LaMarcus Aldridge. Giving the Spurs an all-HOF closing lineup. Duncan can play 25 mpg and only 60 games for the season and still see his team win 67 games and actually finish with a better net rating than the 73-win Warriors.

And how do the Spurs fair after Duncan leaves the stage? Well, known for their winning and defense in Duncan's day, without him they proceed to...win 61 games and lead the league in defense. Sort of a mirror to how Duncan entered the league. On a loaded team any aging veteran would kill to have as the bumps and bruises and injuries from a long career take their toll. Even when Kawhi Leonard quit on the team the next year and Manu and Tony continued to get older (as most people do), they still managed 48 wins and the #3 defense with Pop at the helm. That is a story-book franchise situation. Masterfully worked by Duncan. Selfless, seemingly ego-less, mostly loyal (he did flirt with a few other girls that one offseason), willing to adjust as Pop needed. But too good to be voted #2 with the (admittedly great) results that were produced.

So why do I say that? Simply too many opportunities missed on great teams and no true underdog results to offset it. And too many series being outplayed by someone on the other team or struggling mightily on offense while in his prime.

Just to get it out of the way first. 2003 is unimpeachable. Arguably the weakest supporting cast on a title team in the modern era (I still have '94 Hakeem but I get the '03 arguments). Record for win shares in a playoff run speaks to the level of carry that was involved. Amazing regular season, even more amazing postseason, did everything for his team. 24/17/5/5 in the finals back when scores were 85-81 is incredible. But back to The Ball...

The opportunities missed will probably apply most to an argument with Jordan (my vote for #2 when I eventually vote), but the overall argument will also be about Hakeem (possibly my vote for #6 after Magic but maybe #5 if there is any Hakeem/Duncan debate to be had at the time). With Hakeem basically being the greatest combination of "no opportunities missed" and massive amounts of underdog results to pile on top of that.

Tim Duncan won 4 of his 5 titles as the #1 SRS team. No problem with that. After all, it is 5 of 6 for Jordan. But even Duncan's 1 win as the #3 SRS team (2003) comes with the caveat that #1/#2 (DAL/SAC) faced off against each other in the second round, and then Dirk got hurt and missed half of the conference finals so it's not clear the Spurs weren't the favorite anyway (though they were up 2-1 with Dirk playing). But in 2001, the Spurs were #1 in SRS and lost. Swept in fact. Bludgeoned by 29 and 39 in the final 2 games. Has a #1 SRS team been beaten in worse fashion? In 2004, they were #1 in SRS once again and lost after taking a 2-0 lead. In 2006, #1 in SRS again and lost in the 2nd round. 2012, #2 in SRS but after Rose's injury, effectively the #1 SRS team and lost 4 straight in the WCF after winning their first 10 games of the playoffs. 2011, #1 seed and lost to an 8th seed. That's a lot of losing as a favorite if you want to be put up there with Jordan.

MJ went 25-0 as an SRS favorite. Obviously, no one has done better. Duncan went 31-8. Good, but not necessarily amazing.

Jordan 25-0
Russell 24-1
Kobe 25-2
Isiah 11-1
Lebron 31-3
Curry 19-2
Wade 18-2
Wilt 16-2
Durant 16-2
West 16-2
Garnett 8-1
Magic 28-4
Kareem 33-7
Shaq 24-6

("Now, wait", I can hear you saying. Hakeem was 6-2, only 75%. Your case has fallen apart. But both of Hakeem's were on fairly weak teams (very first series as a rookie and 1987 as a 6th seed vs a 7th seed after already upsetting the 3rd seed) and in series within the +/- 2 SRS range that seems to denote more of a toss-up with Hakeem 3-2 as a 0-2 SRS favorite and Duncan 5-4 (all tracked players at 71%))

By SRS, Duncan's average playoff series loss was actually as a 0.86 SRS favorite. That's incredible. Only Bill Russell with an average loss of +1.47 SRS is worse, and that comes with the caveat that he only lost twice and the time he lost as a huge +4.2 favorite he missed a few games in the series (though Boston doesn't really appear to have played worse without him). Larry Bird, not exactly a great playoff riser, is next at +0.73 and Chris Paul and David Robinson also find themselves on the wrong side of 0. Hakeem is at -3.2 and Jordan is by far the biggest underdog (of the 40 or so top players I looked at) at -5.0, an enormous underdog when he lost. In fact, Hakeem's average playoff series WIN was as a -0.8 SRS underdog, which is crazy. That's the difference in having to drag a franchise around for 18 years and having one of the best situations ever.

This is how, even with 5 titles, Duncan didn't necessarily outperform his expected titles by so much.

Expected vs Actual Championships

Duncan had 5 titles against 4.04 expected titles. Among people with at least 5 titles (admittedly a short-ish list), that 0.96 delta is higher only than Bob Cousy's 0.64. And everybody else but Kareem is at least +2. Ignoring Parker and Ginobili for obvious reasons, you have to go to Larry Bird at +0.2 to get a lower number and then to Wilt at -1.0. Not great company from a playoffs risers/fallers perspective.

And it's not just that the Spurs lost as favorites, but it feels like there are specific ways you can look at Duncan's performance and say it was lacking, especially as a scorer against largely single coverage basically any time after 2003 except for 2006. Things you can't really say about Jordan or Hakeem when they lose, except may in an occasional massive-underdog situation). Even some of the Spurs wins saw Duncan struggle. Now, to be clear, Duncan is still a great playoff performer overall. Even the hated box score says he is amazing. But I'm talking about:

2002 - Spurs and Lakers near SRS parity. Duncan puts up fantastic series numbers, but the Spurs are outscored in every 4th quarter and Duncan goes 11-29 with 9 turnovers in the five 4th quarters of the series. Losing a series they led after 3 quarters in 3 of 5 games. Duncan guarding Shaq in 2002 was mentioned. Maybe it happened, but I watched game 5 a few months ago. He didn't guard him in the 1st quarter, the youtube video (in spanish) skipped the 2nd quarter, but he didn't guard him for the first half of the 3rd so he probably didn't guard him in the 2nd quarter. Then he guarded him once in the 3rd and picked up a foul. One possession later he guarded him again and picked up a foul. Strategy put on hold. In the 4th he guarded Shaq a 3rd time and picked up a foul. This did not appear to be 1999 36 year old Hakeem being led to slaughter guarding prime Shaq from the tip. it was selective guarding. And not too good in game 5.

2004 - The Spurs, significant SRS favorites on the Lakers, go up 2-0. Note that neither Jordan nor Hakeem has ever lost a 2 game lead. Over the final 4 games, Duncan averages 17.5 ppg on 38 FG% with 4.3 TOpg. While mostly being guarded by a 40 year old Mailman who I don't recall guarding Hakeem much even when Malone was younger. This seems to be a highly winnable series if Duncan plays better.

2005 - The Spurs do manage to win in 7 against the Pistons, but Duncan, still only 28 years old, struggles mightily to score on the Wallace Bros, shooting 41.9% for the series. My recollection is that it was a lot of single coverage. And almost losing game 5 at the line before Horry went crazy. Manu could have been Finals MVP.

2007 - The Spurs once again win a finals with Duncan only putting up 18 ppg on 44.6 FG%. Maybe I'm forgetting who the Cavs had for post defense but it seemed like it was mostly Varejao. Granted, this was a gimme series so not holding it much against Duncan.

2008 - The Spurs lose fairly easily in the WCF with Duncan shooting 42.6% against what was mostly single coverage from Pau Gasol. They could also have easily lost in the 2nd round with Duncan shooting 42.1% against what I remember as mostly single coverage against Tyson Chandler.

These might not be devastating performances (though some are pretty bad) in terms of the totality of a career when compared to normal players, but we're comparing Duncan to playoff Hakeem. Other than a mediocre series as an 8th seed in 1990 and the 1996 Sonics series as a 33 year old where Hakeem was literally doubled every single time he touched the ball in the post in the first 2 games that I watched a couple of months ago, we simply don't see Hakeem shutdown by people. Basically ever. And he even came back at age 34 and dominated again. And while scoring a lot isn't everything, my detailed notes say Hakeem was pretty good at defense as well so it's not like this is an offense/defense argument.

Then of course we get a 3 year stretch from 2009-11, where Duncan is only 32-34 years old, still playing with 2 hall of fame teammates, where the Spurs lose in the 1st round with Duncan putting up 20/8, then get swept in the 2nd round as small SRS favorites with Duncan putting up 20/10.5, and then lose in the 1st round to an 8th seed with Duncan putting up 12.7 ppg on 47.8% shooting.

And to me, that 3 season stretch is why I somewhat doubt Duncan's real value in his later years. Why I'm not sure his longevity is quite as impressive as supporters make it out to be. The argument is that Duncan's value mostly came from defense and so, if he downshifted on the offensive side but still provided defense, then he was still mostly Duncan, at least according to the impact metrics. But before the Spurs added a wave of talent for the 2010's, they could have really used Tim Duncan the 2003 monster from 2008-2011. But it wasn't there. 1st round, 2nd round, 1st round. Mediocre scoring, mediocre efficiency. Did Duncan suddenly get better after that as he turned 35-39? Perhaps the next part is in the eye of the beholder, but it feels like we saw what would happen to Duncan if he got the typical late career treatment of an all-time great. Where you are marched out with a diminishing team, as the core ages or gets too expensive and leaves, but still expected to be your prime self.

Like Hakeem on the 1998 Rockets. After a season of injuries. Where he holds the #1 offense Utah Jazz to a -9 rORtg in the 1st round, with horrible defensive teammates, and almost pulls a huge upset. But then still has to take 20 shots a game and shoot horribly. Basically still being asked to be 1995 Hakeem. Only he isn't, and we see it. Because the next 5 players in field goal attempts on the rest of the team shoot 36% from the field and 24% from 3's. Would that he could have simply played amazing defense and let his talented perimeter teammates and new amazing small forward future star carry the offense.

Duncan gets to pick and choose. Or simply get by on "meh" shooting. Like in 2013 where his efficiency struggles in the west against good defenders but then picks up in the finals against the smaller heat. Was Duncan amazing at 38? Sure. After a decade of load management and a perfect role. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I think he simply got a better situation to shine as he got older. The kind that guys like Garnett or Hakeem would kill for.

It's also tough to say when the Spurs truly took down a great team, considering how good the Spurs were for how long. There's some circularity in that statement. If you beat a team, they stop seeming great. But other than the +7.9 Mavs in 2003 with injured Dirk, who else was there other than the 2005/2007 Suns? Teams who played a style that tends to inflate their regular season SRS. Do the 2014 Thunder count? The Spurs won before Shaq/Kobe really got going in 1999. Then again when the Lakers were a 52-30 +2.7 SRS team in 2003. Then lost to them the next year. They enjoyed success before Pau and Kobe rose up, then went quiet during the Lakers/Heatles runs. Then got one in as the Heat faltered and before the Warriors got going.

As a last note in a post that was longer than expected, there's the matter of some of Duncan's stats in the Spurs actual title runs.

In 1999, after a regular season where David Robinson bested Duncan by box composites, they played pretty evenly in the playoffs. Duncan slightly ahead in PER (25.1/23.3), tied exactly in WS48 (0.243), Robinson ahead in BPM (7.1/6.6). Now Duncan played more minutes, so he should get the edge, but then there's the matter of net plus/minus. Duncan was a negative! At -3.6. Robinson had a seemingly absurd +35.0. With enough off minutes to not just be about a few possessions here or there.

As said, 2003 is unimpeachable.

Then we get to 2005 in the playoffs. Duncan and Manu are neck and neck in everyone's favorite - PER - at 24.9 to 24.8. But Manu crushes him in WS48 (0.260 to 0.191), BPM (9.2 to 5.5) and TS% (65.2 to 52.6). Yes, yes, there is defense, but then Manu crushes him in plus/minus (19.9 to -5.3). Another negative!

In 2007, Duncan reclaims the box advantage over Manu (though not by much in WS48 and BPM), but they basically tie at +5 in plus/minus. Another fairly low number.

And then finally 2014. Any one of 5 spurs were basically equal in the box score in the playoffs, but Tim Duncan once against posts a negative plus/minus. At -0.8. A third negative plus/minus in 5 championship runs. Kawhi is at +7.0 and Manu once against shines at +12.1.

3 of the 5 titles with no clear box advantage. 3 with straight up negative net plus/minus (yes, unadjusted plus/minus) and all 3 well behind other main players on the Spurs, and a 4th with a tie. 2003 was technically a tie but I'm assuming Manu was basically just getting all his plus/minus from Duncan at that point.

Food for thought in thinking about the quality of the Spurs supporting cast throughout their run.

rk2023 · Post #33 » by **rk2023** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 2:15 am

trelos6 wrote:
rk2023 wrote:
trelos6 wrote:I threw together a spreadsheet to help rank everyone.

