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

[eminence]

This criticism is based on the assumption that 1977-79 Lakers teams underperformed and were talented enough to do more. I question this assumption, because we have evidences that this Lakers team wasn't good at all when Kareem missed time and players didn't perform well in the postseason, even though Kareem played fantastic basketball in 95% of postseason games.

Could you give me some arguments behind your assumption? I am open to change my mind.

Could you share some of your thoughts for arriving at 'not good at all'? I see a below average team to be sure, but 'not good at all' seems very strong. I don't see those Lakers as particularly terrible (likely teams capable of winning 30 some games per season without Kareem).

Not directly 70s directed right now, but I've also seen several characterizations of the Lakers trading for Kareem as significantly impacting their squad (that they gave up a lot or some such), and I'm really not seeing it. They sent out an average at best C and a rookie-bench guard with some picks. I've never heard that type of talk for the Celtics acquiring KG/Allen or other similar deals (Wilt moving to Philadelphia being the most relevant here).

[therealbig3]

I am of the personal opinion that Duncan doesn't quite belong in the GOAT discussion, and is a tier lower, but I'm looking forward to reading more about his case.

For the people that are high on KG as well, knowing that by pretty much all objective evidence, him and Duncan were virtual equals throughout their prime and that there are team circumstances where KG would actually be better, what in their career evaluations separates Duncan from KG for you, in that Duncan belongs in this conversation while KG does not? Or more from my POV: what is it that is elevating Duncan above KG into this tier, for you?

I've never really seen Duncan's peak being considered on par with Kareem for example, until now.

[eminence]

I am of the personal opinion that Duncan doesn't quite belong in the GOAT discussion, and is a tier lower, but I'm looking forward to reading more about his case.

For the people that are high on KG as well, knowing that by pretty much all objective evidence, him and Duncan were virtual equals throughout their prime and that there are team circumstances where KG would actually be better, what in their career evaluations separates Duncan from KG for you, in that Duncan belongs in this conversation while KG does not? Or more from my POV: what is it that is elevating Duncan above KG into this tier, for you?

I've never really seen Duncan's peak being considered on par with Kareem for example, until now.

I have Duncan/KG very very close on individual evaluation (swinging back and forth a bit depending on how I evaluate 90's KG I've found), but on a Top 100 list like this I do weight team accomplishment at least a bit, and there Duncan is arguably the non-Russell GOAT, while KG unfortunately never had that opportunity. So basically Spurs >>> Wolves.

[therealbig3]

I am of the personal opinion that Duncan doesn't quite belong in the GOAT discussion, and is a tier lower, but I'm looking forward to reading more about his case.

For the people that are high on KG as well, knowing that by pretty much all objective evidence, him and Duncan were virtual equals throughout their prime and that there are team circumstances where KG would actually be better, what in their career evaluations separates Duncan from KG for you, in that Duncan belongs in this conversation while KG does not? Or more from my POV: what is it that is elevating Duncan above KG into this tier, for you?

I've never really seen Duncan's peak being considered on par with Kareem for example, until now.

I have Duncan/KG very very close on individual evaluation (swinging back and forth a bit depending on how I evaluate 90's KG I've found), but on a Top 100 list like this I do weight team accomplishment at least a bit, and there Duncan is arguably the non-Russell GOAT, while KG unfortunately never had that opportunity. So basically Spurs >>> Wolves.

LOL, similar to the point I made about LeBron vs Jordan and their team success, although obviously to a much less extreme degree...is the difference between the Wolves and the Spurs because of some difference between KG and Duncan, or are there other factors you can point to that more easily explains the difference? Like roster construction and stability, front office, and coaching?

Spurs being a much more competent franchise than the Wolves and using that to dock KG (or alternatively, elevate Duncan) doesn't seem fair to me when ranking individual players.

We also had the opportunity to analyze these guys during the data ball era, unlike the LeBron vs Jordan comparison, and there really isn't much meaningful difference you can point to between them. That essentially provides a lot of the context that would be needed when looking at the difference in their team success, so you don't have to give the "benefit of the doubt" to Duncan.

I can see Duncan getting credit for superior longevity and ultimately durability though. Not during his prime, but in his post-prime seasons. Not sure how much extra boost that would give him in an all-time ranking though.

[eminence]

I am of the personal opinion that Duncan doesn't quite belong in the GOAT discussion, and is a tier lower, but I'm looking forward to reading more about his case.

For the people that are high on KG as well, knowing that by pretty much all objective evidence, him and Duncan were virtual equals throughout their prime and that there are team circumstances where KG would actually be better, what in their career evaluations separates Duncan from KG for you, in that Duncan belongs in this conversation while KG does not? Or more from my POV: what is it that is elevating Duncan above KG into this tier, for you?

I've never really seen Duncan's peak being considered on par with Kareem for example, until now.

I have Duncan/KG very very close on individual evaluation (swinging back and forth a bit depending on how I evaluate 90's KG I've found), but on a Top 100 list like this I do weight team accomplishment at least a bit, and there Duncan is arguably the non-Russell GOAT, while KG unfortunately never had that opportunity. So basically Spurs >>> Wolves.

LOL, similar to the point I made about LeBron vs Jordan and their team success, although obviously to a much less extreme degree...is the difference between the Wolves and the Spurs because of some difference between KG and Duncan, or are there other factors you can point to that more easily explains the difference? Like roster construction and stability, front office, and coaching?

Spurs being a much more competent franchise than the Wolves and using that to dock KG (or alternatively, elevate Duncan) doesn't seem fair to me when ranking individual players.

Oh, I don’t believe there are significant internal reasons explaining that gap. But could is still different than did. I wouldn’t push my own criteria on anyone else of course, just offering my explanation.

[One_and_Done]

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

I also think that the Spurs would have been weak without Duncan and they wouldn't have made the playoffs, but something to consider - the Spurs went 6-7 in 2003/04 season when Duncan missed time. It's not good, but not all-time bad. Of course improved Manu definitely helped, but at the same time they lost an impactful roleplayer in David Robinson (who could hide some of Spurs weaknesses without Duncan).

The 04 support cast was very solid. Not comparable to the 2 