Would you mind sharing the link? It would be vastly appreciated if you feel comfortable doing so!

I basically gave a player a point for an all-star level season, another 3 for each of those seasons where they were all-nba level, another 5 if they were arguably a top 3 player, and another 7 if they were undoubtably the best player in the world.

I also gave 1.5 points per all D level season.

The rough results look promising, and help with the initial rankings.

Lebron
Kareem, MJ
Russell, Duncan
Shaq
Hakeem
KG
Kobe, Wilt, K. Malone
Bird, Dr J, D Rob, Magic
West, Oscar

It’s a balance between peak and longevity. And by no means is it the final list I’m going with.

Ah ok that’s pretty cool! Interestingly enough, I have a sheet with similar guesstimation / evaluation. What I thought you were referring to was consolidating the votes from each round.’

AEnigma · Post #34 » by **AEnigma** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 3:08 am

Still debating the order of Kareem and Russell. I see Kareem has early support here, but I know several Russell votes have yet to arrive.

The comparison between Kareem and Lebron is natural and perhaps inevitable at this level, as the all-time scoring leaders and top two candidates for best longevity in league history (with respect to Duncan and I suppose Karl Malone). I bristle a bit at some implicit suggestions that the bulk of their case is longevity, but their longevity is certainly the easiest aspect of their case to make.

Still, as I wrote with my Lebron vote, I see separation in their respective primes, and my reason for preferring Lebron is not isolated to the advantage of Lebron playing in the NBA while Kareem was still in UCLA. I said I would take 2009-20 Lebron over 1971-82 Kareem, and a similar exercise seems worthwhile for comparing Kareem to Russell… but actually I think the better starting point might be Wilt.

(This is a thought exercise, not deep analysis.)

1960 : 1970k
All-time rookie seasons — with room for future improvement on their weaker side of the ball — turn the league’s second worst regular season team into its second-best. Lose in the semifinals to the eventual champions (and best regular season team), who go on to win in seven games against an experienced Finals regular.
(Give Kareem the edge here, but the SRS and wins shift is something I find comparatively overstated because of roster age, Dandridge’s addition, and league talent drain through expansion, the ABA, and Russell’s absence.)

1961 : 1973k
In-between MVP seasons, bow out disappointingly in the conference semifinals against a team not even good enough to make the Finals.
(Slight lean toward Kareem here.)

1962 : 1977
All-time gaudy numbers puts this in discussion for greatest box score season ever, although some question whether commiserate impact is produced relative to the player who beats them in the semifinals en route to a title.
(Probably lean Kareem here. Wilt was closer to a title, but the Blazers were a more advantaged opponent.)

1963 : 1976
Gaudiest production in the league, but team is in such bleak shape that is not enough to reach the postseason without replicating the heights of the above adjacent year.
(Lean Kareem; weird MVP, but not undeserved, and would have been a playoff team if divisions/conferences were not in play.)

1964 : 1974
Sneaky third choice for true peak season. Limited roster is brought to the Finals via an elevated defensive and playmaking campaign, but lose to the Celtics.
(Wash.)

1965 : 1975
Injured season portends a trade as roster of prior Finals year collapses in on itself and misses the postseason.
(Uhhhh Kareem for the regular season but Wilt had a decent postseason, so wash.)

1966 : 1979
No glib comparison here beyond the recognition that both lose in five games to the eventual champion.
(Strong advantage to Wilt.)

1967 : 1971k
All-time team in perpetual discussion for best ever. Most individually complete season. Dominant playoff run is helped out a bit by injuries, as they so often are.
(Lean Wilt.)

1968 : 1972k
Follow-up to the preceding title season sees a mild dip but still incredible production on a superb team. However, team injuries ultimately cost them in the semifinals against an older and more experienced all-time centre.
(Lean Wilt.)

1969 : 1984
Woaaah curve-ball! Yes, we broke ordering a bit, but needed to highlight how, no longer the best player on the team, a lacklustre regular season campaign is met with a painful Game 7 loss against the arch-rival Celtics.
(Lean Kareem for playoff performance.)

1970w : 1978
Barely a regular season for Wilt, but it is the other main injury season of Kareem’s career, and both struggle to produce in the postseason.
(Advantage to Kareem for time played, but respect to Wilt for rushing his return from injury to give the Lakers a chance at a title they otherwise would not have.)

1971w : 1981
In-between Finals runs, outplayed by MVP opposing big in the postseason in a down season with superstar guard struggling with injuries
(Wash? Again a case of Kareem having a better regular season but Wilt finding more success in the postseason.)

1972w : 1980
MVP-calibre season en route to a commanding Lakers title run.
(Lean Kareem.)

1973w : 1983
Cruise to the Finals after a strong regular season but are no match for their even more talented opponent.
(Lean Wilt because those Lakers were more competitive.)

In this sampling of years, Kareem won six MVPs, missed the playoffs twice, and led his teams to a 2-1 Finals record while being a slight secondary figure in two more Finals losses. Wilt won four MVPs, missed the playoffs once, and led his teams to a 2-1 Finals record while being a slight secondary figure in two more Finals losses. Overall I would lean toward Kareem here, but there is some argument that Wilt established a stronger postseason résumé and suffered some brutal luck to not come across as far more successful within this sample.

…

Now, that postseason acknowledgment made, I am pretty explicitly dancing around the fact I cut out a full title year for Kareem. There is also the matter of his 1985-89 years (where he adds a Finals MVP season, a first team all-NBA season, two additional titles as a supporting piece, and an additional Finals appearance as a role-player.

So if I favour Kareem over Wilt, why do this exercise for a comparison with Russell?

Well, I guess I wanted to work through the sense that, if I am taking Russell so comfortably over Wilt, Kareem needs to clear Wilt by at least that margin. And then the question becomes, would I have Wilt ahead of Russell if he added the equivalent to 1982 and 1985-89 Kareem’s accomplishments?

Two titles as a co-star and two more as a starter (albeit nominal in 1988) is pretty significant, so I am not sure how I feel about that answer yet. But, if 1974-78 Wilt accomplished all that (for the sake of argument say Kareem languishes in mediocrity in Milwaukee and the Lakers win the 1973 title), a large part of me would still think, “Almost everything this hypothetical Wilt won came after Russell retired.” Not quite the case with Kareem, but everyone here knows what has always loomed is that idea that he only ever won once without Magic.

Just some musings. Excited to read what others think about this comparison.

eminence · Post #35 » by **eminence** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 3:27 am

On nominees-

I don't think I'll put much into that portion this round, I think there's a couple of fine choices but none really have much of a shot for the 3/4 spots in the voting, will probablly go Mikan mostly because I know there's someone who would like to vote for him.

Any strong thoughts from anyone there?

Dr Positivity · Post #36 » by **Dr Positivity** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 4:06 am

Vote

2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan

I'd rate Jordan's peak as more impressive considering 90s>70s for me, but I decided to go with longevity advantage. I think the amount of excess meaningful seasons compared to Jordan (roughly 81-89 for me), is still as valuable as fringe top 50 bigs like Reed and Dwight's whole careers. To me that's too big of a difference between them.

Nominate Shaq

AEnigma · Post #37 » by **AEnigma** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 5:28 am

f4p wrote:
Spoiler:
Well since I've already seen a Tim Duncan vote at #2, I suppose it's time I don my finest Playa Haters' Ball regalia and dive in. Was Tim Duncan a wonderful player? Sure. Did he win a lot? Most definitely. Is he beloved by APM, AuPM, RAPM, GPM, AM/PM, ESPM? Of course. But to whom much is given, much is expected.

Now certainly, the returns were great. But no one enjoyed a better organizational infrastructure, for more years than Tim Duncan. Most generational #1 picks are greeted by a smoldering crater of a franchise and asked to build it from the ground up. The Spurs had spent the better part of a decade winning 50 and 60 games, before tanking due to injuries for one season, and then bringing the best parts of that core back. And, oh yeah, adding possibly the greatest coach of all time. Was David Robinson quite peak David Robinson any more? No. But it's hard to imagine a much better situation for a #1 overall pick. Other than maybe Magic with Kareem and then James Worthy with Magic and Kareem, I don't know who had it better.

Duncan gets to immediately leap in with the core of a previous 59 win team with the GOAT coach in tow. And by year 2, the field is clear of any serious contenders and the Spurs romp their way through. Now, the downside to having your #1 pick join a veteran-laden squad is that their timelines are incompatible. But never fear. Right as that veteran squad was about to age out, the GOAT coach, who also happens to be a fine GM (in league with the very fine actual GM RC Buford), builds a time machine to go back in time a few years and use a #57 pick on a little known european star named Manu Ginobili, who is now ready to make the leap to the NBA. The Spurs use essentially a non-asset to obtain a future hall of famer who finished #53 in the last Top 100 project. But wait, there's more. With a #29 pick, they find another foreign future hall of famer who finished in the top 75 of the last Top 100 project. How do you rebuild around your mega-star without ever actually rebuilding? You pick up 2 future hall of famers for essentially nothing.

Now you're 2 titles in and also have your star and his co-stars on the right timeline. In fact, Ginobili being an older rookie puts him exactly on Duncan's timeline. Now you get to watch 3 stars play out their primes together with possibly the best coach ever. Of course you should win a lot. And yet, by 2008, storm clouds were brewing. 3 stars and a GOAT coach seemingly stopped being enough. A meek WCF exit here, a first round loss there, a 2nd round sweep back over here, a loss to an 8th seed back over there. Is the dynasty over? Well...

Not when the front office adds Danny Green and Tiago Splitter and Boris Diaw and Patty Mills and, umm, who am I forgetting? Oh, it's future hall of fame, future multiple time Finals MVP, #42 on the previous Top 100 and only that low because he can't stay healthy, it's playoff performer extraordinaire Kawhi Leonard. That looks like a good team in and of itself, much less added to a hall of fame trio. Especially when the coach can seamlessly shift from defensive guru to "beautiful game" coach like it's nothing. Now Tim Duncan is free to gracefully end his career, never asked to do too much on his super deep, super well-coached team. It helps him maintain value and play on winning teams all the way to the end. By the time he is ready to exit the stage in year 19, they have even added another likely hall of famer in LaMarcus Aldridge. Giving the Spurs an all-HOF closing lineup. Duncan can play 25 mpg and only 60 games for the season and still see his team win 67 games and actually finish with a better net rating than the 73-win Warriors.

And how do the Spurs fair after Duncan leaves the stage? Well, known for their winning and defense in Duncan's day, without him they proceed to...win 61 games and lead the league in defense. Sort of a mirror to how Duncan entered the league. On a loaded team any aging veteran would kill to have as the bumps and bruises and injuries from a long career take their toll. Even when Kawhi Leonard quit on the team the next year and Manu and Tony continued to get older (as most people do), they still managed 48 wins and the #3 defense with Pop at the helm. That is a story-book franchise situation. Masterfully worked by Duncan. Selfless, seemingly ego-less, mostly loyal (he did flirt with a few other girls that one offseason), willing to adjust as Pop needed. But too good to be voted #2 with the (admittedly great) results that were produced.

So why do I say that? Simply too many opportunities missed on great teams and no true underdog results to offset it. And too many series being outplayed by someone on the other team or struggling mightily on offense while in his prime.

Just to get it out of the way first. 2003 is unimpeachable. Arguably the weakest supporting cast on a title team in the modern era (I still have '94 Hakeem but I get the '03 arguments). Record for win shares in a playoff run speaks to the level of carry that was involved. Amazing regular season, even more amazing postseason, did everything for his team. 24/17/5/5 in the finals back when scores were 85-81 is incredible. But back to The Ball...

The opportunities missed will probably apply most to an argument with Jordan (my vote for #2 when I eventually vote), but the overall argument will also be about Hakeem (possibly my vote for #6 after Magic but maybe #5 if there is any Hakeem/Duncan debate to be had at the time). With Hakeem basically being the greatest combination of "no opportunities missed" and massive amounts of underdog results to pile on top of that.

Tim Duncan won 4 of his 5 titles as the #1 SRS team. No problem with that. After all, it is 5 of 6 for Jordan. But even Duncan's 1 win as the #3 SRS team (2003) comes with the caveat that #1/#2 (DAL/SAC) faced off against each other in the second round, and then Dirk got hurt and missed half of the conference finals so it's not clear the Spurs weren't the favorite anyway (though they were up 2-1 with Dirk playing). But in 2001, the Spurs were #1 in SRS and lost. Swept in fact. Bludgeoned by 29 and 39 in the final 2 games. Has a #1 SRS team been beaten in worse fashion? In 2004, they were #1 in SRS once again and lost after taking a 2-0 lead. In 2006, #1 in SRS again and lost in the 2nd round. 2012, #2 in SRS but after Rose's injury, effectively the #1 SRS team and lost 4 straight in the WCF after winning their first 10 games of the playoffs. 2011, #1 seed and lost to an 8th seed. That's a lot of losing as a favorite if you want to be put up there with Jordan.

MJ went 25-0 as an SRS favorite. Obviously, no one has done better. Duncan went 31-8. Good, but not necessarily amazing.

Jordan 25-0
Russell 24-1
Kobe 25-2
Isiah 11-1
Lebron 31-3
Curry 19-2
Wade 18-2
Wilt 16-2
Durant 16-2
West 16-2
Garnett 8-1
Magic 28-4
Kareem 33-7
Shaq 24-6

("Now, wait", I can hear you saying. Hakeem was 6-2, only 75%. Your case has fallen apart. But both of Hakeem's were on fairly weak teams (very first series as a rookie and 1987 as a 6th seed vs a 7th seed after already upsetting the 3rd seed) and in series within the +/- 2 SRS range that seems to denote more of a toss-up with Hakeem 3-2 as a 0-2 SRS favorite and Duncan 5-4 (all tracked players at 71%))

By SRS, Duncan's average playoff series loss was actually as a 0.86 SRS favorite. That's incredible. Only Bill Russell with an average loss of +1.47 SRS is worse, and that comes with the caveat that he only lost twice and the time he lost as a huge +4.2 favorite he missed a few games in the series (though Boston doesn't really appear to have played worse without him). Larry Bird, not exactly a great playoff riser, is next at +0.73 and Chris Paul and David Robinson also find themselves on the wrong side of 0. Hakeem is at -3.2 and Jordan is by far the biggest underdog (of the 40 or so top players I looked at) at -5.0, an enormous underdog when he lost. In fact, Hakeem's average playoff series WIN was as a -0.8 SRS underdog, which is crazy. That's the difference in having to drag a franchise around for 18 years and having one of the best situations ever.

This is how, even with 5 titles, Duncan didn't necessarily outperform his expected titles by so much.

Expected vs Actual Championships

Duncan had 5 titles against 4.04 expected titles. Among people with at least 5 titles (admittedly a short-ish list), that 0.96 delta is higher only than Bob Cousy's 0.64. And everybody else but Kareem is at least +2. Ignoring Parker and Ginobili for obvious reasons, you have to go to Larry Bird at +0.2 to get a lower number and then to Wilt at -1.0. Not great company from a playoffs risers/fallers perspective.

And it's not just that the Spurs lost as favorites, but it feels like there are specific ways you can look at Duncan's performance and say it was lacking, especially as a scorer against largely single coverage basically any time after 2003 except for 2006. Things you can't really say about Jordan or Hakeem when they lose, except may in an occasional massive-underdog situation). Even some of the Spurs wins saw Duncan struggle. Now, to be clear, Duncan is still a great playoff performer overall. Even the hated box score says he is amazing. But I'm talking about:

2002 - Spurs and Lakers near SRS parity. Duncan puts up fantastic series numbers, but the Spurs are outscored in every 4th quarter and Duncan goes 11-29 with 9 turnovers in the five 4th quarters of the series. Losing a series they led after 3 quarters in 3 of 5 games. Duncan guarding Shaq in 2002 was mentioned. Maybe it happened, but I watched game 5 a few months ago. He didn't guard him in the 1st quarter, the youtube video (in spanish) skipped the 2nd quarter, but he didn't guard him for the first half of the 3rd so he probably didn't guard him in the 2nd quarter. Then he guarded him once in the 3rd and picked up a foul. One possession later he guarded him again and picked up a foul. Strategy put on hold. In the 4th he guarded Shaq a 3rd time and picked up a foul. This did not appear to be 1999 36 year old Hakeem being led to slaughter guarding prime Shaq from the tip. it was selective guarding. And not too good in game 5.

2004 - The Spurs, significant SRS favorites on the Lakers, go up 2-0. Note that neither Jordan nor Hakeem has ever lost a 2 game lead. Over the final 4 games, Duncan averages 17.5 ppg on 38 FG% with 4.3 TOpg. While mostly being guarded by a 40 year old Mailman who I don't recall guarding Hakeem much even when Malone was younger. This seems to be a highly winnable series if Duncan plays better.

2005 - The Spurs do manage to win in 7 against the Pistons, but Duncan, still only 28 years old, struggles mightily to score on the Wallace Bros, shooting 41.9% for the series. My recollection is that it was a lot of single coverage. And almost losing game 5 at the line before Horry went crazy. Manu could have been Finals MVP.

2007 - The Spurs once again win a finals with Duncan only putting up 18 ppg on 44.6 FG%. Maybe I'm forgetting who the Cavs had for post defense but it seemed like it was mostly Varejao. Granted, this was a gimme series so not holding it much against Duncan.

2008 - The Spurs lose fairly easily in the WCF with Duncan shooting 42.6% against what was mostly single coverage from Pau Gasol. They could also have easily lost in the 2nd round with Duncan shooting 42.1% against what I remember as mostly single coverage against Tyson Chandler.

These might not be devastating performances (though some are pretty bad) in terms of the totality of a career when compared to normal players, but we're comparing Duncan to playoff Hakeem. Other than a mediocre series as an 8th seed in 1990 and the 1996 Sonics series as a 33 year old where Hakeem was literally doubled every single time he touched the ball in the post in the first 2 games that I watched a couple of months ago, we simply don't see Hakeem shutdown by people. Basically ever. And he even came back at age 34 and dominated again. And while scoring a lot isn't everything, my detailed notes say Hakeem was pretty good at defense as well so it's not like this is an offense/defense argument.

Then of course we get a 3 year stretch from 2009-11, where Duncan is only 32-34 years old, still playing with 2 hall of fame teammates, where the Spurs lose in the 1st round with Duncan putting up 20/8, then get swept in the 2nd round as small SRS favorites with Duncan putting up 20/10.5, and then lose in the 1st round to an 8th seed with Duncan putting up 12.7 ppg on 47.8% shooting.

And to me, that 3 season stretch is why I somewhat doubt Duncan's real value in his later years. Why I'm not sure his longevity is quite as impressive as supporters make it out to be. The argument is that Duncan's value mostly came from defense and so, if he downshifted on the offensive side but still provided defense, then he was still mostly Duncan, at least according to the impact metrics. But before the Spurs added a wave of talent for the 2010's, they could have really used Tim Duncan the 2003 monster from 2008-2011. But it wasn't there. 1st round, 2nd round, 1st round. Mediocre scoring, mediocre efficiency. Did Duncan suddenly get better after that as he turned 35-39? Perhaps the next part is in the eye of the beholder, but it feels like we saw what would happen to Duncan if he got the typical late career treatment of an all-time great. Where you are marched out with a diminishing team, as the core ages or gets too expensive and leaves, but still expected to be your prime self.

Like Hakeem on the 1998 Rockets. After a season of injuries. Where he holds the #1 offense Utah Jazz to a -9 rORtg in the 1st round, with horrible defensive teammates, and almost pulls a huge upset. But then still has to take 20 shots a game and shoot horribly. Basically still being asked to be 1995 Hakeem. Only he isn't, and we see it. Because the next 5 players in field goal attempts on the rest of the team shoot 36% from the field and 24% from 3's. Would that he could have simply played amazing defense and let his talented perimeter teammates and new amazing small forward future star carry the offense.

Duncan gets to pick and choose. Or simply get by on "meh" shooting. Like in 2013 where his efficiency struggles in the west against good defenders but then picks up in the finals against the smaller heat. Was Duncan amazing at 38? Sure. After a decade of load management and a perfect role. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I think he simply got a better situation to shine as he got older. The kind that guys like Garnett or Hakeem would kill for.

Classic f4p Hakeem post, and while I disagree with the Duncan slander, I do strongly agree that Hakeem belongs on the same tier.

However, you forgot one key thing in that monster of a post…

NOMINATE: Hakeem Olajuwon

I am reminded of a similar post you made here…

f4p wrote:
Spoiler:
AEnigma wrote:I have said it before, but longevity has become something of a red herring in this community. Playing more is good, sure, but we are not talking about a Stockton figure who just churns out good second option years and then apparently ends up in a bunch of people’s top twenty-five. Duncan has great longevity, but he also has an eleven-year prime which can stack up to pretty much anyone. It is when we start quibbling over how Hakeem and Shaq (or Wilt or Magic) might have the advantage with 12 or 13-year primes, or how Hakeem had a more strenuous and impressive year 14 and 15, that people are going to want to highlight how Duncan is top three for years 16 to 18. You can be individually lower on the value of longevity (and I know you are) without pretending that it was all some product of Duncan playing a couple of minutes less during his twilight years, because nothing in the career arc of Hakeem or Shaq suggests that was what they needed to replicate 2014-16 Duncan.

yeah, that's fair to say it wasn't just the 2 or 3 fewer minutes (though obviously it helps or the spurs wouldn't have done it), but more that duncan basically never got stressed by his role while someone like hakeem was basically ridden until it was time for the glue factory. and that i think the difference in a duncan who could consistently give you 25-30 in a big playoff game was a lot different than the older duncan who couldn't and that the spurs having such an amazing supporting cast that was still ripping off 60 win seasons simply makes it look like the difference between older duncan and younger duncan isn't that large.

[Duncan] was the first load managed superstar and certainly got at least a year's worth of benefit from that over his contemporaries. not only that, but then most of his career numbers tend to be quoted as per minute or per possession type numbers. basically meaning duncan gets to have his cake and eat it too. looking great on a per minute basis without playing the extra minutes, then getting talked up for the extra years that were a result of the reduced minutes.

but probably even more than that, i think he just benefited from having his best supporting casts when he was at his oldest. if the spurs had followed the trajectory they were seemingly following from 2008 to 2010 (and even the first round of 2011), when people though the dynasty was over, i think duncan gets viewed much differently. instead they add a bunch of great role players and kawhi (and then even aldridge), basically meaning duncan never had to worry about doing anything he couldn't do.

we didn't watch him get old, effectively. where we see the great 25/10 guy still asked to be the great 25/10 guy and he can't any more. where he's asked to play big minutes because the rest of the roster is also aging out (or left due to contracts getting expensive). where he still has to come back from injuries as fast as possible to save the team and then ends up playing the rest of the season hurt.

none of that happened for duncan. need to reduce minutes? fine, we'll still win 60. need to take a few extra days with that injury? fine, we'll still win 60. need to take a game off here or there when the schedule gets a little compacted? fine, we'll still win 60.

he could show up, play great interior defense, get a few dump off passes for layups, take a few choice post-up mismatches while the rest of the team ran the offense, and then he'd look great for providing defensive value with an easy 9 point, 11 rebound game in 28 minutes while the spurs destroyed some mediocre team. i suspect many players would appear to have more longevity if they could focus only on the things that make them great and that they can still do as they get older, with no stress and strain from playing through injuries or playing all 82 games.

how much of the difference in post-age 34 duncan is really a difference in the players or just a difference in the team situations. like if the 2008-2010 trend had just continued and the spurs didn't add kawhi/green/mills/splitter/diaw, an unbelievable group of role players and even an eventual star, to their aging hall of fame core. i think we see more memphis series. where duncan needs to go in the phone booth and put on his cape to save the team in non-ideal circumstances, which he certainly could do when younger, and he simply can't do it. instead he got to massively reduce his offensive role and focus on defense, which he could still do.

and maybe that's my biggest break with others. the narrative seems to often become something like "well, duncan's value was really always mostly on the defensive end, and he was still great defensively, so even if he reduced his offensive load, he's still basically 90% of duncan" whereas i think the offensive giant of the early/mid-2000s was carrying the spurs in a valuable way and there's no way older duncan could still do that (arguably all the way back to 2007). so i think he just got to relax and fit into a role that an older player can still play.

i know you included 1998 in hakeem's prime, but a lot probably don't (so again i'm arguing against general things i've seen), and i look at something like the 1st round in 1998. rockets playing #1 seed jazz who would go on to star in The Last Dance after sweeping the WCF. the rockets almost won that series. with barkley injured and not even starting. and drexler retiring after the series after an abominable 1-13 from the field, 4-10 from the line final game and 31/19 shooting splits for the series. so how did we almost win? because the rockets had a -9 rDRtg. with matt maloney, matt bullard, checked-out drexler and kevin willis as the other starters. IOW, on the back of hakeem still providing unbelievable defensive lift against the #1 offense. so why doesn't hakeem get the duncan treatment for this series? well, because hakeem took 20 FGA/gm on an atrocious 45 TS% and we could see he was no longer hakeem. should he have taken 20 FGA/gm? apparently. because drexler and willis took the 2nd and 3rd most shots and combined for 35% FG. barkley only took 23 shots with his injury. the top 5 shooters after hakeem were at 35.7% FG and 24.2% 3P. so basically, after hakeem got through anchoring a -9 defense, he was still asked, after a season of injuries, to basically go be 1995 hakeem on offense. how much better does he look if manu and parker and diaw are running the offense and the rockets knock off a great jazz team with hakeem still putting up a -9 defense? when duncan does that, he's amazing at an old age. when hakeem does it, we just notice that he's old.

1999 hakeem almost goes 20/10 in a lockout season where he plays all 50 games, but then he get obliterated by prime/almost peak shaq in the playoffs and so again doesn't get the appearance of being good like 2013 duncan, who got to face a bunch of defensive centers who couldn't score and, even when duncan himself couldn't score against them, his loaded team just picked up the slack. and why did hakeem guard shaq? because the rockets basically had hakeem and antoine carr (18 PF's per 36 for the series) to guard shaq. even prime duncan wasn't guarding shaq and if he did, maybe only in the 4th quarter. hakeem got a double barrel dose as a 36 year old, pretty much certain destruction for any 36 year old in history.

so i guess i'm more arguing with the people who think the separation started after 1997 for hakeem, whereas i think it was almost all team construction until at least after 1999 for hakeem.

and even then, i look at hakeem's age 38 season… hakeem plays a pretty perfect old man role with francis and mobley (who certainly are no manu/parker) and the rockets win a surprise 45 games starting matt bullard and walt williams… i think it's at least possible that turning a few 35 minute games into 30 minute games, a few 40 minute playoff games into 35 minute games, missing a few back to backs (instead of playing back-to-back-to-backs in the lockout season as a 36 year old) could have removed enough wear and tear to maybe buy hakeem another season and maybe keep him even at 37 or 38***. maybe a healthier 2000 season. obviously speculation, but certainly things that went in duncan's favor didn't also go in someone like hakeem's favor.

… and I also think it is worth revisiting this post of yours:

f4p wrote:i just recently did a bunch of work on great players and the level of competition they faced relative to how great their own team was. I took the SRS of their own team and compared it to their opponent in every playoff series they played to get a feeling for who was most favorited in their series and who faced the biggest uphill climbs. Positive numbers mean you are the favorite, negative you are the underdog.

The following is just the average series differential over a player's career.

The top of the list isn't crazy, as it's basically the guys who played with the most talented teammates in nba history. Their average series was as a 3-4 SRS favorite, which is a huge advantage. Shaq shows up in the middle as probably the biggest regular season switch-flipper in history, regularly slacking off in the regular season before dropping 30/15 in the playoffs. And at the bottom, being a complete playoff outlier as usual is Hakeem. As a Rockets fan, I figured he would look impressive for overcoming the odds, but I didn't expect him to be this far down the list. He's wedged between guys like Wilkins and Melo, who each won 3 total playoff series in their entire careers. Hakeem made the finals 3 times and won an incredible 10 series as an underdog.

Maybe not that different, but the following shows the average differential in series a player won or lost.

We see once again what charmed lives guys like Curry, Bird, Magic, and Duncan lived, being huge favorites when they won and being near even or even having the advantage in their average series loss (Bird especially, who's biggest underdog series of -1.71 isn't even as bad as some players' average series). Harder to get a feel for Russell since he only lost 2 series and he was a huge favorite in the 1958 finals.

Jordan kind of went from underdog to favorite very quickly in his career and it shows. With him being a big favorite when he won and a massive underdog when he lost. Also he was 25-0 as a favorite.

Some of it is the Shaq effect obviously, but Kobe comes off looking good by this measure, with 5 titles and not a huge advantage when winning.

Hakeem stands out again for literally being an underdog in his average series victory. Only Jimmy Butler can say that, and he was basically even at -0.09. Oh, and poor Tracy McGrady, whose Spurs series I did not include since he didn't really play.

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

I know some voters here have dismissed Hakeem as basically building his career around three Finals runs. Here is one of my favourite posts on my pick for the league’s best ever big man peak, and how those types of peaks can ultimately be wasted by limited teammates (which we should already know from 1962 Wilt and 1977 Kareem and 2003 Garnett and — despite f4p’s slander

— 2002 Duncan but which for whatever reason is so often not extended to 1993 Hakeem).

Double Clutch wrote:
Spoiler:
First of all, the primary argument used against 1993 Hakeem in contrast to the 1994 and especially 1995 versions is that his playoff run wasn't as good. I think everybody would agree 1993 Hakeem had the best regular season so I'm not going to talk about that as much. Most people would say that the 1995 playoff run was his best. We have to understand that playoff performances and especially the numbers are not accumulated in a vacuum. There are certain match ups and circumstances that can potentially dictate how a player performs.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is whether the 1995 playoff run was an aberration in his career? That is clearly not the case as he was generally a terrific playoff performer so it's not a case where you can say Hakeem finally put it all together and had a great playoff run.

The next thing you have to ask yourself is if Hakeem is in a better situation to put up offensive numbers in 1995 than he is in 1993. That to me is definitely true because he has superior back-up PG play with a second year Cassell while the 1993 Rockets had Scott Brooks which is really no comparison, there is even greater floor spacing as Horry spent a good amount of time at the 4 during the playoffs which is an offense at the expense of defense strategy (also benefited from the shortened 3 pt line) and the addition of Drexler brought another dimension to their offense, relieving some pressure off of him and Hakeem does benefit from Drexler’s presence as he’d often space the floor with Drexler either posting up or isolating which is naturally going to help him as he got better looks and Drexler really improved their transition game as well which Hakeem benefited from as the trailer. A secondary scorer is something lacking on the 1993 and 1994 Rockets.

Now, consider his match ups and circumstances in 1993, neither of which are very favorable so for Hakeem to play that well makes his playoffs that year even more impressive to me. As I mentioned earlier, the guard play is crucial to how a center plays as they're often responsible for getting him the ball. The guard play on the 1993 Rockets is fairly suspect with poor back-ups, the fact that Vernon Maxwell was out until game 4 of the Clipper series with a fractured wrist (he'd play with it for the rest of the playoffs) and this is further magnified by the fact that the two teams they were facing excelled in pressure defenses. There is no accurate way to account for how great a team is at pressuring and trapping the ball besides watching the games but two stats that will give you a rough estimation will be steals and turnovers forced. The 1993 Sonics were the #1 team in the league in both steals and turnovers forced. The 1993 Clippers were the #3 team in the league in steals and #4 in turnovers forced so the point I'm getting at is they were BOTH elite and combined with suspect guard play, this can really have a negative impact on a center's production. Kenny Smith was never great at handling pressure, didn't have the creativity and ball handling skills to evade the traps and made bad passes that could get picked off and Vernon Maxwell had erratic ball handling and also did not protect the ball though I think the fractured wrist probably effected that to some extent. With how predictable the 1993 Rockets' were on offense, what this also meant was that time would be taken off the clock with LAC and SEA pressuring the ball and instead of being aggressive and taking advantage of defense still recovering, they would try to run the offense by dumping it to Hakeem with less time on the clock. Some of the Rocket players would also stand still waiting to receive the pass instead of coming up and meeting the pass which would allow the defense to play the passing lanes and either force a deflection or a steal.

Here's an example from game 5 of the 1993 Rockets vs Clippers series where the pressure defense helped Clippers erase a big 4th quarter deficit:
The way the Los Angeles Clippers see it, the Rockets will go as far in the NBA playoffs as Hakeem Olajuwon can take them and as far as their erratic ballhandling will let them go.

The Clippers tried a variety of defensive measures on Olajuwon, but nothing stopped him for long. But the Clippers did employ a pressing defense at times that forced turnovers and kept the ball from getting into Olajuwon's hands.

The Rockets were in control of Saturday's series-ending playoff game with a 16-point lead early in the fourth quarter. But shortly thereafter Clippers coach Larry Brown called for the press, the Rockets went on one of their turnover binges, and the game turned around.

Los Angeles rallied to lead in the final minute before the Rockets recovered to win 84-80 at The Summit.
In the fourth quarter, the Rockets had 11 turnovers and were outscored 24-17.

Clippers guard Lester Conner, who played the final 11 minutes of the game, said: "We had to make something happen to try to scramble the game. We got where we wanted to be and had a chance to go up two (with 1:17 to go) with (Ron) Harper's free throw."

Harper, who had scored on a fast-break drive to give the Clippers an 80-79 lead, missed his chance at a three-point play, and the Rockets' Vernon Maxwell followed with a 3-pointer from the right side that put the Rockets ahead for good.

But what does the victory say for the Rockets? They were pushed to the limit to win this series against a .500 team that was looking forward to being dismantled in the offseason.

"They have a chance to go very far," said Conner, a former Rocket. "But Rudy (Tomjanovich) will have to be figuring out what to do against pressure.

"When they play a better team than we are, I don't know if they'll be able to deal with it (the press). We got a couple of victories with it, and we came within one shot of beating them today. They are beatable."

Forward Kenny Norman said: "I don't think the best team won, but that Olajuwon is unbelievable. I didn't realize he was that good."

Asked if Olajuwon deserves to be the league's Most Valuable Player, Norman said: "I said (Charles) Barkley all year, but I'm wondering now. That man (Olajuwon) is Superman."

Norman, who is not usually an outside shooter, was 2-for-2 on 3-point shots and scored 14 points.

Although he did not play the final 11 minutes of the game, he had no complaints because "Lester and the small lineup got us back in the game."

But there was no stopping the Rockets' big man, Olajuwon, who scored 31 points for the day and went 3-for-4 from the floor in the fourth quarter.

Stanley Roberts, who took turns with Danny Manning trying to guard Olajuwon, said: "He's going to do what it takes to win. There really is no stopping him."

Said Manning: "Hakeem had a great year and a great series. I think he will even play better as the playoffs move on. Defensively, I never was really able to stop him, but then again, there are not many players that have."

- Chron

Clippers were also focused on doubling Hakeem at all times and didn't play him straight up from my memory although I don't count plays where Hakeem makes his move early such as the baseline spin off the catch, turnaround jumper where he can evade the double team etc. Of course, Seattle would take this to another level than the Clippers as they had superior defensive personnel as well as a defensive mastermind in Bob Kloppenburg to create defensive schemes to negate Hakeem's impact as much as possible. Hakeem's numbers in the Seattle series may not stand out but he created a lot of opportunities because how much attention he received. They would also make adjustments throughout the series such as switching defenders, changing the identities of the double teamer, coming from different angles, fronting him and pressuring the ball handler to make it harder for the lob pass and a lot of times they could get away with having a defender on the front and on the back. Seattle would also try to run more and bait Houston into a running game where they tended to forget about Hakeem and the guards tended to chuck up more shots so this was also smart on Seattle's behalf. An example of this below from game 1 of this series:
Lacking alternatives, Karl went to a small lineup, and watched his club run up a 91-77 lead that proved to be too much to overcome with 7:07 remaining in a defensive matchup.

"That's sometimes how good coaches are made," Karl conceded.

Well, looky here. Like spying a dollar bill on the sidewalk, the Sonics may have stumbled across yet another look to toss at Olajuwon, the Rockets' superstar center. Call it the no-look.

Because, in this scheme, Olajuwon doesn't get to look at the ball.

With the smaller unit able to force the tempo, the Sonics ripped off nine unanswered points - the first five from Johnson, the last four from Pierce. The Sonics, as everybody knows, are at their best when things get crazy. The Rockets, on the other hand, have Olajuwon, so playing crazy usually is just plain insane.

"They're kind of an in-between team," Kloppenburg said. "They'll run, if they get the opportunities. But they mostly want the power game."

But there's nothing powerful about turnovers and wild three-pointers, which the Rockets produced when induced into an up-and-down game.

"If they're playing that way," said Johnson, who scored the Sonics' first 11 points of the fourth quarter and finished with 20, "they tend, at times, to forget about Hakeem."

Bingo.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930511&slug=1700685

Hakeem's production when you consider these two aspects is great because I believe you shouldn't penalize a big man if his perimeter players can't get him the ball or if they're being baited into an up and down game and seduced into playing into the opponent's hands although this does show an inherit limitation in a big man's game due to their inability to create offense from the get-go. The above issues are something Hakeem didn't come across in the 1994 or 1995 playoffs with the exception of the 1994 finals to a certain extent. Hakeem also didn't receive much support early on in this series; I remember Hubie Brown stating how he felt Hakeem was essentially playing 1 on 5 in the first two games at Seattle. In general, I think 1993 Hakeem got doubled a bit more than 1994 and especially 1995 Hakeem due to the strategies employed by the teams they faced as well as superior spacing on the 1995 team which can make your box score stats look weaker.

Now, when I compare 1993 Hakeem to 1994 Hakeem, I really don't see any improvements in the latter version mainly because he didn't get to work much on his game in the 1993 off-season as he had to get surgery on his finger (right hand) although he did work on his off-hand as a result. Meanwhile, 1993 Hakeem is very clearly a superior rebounder which can be backed up by the numbers, a tad quicker which I think was noticeable in his lateral movement and rotations and I also thought he had a bit more stamina preventing him from getting worn down late in games which happened in the 1994 playoffs (game 4 vs Portland, finals vs the Knicks etc). To me, he was pretty clearly the MVP in 1993 by the way and the 1994 Rockets as a team are a little better than the 1993 version due to the addition of Sam Cassell who was a solid back up PG, Horry improving as a player specifically in regards to his shooting and the addition of another solid defender and shooter in Mario Elie. I'm not even touching on the fact that the 1993 Rockets had a whole bunch of calls go against them in game 7 vs Seattle as well as a tip-in at the buzzer by David Robinson to force OT in the last game of the season which shouldn't have counted as it was late and that would've given Houston home court in the Seattle series (home team won every game).

When I compare 1993 Hakeem to 1995 Hakeem, I try to compare and weigh to what extent the improvement in certain skills translates to impact. 1993 Hakeem has a rather clear edge in athleticism especially in regards to quickness and leaping ability, offensive rebounding (more easier baskets), defensive rebounding, shot FTs a little better (very minor point though), transition defense, mobility on the perimeter, PnR defense and rim protection (thought he challenged more shots in the lane). His perimeter/PnR/transition defense is incredible in that series vs Seattle, just awe-inspiring to watch especially when you consider that Seattle had a well-balanced attack with multiple offensive threats all over the floor.

I noticed 1995 Hakeem took more of an offensive approach; perhaps, because they realized the team's strength clearly lied on the offensive end and he shifted his focus towards that side of the court and maybe conserved some energy on defense. His activity level in terms of challenging shots and crashing the boards had declined and Houston's PnR defense was exploited on occasion during the 1995 playoffs (games 3 and 4 vs SA come to mind) though I wouldn't attribute that to Hakeem but more so the strategy Houston chose to roll with in defending the play. I did notice he was more conscious of the roll man when he was guarding Shaq and Robinson which is understandable from a strategic standpoint and the main reason it was exploited was due to the guards often getting picked off and weakside help didn't come quick enough. But I also noticed that in general, Hakeem didn't show hard as much or as consistently as he did in the past and laid back on the play. Maybe this was due to the fact they lacked rebounding due to the Drexler/Thorpe trade but Hakeem's defensive rebounding numbers actually declined after the trade. The decrease in activity level is something you can argue in favor of 1993 Hakeem since he had better stamina so he didn't have to conserve energy as much. As for improvements, I would say 1995 Hakeem is a bit better at setting screens so his PnR and PnP game was better as a result and he also improved at slipping screens as well, he was more effective facing up and putting the ball on the floor, bit better footwork that along with his instincts allowed him to create more separation and more stuff on the fly, he perhaps had a bit more range to stretch the floor so his offensive portability is a little better although how much of this is due to simply having the room to showcase his stuff more often due to the improvement in Houston's spacing, facing less defensive attention and their guards were better at penetrating and creating (no Drexler and Cassell in 1993)? I think it definitely plays a part so while this does show Hakeem's ability to adjust with the system, you can perhaps say 1995 Hakeem doesn't have as much of an edge in these areas as you initially think since 1993 Hakeem wasn't used this way due to the make up of the team. With that said, his assistant coach (Carroll Dawson) did talk about how he added range to his jumper and there is a visible improvement in his pick setting in 1995. Some of it may have to do with the presence of Cassell as him and Sam had decent synergy on the PnR.

I'm really impressed by Hakeem's all around dominance in 1993 and while I did commend his clutch play in 1995, 1993 Hakeem was extremely clutch as well. The game 5 vs Clippers and the game 7 vs Seattle are two terrific elimination game performances.

To briefly indulge into Hakeem and the Rockets' regular season, they really became a great team after a few team meetings in January 1993 encouraging more unselfish and team basketball and Hakeem's leadership played a part in that. After a subpar 14-16 start, they went 41-11 to finish the season and Hakeem's numbers in that 52 gm stretch are really tremendous all-around: 26.9 ppg/13.3 rpg/4.0 apg/2.1 spg/4.2 bpg/53.0 FG%/79.4 FT%. I'm not overly impressed by the 1993 Rockets roster either partly for some the reasons that have been stated above such as their inability to handle pressure defenses along with their guard play in general.

I think Hakeem's decision making really improved this year which he alluded to in his HOF speech when he said Rudy T gave him more room to freelance which made him more conscious of his decisions and of course Rudy had designed the offense around him to maximize his talents. Hakeem also said the 1992 off-season was the first time he really worked on his game (shooting, spin moves, conditioning, passing) and the improvements in 1993 are rather obvious. It's why 1993 is his peak to me, he put it all together and his dominance on offense and defense overlapped to a greater extent than he did in 1994 and 1995 while having all the leadership, clutch play and mental game down.

I do not really think there is much separation between Jordan and Hakeem as players so much as respective circumstance — although sure, 1991-92 and 1996-98 all skew strongly toward Jordan. If we want to reward Jordan for the accolades, fine, but this ten spot gap a lot of people have between them is the same type of punishment we see from people who create ten spots of separation between Duncan and Garnett because Garnett had the misfortune of spending his prime on the Timberwolves.

I have been working on a longer post about this, but you look at the 1985 rookie season, and Hakeem is the one overseeing the bigger team turnaround. Okay, Jordan has a better first round loss than Hakeem, but the next year one is in the Finals losing 4-2 against the Celtics (upsetting the defending champions on the way) while the other was an uncompetitive sweep against those same Celtics. Year after, an even less competitive sweep against a worse Celtics team for Jordan and his Bulls (yet to cross .500 for a season), while Hakeem upsets another highly favoured team before having his own “God disguised as” playoff exit. 1988, Jordan finally hits 50 wins and wins a series, but Hakeem maintains his torrid postseason pace even as the team around him falls apart. And for as much as we can say that Jordan ran away with the debate from there, for me, it is tough to look past the outright value advantage Hakeem received from those three “fluke” Finals runs all coinciding with seasons where Jordan did not even play 1700 minutes combined.

Again, if people want to favour Jordan and Duncan for the title and accolade disparity, I understand that… but the raw value gap is pretty small.

f4p · Post #38 » by **f4p** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 7:34 am

AEnigma wrote:
f4p wrote:
Spoiler:
Well since I've already seen a Tim Duncan vote at #2, I suppose it's time I don my finest Playa Haters' Ball regalia and dive in. Was Tim Duncan a wonderful player? Sure. Did he win a lot? Most definitely. Is he beloved by APM, AuPM, RAPM, GPM, AM/PM, ESPM? Of course. But to whom much is given, much is expected.

Now certainly, the returns were great. But no one enjoyed a better organizational infrastructure, for more years than Tim Duncan. Most generational #1 picks are greeted by a smoldering crater of a franchise and asked to build it from the ground up. The Spurs had spent the better part of a decade winning 50 and 60 games, before tanking due to injuries for one season, and then bringing the best parts of that core back. And, oh yeah, adding possibly the greatest coach of all time. Was David Robinson quite peak David Robinson any more? No. But it's hard to imagine a much better situation for a #1 overall pick. Other than maybe Magic with Kareem and then James Worthy with Magic and Kareem, I don't know who had it better.

Duncan gets to immediately leap in with the core of a previous 59 win team with the GOAT coach in tow. And by year 2, the field is clear of any serious contenders and the Spurs romp their way through. Now, the downside to having your #1 pick join a veteran-laden squad is that their timelines are incompatible. But never fear. Right as that veteran squad was about to age out, the GOAT coach, who also happens to be a fine GM (in league with the very fine actual GM RC Buford), builds a time machine to go back in time a few years and use a #57 pick on a little known european star named Manu Ginobili, who is now ready to make the leap to the NBA. The Spurs use essentially a non-asset to obtain a future hall of famer who finished #53 in the last Top 100 project. But wait, there's more. With a #29 pick, they find another foreign future hall of famer who finished in the top 75 of the last Top 100 project. How do you rebuild around your mega-star without ever actually rebuilding? You pick up 2 future hall of famers for essentially nothing.

Now you're 2 titles in and also have your star and his co-stars on the right timeline. In fact, Ginobili being an older rookie puts him exactly on Duncan's timeline. Now you get to watch 3 stars play out their primes together with possibly the best coach ever. Of course you should win a lot. And yet, by 2008, storm clouds were brewing. 3 stars and a GOAT coach seemingly stopped being enough. A meek WCF exit here, a first round loss there, a 2nd round sweep back over here, a loss to an 8th seed back over there. Is the dynasty over? Well...

Not when the front office adds Danny Green and Tiago Splitter and Boris Diaw and Patty Mills and, umm, who am I forgetting? Oh, it's future hall of fame, future multiple time Finals MVP, #42 on the previous Top 100 and only that low because he can't stay healthy, it's playoff performer extraordinaire Kawhi Leonard. That looks like a good team in and of itself, much less added to a hall of fame trio. Especially when the coach can seamlessly shift from defensive guru to "beautiful game" coach like it's nothing. Now Tim Duncan is free to gracefully end his career, never asked to do too much on his super deep, super well-coached team. It helps him maintain value and play on winning teams all the way to the end. By the time he is ready to exit the stage in year 19, they have even added another likely hall of famer in LaMarcus Aldridge. Giving the Spurs an all-HOF closing lineup. Duncan can play 25 mpg and only 60 games for the season and still see his team win 67 games and actually finish with a better net rating than the 73-win Warriors.

And how do the Spurs fair after Duncan leaves the stage? Well, known for their winning and defense in Duncan's day, without him they proceed to...win 61 games and lead the league in defense. Sort of a mirror to how Duncan entered the league. On a loaded team any aging veteran would kill to have as the bumps and bruises and injuries from a long career take their toll. Even when Kawhi Leonard quit on the team the next year and Manu and Tony continued to get older (as most people do), they still managed 48 wins and the #3 defense with Pop at the helm. That is a story-book franchise situation. Masterfully worked by Duncan. Selfless, seemingly ego-less, mostly loyal (he did flirt with a few other girls that one offseason), willing to adjust as Pop needed. But too good to be voted #2 with the (admittedly great) results that were produced.

So why do I say that? Simply too many opportunities missed on great teams and no true underdog results to offset it. And too many series being outplayed by someone on the other team or struggling mightily on offense while in his prime.

Just to get it out of the way first. 2003 is unimpeachable. Arguably the weakest supporting cast on a title team in the modern era (I still have '94 Hakeem but I get the '03 arguments). Record for win shares in a playoff run speaks to the level of carry that was involved. Amazing regular season, even more amazing postseason, did everything for his team. 24/17/5/5 in the finals back when scores were 85-81 is incredible. But back to The Ball...

The opportunities missed will probably apply most to an argument with Jordan (my vote for #2 when I eventually vote), but the overall argument will also be about Hakeem (possibly my vote for #6 after Magic but maybe #5 if there is any Hakeem/Duncan debate to be had at the time). With Hakeem basically being the greatest combination of "no opportunities missed" and massive amounts of underdog results to pile on top of that.

Tim Duncan won 4 of his 5 titles as the #1 SRS team. No problem with that. After all, it is 5 of 6 for Jordan. But even Duncan's 1 win as the #3 SRS team (2003) comes with the caveat that #1/#2 (DAL/SAC) faced off against each other in the second round, and then Dirk got hurt and missed half of the conference finals so it's not clear the Spurs weren't the favorite anyway (though they were up 2-1 with Dirk playing). But in 2001, the Spurs were #1 in SRS and lost. Swept in fact. Bludgeoned by 29 and 39 in the final 2 games. Has a #1 SRS team been beaten in worse fashion? In 2004, they were #1 in SRS once again and lost after taking a 2-0 lead. In 2006, #1 in SRS again and lost in the 2nd round. 2012, #2 in SRS but after Rose's injury, effectively the #1 SRS team and lost 4 straight in the WCF after winning their first 10 games of the playoffs. 2011, #1 seed and lost to an 8th seed. That's a lot of losing as a favorite if you want to be put up there with Jordan.

MJ went 25-0 as an SRS favorite. Obviously, no one has done better. Duncan went 31-8. Good, but not necessarily amazing.

Jordan 25-0
Russell 24-1
Kobe 25-2
Isiah 11-1
Lebron 31-3
Curry 19-2
Wade 18-2
Wilt 16-2
Durant 16-2
West 16-2
Garnett 8-1
Magic 28-4
Kareem 33-7
Shaq 24-6

("Now, wait", I can hear you saying. Hakeem was 6-2, only 75%. Your case has fallen apart. But both of Hakeem's were on fairly weak teams (very first series as a rookie and 1987 as a 6th seed vs a 7th seed after already upsetting the 3rd seed) and in series within the +/- 2 SRS range that seems to denote more of a toss-up with Hakeem 3-2 as a 0-2 SRS favorite and Duncan 5-4 (all tracked players at 71%))

By SRS, Duncan's average playoff series loss was actually as a 0.86 SRS favorite. That's incredible. Only Bill Russell with an average loss of +1.47 SRS is worse, and that comes with the caveat that he only lost twice and the time he lost as a huge +4.2 favorite he missed a few games in the series (though Boston doesn't really appear to have played worse without him). Larry Bird, not exactly a great playoff riser, is next at +0.73 and Chris Paul and David Robinson also find themselves on the wrong side of 0. Hakeem is at -3.2 and Jordan is by far the biggest underdog (of the 40 or so top players I looked at) at -5.0, an enormous underdog when he lost. In fact, Hakeem's average playoff series WIN was as a -0.8 SRS underdog, which is crazy. That's the difference in having to drag a franchise around for 18 years and having one of the best situations ever.

This is how, even with 5 titles, Duncan didn't necessarily outperform his expected titles by so much.

Expected vs Actual Championships

Duncan had 5 titles against 4.04 expected titles. Among people with at least 5 titles (admittedly a short-ish list), that 0.96 delta is higher only than Bob Cousy's 0.64. And everybody else but Kareem is at least +2. Ignoring Parker and Ginobili for obvious reasons, you have to go to Larry Bird at +0.2 to get a lower number and then to Wilt at -1.0. Not great company from a playoffs risers/fallers perspective.

And it's not just that the Spurs lost as favorites, but it feels like there are specific ways you can look at Duncan's performance and say it was lacking, especially as a scorer against largely single coverage basically any time after 2003 except for 2006. Things you can't really say about Jordan or Hakeem when they lose, except may in an occasional massive-underdog situation). Even some of the Spurs wins saw Duncan struggle. Now, to be clear, Duncan is still a great playoff performer overall. Even the hated box score says he is amazing. But I'm talking about:

2002 - Spurs and Lakers near SRS parity. Duncan puts up fantastic series numbers, but the Spurs are outscored in every 4th quarter and Duncan goes 11-29 with 9 turnovers in the five 4th quarters of the series. Losing a series they led after 3 quarters in 3 of 5 games. Duncan guarding Shaq in 2002 was mentioned. Maybe it happened, but I watched game 5 a few months ago. He didn't guard him in the 1st quarter, the youtube video (in spanish) skipped the 2nd quarter, but he didn't guard him for the first half of the 3rd so he probably didn't guard him in the 2nd quarter. Then he guarded him once in the 3rd and picked up a foul. One possession later he guarded him again and picked up a foul. Strategy put on hold. In the 4th he guarded Shaq a 3rd time and picked up a foul. This did not appear to be 1999 36 year old Hakeem being led to slaughter guarding prime Shaq from the tip. it was selective guarding. And not too good in game 5.

2004 - The Spurs, significant SRS favorites on the Lakers, go up 2-0. Note that neither Jordan nor Hakeem has ever lost a 2 game lead. Over the final 4 games, Duncan averages 17.5 ppg on 38 FG% with 4.3 TOpg. While mostly being guarded by a 40 year old Mailman who I don't recall guarding Hakeem much even when Malone was younger. This seems to be a highly winnable series if Duncan plays better.

2005 - The Spurs do manage to win in 7 against the Pistons, but Duncan, still only 28 years old, struggles mightily to score on the Wallace Bros, shooting 41.9% for the series. My recollection is that it was a lot of single coverage. And almost losing game 5 at the line before Horry went crazy. Manu could have been Finals MVP.

2007 - The Spurs once again win a finals with Duncan only putting up 18 ppg on 44.6 FG%. Maybe I'm forgetting who the Cavs had for post defense but it seemed like it was mostly Varejao. Granted, this was a gimme series so not holding it much against Duncan.

2008 - The Spurs lose fairly easily in the WCF with Duncan shooting 42.6% against what was mostly single coverage from Pau Gasol. They could also have easily lost in the 2nd round with Duncan shooting 42.1% against what I remember as mostly single coverage against Tyson Chandler.

These might not be devastating performances (though some are pretty bad) in terms of the totality of a career when compared to normal players, but we're comparing Duncan to playoff Hakeem. Other than a mediocre series as an 8th seed in 1990 and the 1996 Sonics series as a 33 year old where Hakeem was literally doubled every single time he touched the ball in the post in the first 2 games that I watched a couple of months ago, we simply don't see Hakeem shutdown by people. Basically ever. And he even came back at age 34 and dominated again. And while scoring a lot isn't everything, my detailed notes say Hakeem was pretty good at defense as well so it's not like this is an offense/defense argument.

Then of course we get a 3 year stretch from 2009-11, where Duncan is only 32-34 years old, still playing with 2 hall of fame teammates, where the Spurs lose in the 1st round with Duncan putting up 20/8, then get swept in the 2nd round as small SRS favorites with Duncan putting up 20/10.5, and then lose in the 1st round to an 8th seed with Duncan putting up 12.7 ppg on 47.8% shooting.

And to me, that 3 season stretch is why I somewhat doubt Duncan's real value in his later years. Why I'm not sure his longevity is quite as impressive as supporters make it out to be. The argument is that Duncan's value mostly came from defense and so, if he downshifted on the offensive side but still provided defense, then he was still mostly Duncan, at least according to the impact metrics. But before the Spurs added a wave of talent for the 2010's, they could have really used Tim Duncan the 2003 monster from 2008-2011. But it wasn't there. 1st round, 2nd round, 1st round. Mediocre scoring, mediocre efficiency. Did Duncan suddenly get better after that as he turned 35-39? Perhaps the next part is in the eye of the beholder, but it feels like we saw what would happen to Duncan if he got the typical late career treatment of an all-time great. Where you are marched out with a diminishing team, as the core ages or gets too expensive and leaves, but still expected to be your prime self.

Like Hakeem on the 1998 Rockets. After a season of injuries. Where he holds the #1 offense Utah Jazz to a -9 rORtg in the 1st round, with horrible defensive teammates, and almost pulls a huge upset. But then still has to take 20 shots a game and shoot horribly. Basically still being asked to be 1995 Hakeem. Only he isn't, and we see it. Because the next 5 players in field goal attempts on the rest of the team shoot 36% from the field and 24% from 3's. Would that he could have simply played amazing defense and let his talented perimeter teammates and new amazing small forward future star carry the offense.

Duncan gets to pick and choose. Or simply get by on "meh" shooting. Like in 2013 where his efficiency struggles in the west against good defenders but then picks up in the finals against the smaller heat. Was Duncan amazing at 38? Sure. After a decade of load management and a perfect role. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I think he simply got a better situation to shine as he got older. The kind that guys like Garnett or Hakeem would kill for.

Classic f4p Hakeem post, and while I disagree with the Duncan slander, I do strongly agree that Hakeem belongs on the same tier.

The thing about projects like this is they make you look much harsher on people you are criticizing or fawning over people you are praising (though to be fair I did say I was going to the Playa Haters' Ball). This board is very pro-Duncan, so i need to empty the chamber, so to speak, in pointing out what I think are his downsides. In reality, I have duncan as very, very close to Hakeem. While I think this board has Duncan as a full step ahead, so I feel the need to whittle that down. For a long time, I had Hakeem=Shaq > Duncan, with the edge to Hakeem/Shaq being very slight. Even now, I move all three around in my rankings at the same time (you're either above all 3 or below all 3). Shaq's tremendous upside but ability to be swept 6 times have made him a tough call. Is he more 2000/2001 Shaq, or more the lazy defender who didn't seem to fight hard against adversity? At this point, at least in the sense that I have to pick someone for each spot with no ties, I still have Hakeem ahead of Duncan by a tiny amount, and I think I will now have Duncan over Shaq, for just having a cleaner/smoother career.

However, you forgot one key thing in that monster of a post…

NOMINATE: Hakeem Olajuwon

Can we nominate whenever or when we vote? I have to rev back up for my actual vote after that Duncan post, although I suppose I've already made my Jordan case.

I am reminded of a similar post you made here…
f4p wrote:
Spoiler:
AEnigma wrote:I have said it before, but longevity has become something of a red herring in this community. Playing more is good, sure, but we are not talking about a Stockton figure who just churns out good second option years and then apparently ends up in a bunch of people’s top twenty-five. Duncan has great longevity, but he also has an eleven-year prime which can stack up to pretty much anyone. It is when we start quibbling over how Hakeem and Shaq (or Wilt or Magic) might have the advantage with 12 or 13-year primes, or how Hakeem had a more strenuous and impressive year 14 and 15, that people are going to want to highlight how Duncan is top three for years 16 to 18. You can be individually lower on the value of longevity (and I know you are) without pretending that it was all some product of Duncan playing a couple of minutes less during his twilight years, because nothing in the career arc of Hakeem or Shaq suggests that was what they needed to replicate 2014-16 Duncan.

yeah, that's fair to say it wasn't just the 2 or 3 fewer minutes (though obviously it helps or the spurs wouldn't have done it), but more that duncan basically never got stressed by his role while someone like hakeem was basically ridden until it was time for the glue factory. and that i think the difference in a duncan who could consistently give you 25-30 in a big playoff game was a lot different than the older duncan who couldn't and that the spurs having such an amazing supporting cast that was still ripping off 60 win seasons simply makes it look like the difference between older duncan and younger duncan isn't that large.

[Duncan] was the first load managed superstar and certainly got at least a year's worth of benefit from that over his contemporaries. not only that, but then most of his career numbers tend to be quoted as per minute or per possession type numbers. basically meaning duncan gets to have his cake and eat it too. looking great on a per minute basis without playing the extra minutes, then getting talked up for the extra years that were a result of the reduced minutes.

but probably even more than that, i think he just benefited from having his best supporting casts when he was at his oldest. if the spurs had followed the trajectory they were seemingly following from 2008 to 2010 (and even the first round of 2011), when people though the dynasty was over, i think duncan gets viewed much differently. instead they add a bunch of great role players and kawhi (and then even aldridge), basically meaning duncan never had to worry about doing anything he couldn't do.

we didn't watch him get old, effectively. where we see the great 25/10 guy still asked to be the great 25/10 guy and he can't any more. where he's asked to play big minutes because the rest of the roster is also aging out (or left due to contracts getting expensive). where he still has to come back from injuries as fast as possible to save the team and then ends up playing the rest of the season hurt.

none of that happened for duncan. need to reduce minutes? fine, we'll still win 60. need to take a few extra days with that injury? fine, we'll still win 60. need to take a game off here or there when the schedule gets a little compacted? fine, we'll still win 60.

he could show up, play great interior defense, get a few dump off passes for layups, take a few choice post-up mismatches while the rest of the team ran the offense, and then he'd look great for providing defensive value with an easy 9 point, 11 rebound game in 28 minutes while the spurs destroyed some mediocre team. i suspect many players would appear to have more longevity if they could focus only on the things that make them great and that they can still do as they get older, with no stress and strain from playing through injuries or playing all 82 games.

how much of the difference in post-age 34 duncan is really a difference in the players or just a difference in the team situations. like if the 2008-2010 trend had just continued and the spurs didn't add kawhi/green/mills/splitter/diaw, an unbelievable group of role players and even an eventual star, to their aging hall of fame core. i think we see more memphis series. where duncan needs to go in the phone booth and put on his cape to save the team in non-ideal circumstances, which he certainly could do when younger, and he simply can't do it. instead he got to massively reduce his offensive role and focus on defense, which he could still do.

and maybe that's my biggest break with others. the narrative seems to often become something like "well, duncan's value was really always mostly on the defensive end, and he was still great defensively, so even if he reduced his offensive load, he's still basically 90% of duncan" whereas i think the offensive giant of the early/mid-2000s was carrying the spurs in a valuable way and there's no way older duncan could still do that (arguably all the way back to 2007). so i think he just got to relax and fit into a role that an older player can still play.

i know you included 1998 in hakeem's prime, but a lot probably don't (so again i'm arguing against general things i've seen), and i look at something like the 1st round in 1998. rockets playing #1 seed jazz who would go on to star in The Last Dance after sweeping the WCF. the rockets almost won that series. with barkley injured and not even starting. and drexler retiring after the series after an abominable 1-13 from the field, 4-10 from the line final game and 31/19 shooting splits for the series. so how did we almost win? because the rockets had a -9 rDRtg. with matt maloney, matt bullard, checked-out drexler and kevin willis as the other starters. IOW, on the back of hakeem still providing unbelievable defensive lift against the #1 offense. so why doesn't hakeem get the duncan treatment for this series? well, because hakeem took 20 FGA/gm on an atrocious 45 TS% and we could see he was no longer hakeem. should he have taken 20 FGA/gm? apparently. because drexler and willis took the 2nd and 3rd most shots and combined for 35% FG. barkley only took 23 shots with his injury. the top 5 shooters after hakeem were at 35.7% FG and 24.2% 3P. so basically, after hakeem got through anchoring a -9 defense, he was still asked, after a season of injuries, to basically go be 1995 hakeem on offense. how much better does he look if manu and parker and diaw are running the offense and the rockets knock off a great jazz team with hakeem still putting up a -9 defense? when duncan does that, he's amazing at an old age. when hakeem does it, we just notice that he's old.

1999 hakeem almost goes 20/10 in a lockout season where he plays all 50 games, but then he get obliterated by prime/almost peak shaq in the playoffs and so again doesn't get the appearance of being good like 2013 duncan, who got to face a bunch of defensive centers who couldn't score and, even when duncan himself couldn't score against them, his loaded team just picked up the slack. and why did hakeem guard shaq? because the rockets basically had hakeem and antoine carr (18 PF's per 36 for the series) to guard shaq. even prime duncan wasn't guarding shaq and if he did, maybe only in the 4th quarter. hakeem got a double barrel dose as a 36 year old, pretty much certain destruction for any 36 year old in history.

so i guess i'm more arguing with the people who think the separation started after 1997 for hakeem, whereas i think it was almost all team construction until at least after 1999 for hakeem.

and even then, i look at hakeem's age 38 season… hakeem plays a pretty perfect old man role with francis and mobley (who certainly are no manu/parker) and the rockets win a surprise 45 games starting matt bullard and walt williams… i think it's at least possible that turning a few 35 minute games into 30 minute games, a few 40 minute playoff games into 35 minute games, missing a few back to backs (instead of playing back-to-back-to-backs in the lockout season as a 36 year old) could have removed enough wear and tear to maybe buy hakeem another season and maybe keep him even at 37 or 38***. maybe a healthier 2000 season. obviously speculation, but certainly things that went in duncan's favor didn't also go in someone like hakeem's favor.

Yes, that post was the template for a big part of this more recent post.

… and I also think it is worth revisiting this post of yours:
f4p wrote:i just recently did a bunch of work on great players and the level of competition they faced relative to how great their own team was. I took the SRS of their own team and compared it to their opponent in every playoff series they played to get a feeling for who was most favorited in their series and who faced the biggest uphill climbs. Positive numbers mean you are the favorite, negative you are the underdog.

The following is just the average series differential over a player's career.

The top of the list isn't crazy, as it's basically the guys who played with the most talented teammates in nba history. Their average series was as a 3-4 SRS favorite, which is a huge advantage. Shaq shows up in the middle as probably the biggest regular season switch-flipper in history, regularly slacking off in the regular season before dropping 30/15 in the playoffs. And at the bottom, being a complete playoff outlier as usual is Hakeem. As a Rockets fan, I figured he would look impressive for overcoming the odds, but I didn't expect him to be this far down the list. He's wedged between guys like Wilkins and Melo, who each won 3 total playoff series in their entire careers. Hakeem made the finals 3 times and won an incredible 10 series as an underdog.

Maybe not that different, but the following shows the average differential in series a player won or lost.

We see once again what charmed lives guys like Curry, Bird, Magic, and Duncan lived, being huge favorites when they won and being near even or even having the advantage in their average series loss (Bird especially, who's biggest underdog series of -1.71 isn't even as bad as some players' average series). Harder to get a feel for Russell since he only lost 2 series and he was a huge favorite in the 1958 finals.

Jordan kind of went from underdog to favorite very quickly in his career and it shows. With him being a big favorite when he won and a massive underdog when he lost. Also he was 25-0 as a favorite.

Some of it is the Shaq effect obviously, but Kobe comes off looking good by this measure, with 5 titles and not a huge advantage when winning.

Hakeem stands out again for literally being an underdog in his average series victory. Only Jimmy Butler can say that, and he was basically even at -0.09. Oh, and poor Tracy McGrady, whose Spurs series I did not include since he didn't really play.

Fun fact, Lebron played 15 toss-up series where the teams were within 2 points of each other. He went 15-0.

As was this. The playoff SRS spreadsheet is probably the best NBA thing I've ever made. So handy for so many different things to talk about.

I know some voters here have dismissed Hakeem as basically building his career around three Finals runs. Here is one of my favourite posts on my pick for the league’s best ever big man peak, and how those types of peaks can ultimately be wasted by limited teammates (which we should already know from 1962 Wilt and 1977 Kareem and 2003 Garnett and — despite f4p’s slander — 2002 Duncan but which for whatever reason is so often not extended to 1993 Hakeem).
Double Clutch wrote:
Spoiler:
First of all, the primary argument used against 1993 Hakeem in contrast to the 1994 and especially 1995 versions is that his playoff run wasn't as good. I think everybody would agree 1993 Hakeem had the best regular season so I'm not going to talk about that as much. Most people would say that the 1995 playoff run was his best. We have to understand that playoff performances and especially the numbers are not accumulated in a vacuum. There are certain match ups and circumstances that can potentially dictate how a player performs.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is whether the 1995 playoff run was an aberration in his career? That is clearly not the case as he was generally a terrific playoff performer so it's not a case where you can say Hakeem finally put it all together and had a great playoff run.

The next thing you have to ask yourself is if Hakeem is in a better situation to put up offensive numbers in 1995 than he is in 1993. That to me is definitely true because he has superior back-up PG play with a second year Cassell while the 1993 Rockets had Scott Brooks which is really no comparison, there is even greater floor spacing as Horry spent a good amount of time at the 4 during the playoffs which is an offense at the expense of defense strategy (also benefited from the shortened 3 pt line) and the addition of Drexler brought another dimension to their offense, relieving some pressure off of him and Hakeem does benefit from Drexler’s presence as he’d often space the floor with Drexler either posting up or isolating which is naturally going to help him as he got better looks and Drexler really improved their transition game as well which Hakeem benefited from as the trailer. A secondary scorer is something lacking on the 1993 and 1994 Rockets.

Now, consider his match ups and circumstances in 1993, neither of which are very favorable so for Hakeem to play that well makes his playoffs that year even more impressive to me. As I mentioned earlier, the guard play is crucial to how a center plays as they're often responsible for getting him the ball. The guard play on the 1993 Rockets is fairly suspect with poor back-ups, the fact that Vernon Maxwell was out until game 4 of the Clipper series with a fractured wrist (he'd play with it for the rest of the playoffs) and this is further magnified by the fact that the two teams they were facing excelled in pressure defenses. There is no accurate way to account for how great a team is at pressuring and trapping the ball besides watching the games but two stats that will give you a rough estimation will be steals and turnovers forced. The 1993 Sonics were the #1 team in the league in both steals and turnovers forced. The 1993 Clippers were the #3 team in the league in steals and #4 in turnovers forced so the point I'm getting at is they were BOTH elite and combined with suspect guard play, this can really have a negative impact on a center's production. Kenny Smith was never great at handling pressure, didn't have the creativity and ball handling skills to evade the traps and made bad passes that could get picked off and Vernon Maxwell had erratic ball handling and also did not protect the ball though I think the fractured wrist probably effected that to some extent. With how predictable the 1993 Rockets' were on offense, what this also meant was that time would be taken off the clock with LAC and SEA pressuring the ball and instead of being aggressive and taking advantage of defense still recovering, they would try to run the offense by dumping it to Hakeem with less time on the clock. Some of the Rocket players would also stand still waiting to receive the pass instead of coming up and meeting the pass which would allow the defense to play the passing lanes and either force a deflection or a steal.

Here's an example from game 5 of the 1993 Rockets vs Clippers series where the pressure defense helped Clippers erase a big 4th quarter deficit:
The way the Los Angeles Clippers see it, the Rockets will go as far in the NBA playoffs as Hakeem Olajuwon can take them and as far as their erratic ballhandling will let them go.

The Clippers tried a variety of defensive measures on Olajuwon, but nothing stopped him for long. But the Clippers did employ a pressing defense at times that forced turnovers and kept the ball from getting into Olajuwon's hands.

The Rockets were in control of Saturday's series-ending playoff game with a 16-point lead early in the fourth quarter. But shortly thereafter Clippers coach Larry Brown called for the press, the Rockets went on one of their turnover binges, and the game turned around.

Los Angeles rallied to lead in the final minute before the Rockets recovered to win 84-80 at The Summit.
In the fourth quarter, the Rockets had 11 turnovers and were outscored 24-17.

Clippers guard Lester Conner, who played the final 11 minutes of the game, said: "We had to make something happen to try to scramble the game. We got where we wanted to be and had a chance to go up two (with 1:17 to go) with (Ron) Harper's free throw."

Harper, who had scored on a fast-break drive to give the Clippers an 80-79 lead, missed his chance at a three-point play, and the Rockets' Vernon Maxwell followed with a 3-pointer from the right side that put the Rockets ahead for good.

But what does the victory say for the Rockets? They were pushed to the limit to win this series against a .500 team that was looking forward to being dismantled in the offseason.

"They have a chance to go very far," said Conner, a former Rocket. "But Rudy (Tomjanovich) will have to be figuring out what to do against pressure.

"When they play a better team than we are, I don't know if they'll be able to deal with it (the press). We got a couple of victories with it, and we came within one shot of beating them today. They are beatable."

Forward Kenny Norman said: "I don't think the best team won, but that Olajuwon is unbelievable. I didn't realize he was that good."

Asked if Olajuwon deserves to be the league's Most Valuable Player, Norman said: "I said (Charles) Barkley all year, but I'm wondering now. That man (Olajuwon) is Superman."

Norman, who is not usually an outside shooter, was 2-for-2 on 3-point shots and scored 14 points.

Although he did not play the final 11 minutes of the game, he had no complaints because "Lester and the small lineup got us back in the game."

But there was no stopping the Rockets' big man, Olajuwon, who scored 31 points for the day and went 3-for-4 from the floor in the fourth quarter.

Stanley Roberts, who took turns with Danny Manning trying to guard Olajuwon, said: "He's going to do what it takes to win. There really is no stopping him."

Said Manning: "Hakeem had a great year and a great series. I think he will even play better as the playoffs move on. Defensively, I never was really able to stop him, but then again, there are not many players that have."

- Chron

Clippers were also focused on doubling Hakeem at all times and didn't play him straight up from my memory although I don't count plays where Hakeem makes his move early such as the baseline spin off the catch, turnaround jumper where he can evade the double team etc. Of course, Seattle would take this to another level than the Clippers as they had superior defensive personnel as well as a defensive mastermind in Bob Kloppenburg to create defensive schemes to negate Hakeem's impact as much as possible. Hakeem's numbers in the Seattle series may not stand out but he created a lot of opportunities because how much attention he received. They would also make adjustments throughout the series such as switching defenders, changing the identities of the double teamer, coming from different angles, fronting him and pressuring the ball handler to make it harder for the lob pass and a lot of times they could get away with having a defender on the front and on the back. Seattle would also try to run more and bait Houston into a running game where they tended to forget about Hakeem and the guards tended to chuck up more shots so this was also smart on Seattle's behalf. An example of this below from game 1 of this series:
Lacking alternatives, Karl went to a small lineup, and watched his club run up a 91-77 lead that proved to be too much to overcome with 7:07 remaining in a defensive matchup.

"That's sometimes how good coaches are made," Karl conceded.

Well, looky here. Like spying a dollar bill on the sidewalk, the Sonics may have stumbled across yet another look to toss at Olajuwon, the Rockets' superstar center. Call it the no-look.

Because, in this scheme, Olajuwon doesn't get to look at the ball.

With the smaller unit able to force the tempo, the Sonics ripped off nine unanswered points - the first five from Johnson, the last four from Pierce. The Sonics, as everybody knows, are at their best when things get crazy. The Rockets, on the other hand, have Olajuwon, so playing crazy usually is just plain insane.

"They're kind of an in-between team," Kloppenburg said. "They'll run, if they get the opportunities. But they mostly want the power game."

But there's nothing powerful about turnovers and wild three-pointers, which the Rockets produced when induced into an up-and-down game.

"If they're playing that way," said Johnson, who scored the Sonics' first 11 points of the fourth quarter and finished with 20, "they tend, at times, to forget about Hakeem."

Bingo.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930511&slug=1700685

Hakeem's production when you consider these two aspects is great because I believe you shouldn't penalize a big man if his perimeter players can't get him the ball or if they're being baited into an up and down game and seduced into playing into the opponent's hands although this does show an inherit limitation in a big man's game due to their inability to create offense from the get-go. The above issues are something Hakeem didn't come across in the 1994 or 1995 playoffs with the exception of the 1994 finals to a certain extent. Hakeem also didn't receive much support early on in this series; I remember Hubie Brown stating how he felt Hakeem was essentially playing 1 on 5 in the first two games at Seattle. In general, I think 1993 Hakeem got doubled a bit more than 1994 and especially 1995 Hakeem due to the strategies employed by the teams they faced as well as superior spacing on the 1995 team which can make your box score stats look weaker.

Now, when I compare 1993 Hakeem to 1994 Hakeem, I really don't see any improvements in the latter version mainly because he didn't get to work much on his game in the 1993 off-season as he had to get surgery on his finger (right hand) although he did work on his off-hand as a result. Meanwhile, 1993 Hakeem is very clearly a superior rebounder which can be backed up by the numbers, a tad quicker which I think was noticeable in his lateral movement and rotations and I also thought he had a bit more stamina preventing him from getting worn down late in games which happened in the 1994 playoffs (game 4 vs Portland, finals vs the Knicks etc). To me, he was pretty clearly the MVP in 1993 by the way and the 1994 Rockets as a team are a little better than the 1993 version due to the addition of Sam Cassell who was a solid back up PG, Horry improving as a player specifically in regards to his shooting and the addition of another solid defender and shooter in Mario Elie. I'm not even touching on the fact that the 1993 Rockets had a whole bunch of calls go against them in game 7 vs Seattle as well as a tip-in at the buzzer by David Robinson to force OT in the last game of the season which shouldn't have counted as it was late and that would've given Houston home court in the Seattle series (home team won every game).

When I compare 1993 Hakeem to 1995 Hakeem, I try to compare and weigh to what extent the improvement in certain skills translates to impact. 1993 Hakeem has a rather clear edge in athleticism especially in regards to quickness and leaping ability, offensive rebounding (more easier baskets), defensive rebounding, shot FTs a little better (very minor point though), transition defense, mobility on the perimeter, PnR defense and rim protection (thought he challenged more shots in the lane). His perimeter/PnR/transition defense is incredible in that series vs Seattle, just awe-inspiring to watch especially when you consider that Seattle had a well-balanced attack with multiple offensive threats all over the floor.

I noticed 1995 Hakeem took more of an offensive approach; perhaps, because they realized the team's strength clearly lied on the offensive end and he shifted his focus towards that side of the court and maybe conserved some energy on defense. His activity level in terms of challenging shots and crashing the boards had declined and Houston's PnR defense was exploited on occasion during the 1995 playoffs (games 3 and 4 vs SA come to mind) though I wouldn't attribute that to Hakeem but more so the strategy Houston chose to roll with in defending the play. I did notice he was more conscious of the roll man when he was guarding Shaq and Robinson which is understandable from a strategic standpoint and the main reason it was exploited was due to the guards often getting picked off and weakside help didn't come quick enough. But I also noticed that in general, Hakeem didn't show hard as much or as consistently as he did in the past and laid back on the play. Maybe this was due to the fact they lacked rebounding due to the Drexler/Thorpe trade but Hakeem's defensive rebounding numbers actually declined after the trade. The decrease in activity level is something you can argue in favor of 1993 Hakeem since he had better stamina so he didn't have to conserve energy as much. As for improvements, I would say 1995 Hakeem is a bit better at setting screens so his PnR and PnP game was better as a result and he also improved at slipping screens as well, he was more effective facing up and putting the ball on the floor, bit better footwork that along with his instincts allowed him to create more separation and more stuff on the fly, he perhaps had a bit more range to stretch the floor so his offensive portability is a little better although how much of this is due to simply having the room to showcase his stuff more often due to the improvement in Houston's spacing, facing less defensive attention and their guards were better at penetrating and creating (no Drexler and Cassell in 1993)? I think it definitely plays a part so while this does show Hakeem's ability to adjust with the system, you can perhaps say 1995 Hakeem doesn't have as much of an edge in these areas as you initially think since 1993 Hakeem wasn't used this way due to the make up of the team. With that said, his assistant coach (Carroll Dawson) did talk about how he added range to his jumper and there is a visible improvement in his pick setting in 1995. Some of it may have to do with the presence of Cassell as him and Sam had decent synergy on the PnR.

I'm really impressed by Hakeem's all around dominance in 1993 and while I did commend his clutch play in 1995, 1993 Hakeem was extremely clutch as well. The game 5 vs Clippers and the game 7 vs Seattle are two terrific elimination game performances.

To briefly indulge into Hakeem and the Rockets' regular season, they really became a great team after a few team meetings in January 1993 encouraging more unselfish and team basketball and Hakeem's leadership played a part in that. After a subpar 14-16 start, they went 41-11 to finish the season and Hakeem's numbers in that 52 gm stretch are really tremendous all-around: 26.9 ppg/13.3 rpg/4.0 apg/2.1 spg/4.2 bpg/53.0 FG%/79.4 FT%. I'm not overly impressed by the 1993 Rockets roster either partly for some the reasons that have been stated above such as their inability to handle pressure defenses along with their guard play in general.

I think Hakeem's decision making really improved this year which he alluded to in his HOF speech when he said Rudy T gave him more room to freelance which made him more conscious of his decisions and of course Rudy had designed the offense around him to maximize his talents. Hakeem also said the 1992 off-season was the first time he really worked on his game (shooting, spin moves, conditioning, passing) and the improvements in 1993 are rather obvious. It's why 1993 is his peak to me, he put it all together and his dominance on offense and defense overlapped to a greater extent than he did in 1994 and 1995 while having all the leadership, clutch play and mental game down.

Never seen that Double Clutch post. And I agree with a lot of it. Hakeem's defensive rebounding in a lot of 1995 playoff games I watch has a "I sure hope this ball bounces to me, because I'm not moving" feel to it. Granted, at this point, he's 32, putting up volume offensive stats (33 ppg, 4.5 apg) we've almost never seen from a center, and his frontcourt teammates to help with rebounding are Robert Horry, barely physical as a small forward, 6'-5" Mario Elie, Chucky Brown (the picture in the dictionary next to "tweener"), and Pete Chilcutt, the picture in the dictionary next to "rebounds worse than Chucky Brown". and outside of Drexler, the other guards helping out are Kenny Smith and Sam Cassell, which might as well be you and me. There's little doubt that 1993 Hakeem has superb defense to go with still super offense. And even my beloved box score has never loved 1995 Hakeem. On the other hand, when you single-handedly murder the reputation of a top 20 all-time player with one of the greatest series ever and win the least likely title ever, it's always going to be hard to officially take 1993 over 1995.

I do not really think there is much separation between Jordan and Hakeem as players so much as respective circumstance — although sure, 1991-92 and 1996-98 all skew strongly toward Jordan. If we want to reward Jordan for the accolades, fine, but this ten spot gap a lot of people have between them is the same type of punishment we see from people who create ten spots of separation between Duncan and Garnett because Garnett had the misfortune of spending his prime on the Timberwolves.

Hakeem is a huge victim of circumstances. Now you could argue that having as few chances as he did and capitalizing on them gives him an air of dominance that might lose its lustre if he had the 18 chances Duncan had, as Hakeem surely wasn't going to go 18 for 18. After all, someone is probably going to get one legitimate chance and then convert like Hakeem did in 1994. And basically batting 1.000 on your only real chance looks amazing. While, as we saw with my Duncan post, there are more nits to pick when you go 5 for 18 (or 19 if you include 2000). But with Hakeem, he didn't really bat 1.000. He batted 2.000. He took a very unlikely championship (6.1% odds by SRS) and then added to it with basically a 0% odds championship (ok, 0.2%). He had one tiny chance to win a title, and somehow won 2. He's literally almost last among the previous Top 100 in expected championships. Carmelo Anthony had slightly more. While it's hard to think he's actually winning 7 or 8 in Duncan's place, it's also not hard to picture that he could win 6 with so many chances.

I have been working on a longer post about this, but you look at the 1985 rookie season, and Hakeem is the one overseeing the bigger team turnaround. Okay, Jordan has a better first round loss than Hakeem, but the next year one is in the Finals losing 4-2 against the Celtics (upsetting the defending champions on the way) while the other was an uncompetitive sweep against ten Celtics.

And that's why 1986 is so important. Because without it, you could always argue Hakeem as a 2 or 3 year wonder. But with 1986, how can one argue that he knew how to win by year 2, taking down Showtime at its absolute peak, then forgot about how to win for 7 years or so, then remembered again. It doesn't compute. And if 1986 were by itself, you could say "Well, the Lakers weren't going to go to a million straight finals, some underdog was going to snipe them at some point and it just happened to be a 51 win team with Hakeem." But when it just happens to be the same guy with the 6.1% chance title and the 0.2% chance title? What's that saying? Something like "Once is luck, twice is coincidence, three times is evidence". Hakeem simply has too much evidence that with anything resembling equal talent, he's winning, and sometimes even with vastly unequal talent against him.

Year after, an even less competitive sweep against a worse Celtics team for Jordan and his Bulls (yet to cross .500 for a season), while Hakeem upsets another highly favoured team before having his own “God disguised as” playoff exit. 1988, Jordan finally hits 50 wins and wins a series, but Hakeem maintains his torrid postseason pace even as the team around him falls apart. And for as much as we can say that Jordan ran away with the debate from there, for me, it is tough to look past the outright value advantage Hakeem received from those three “fluke” Finals runs alls coinciding with seasons where Jordan did not even play 1700 minutes combined.

Hakeems 37.5 ppg/16.8 rpg series against the Mavs being the first series after his 49/25/6 elimination game against Seattle gives him a nice five game average of 40/18. Where his team somehow lost 4 of the 5 games. Jordan not cracking 0.500 until year 4 must definitely give one a little pause. It's not that hard to get to 0.500. The preponderance of the evidence after certainly suggests that it was more his teammates than Jordan, but Hakeem breaking out of the gates while Jordan did nothing could possibly suggest Hakeem was better early.

Again, if people want to favour Jordan and Duncan for the title and accolade disparity, I understand that… but the raw value gap is pretty small.

Yeah, it's definitely tough to erase the pictures of championship celebrations from your mind when looking at players. What someone might have done is just tough quantify.

One_and_Done · Post #39 » by **One_and_Done** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 9:21 am

Hakeem isn't up yet, so I'll be brief.

I think peak Hakeem is not far below Duncan, and adjusting for pace etc they are quite similar statistically. Hakeem is a flashier version of Duncan, but I don't think he's more effective. Duncan doesn't dream shake, he just scores with a quiet array of moves. Duncan doesn't block as many shots with pogo stick legs, he just stops the shot from ever happening with his deterrence.

My reservations on Hakeem, who I actually have #7 overall, are as follows:
1) He only has 3 years comparable to Duncan IMO, and those came when he was less athletic. The rest of his career isn't on the same level for whatever reason.
2) He played in an era where rules were more favourable. In particular he never had to face an NBA without illegal defence rules. Given how the Sonics caused him issues with defensive schemes that pushed the boundaries of illegal defense rules that's troubling.

Hakeem fans want to pretend most of his career didn't happen, or have some very unconvincing excuses about coaching and drug problems that at best are minor mitigating factors. The reality is Hakeem wasn't seen as being at that level prior to 1993, which is borne out by award voting.

The slander of Duncan by f4p I can't take seriously, it's clearly not an objective take. All I'll say is you can't compare two teams with the same SRS and then say 'well Duncan lost so he failed'. That is laughably absurd. One reason is because the Lakers started to coast in the regular season after their initial title, and between that and Shaq taking games off their regular season can't be used as a barometer for team strength. The other point is that if Duncan us carrying a bunch of sucks to the same SRS as a team with Shaq and Kobe, then that should be a feather im his cap not a demerit.

iggymcfrack · Post #40 » by **iggymcfrack** » Wed Jul 5, 2023 10:08 am

Vote: Jordan
Very similar box score profile to my #1 LeBron James (arguably better in peak/prime years). Very good floor raising and excellent ceiling raising. Tied with LeBron for most POY awards. Honestly, won about as much as Russell when you account for how much weaker competition Russell faced just on a team level in terms of how few teams he had to beat each year and especially how few great teams he had to beat. Definitely won more than anyone in the modern era.

The guy who would be his stiffest competition for this project is likely Kareem, but Kareem missed the playoffs back-to-back years in his prime with two different teams. Worse still, these are 2 of only 3 years during his career where he didn't play with either Oscar or Magic. Really makes me question if his impact's on the same elite level as Jordan that he could be neutralized so easily at the peak of his powers. Makes me question his standing against Duncan and Shaq too who had consistently elite squads even with weak supporting casts.

Nominate: Shaq
All-time peak season in 2000 that can be argued against almost anyone. All-time 3-year peak from 2000-2002 where he was the force behind the 3-peat as the team actually played better when Kobe missed games than when he played. He was actually remarkably consistent at a top level from 1994 all the way through 2006. After losing his first playoff series as a 21-year old, he would at least make it out of the first round the next 12 seasons in a row. I think he has all the pieces to make a legitimate argument at #3.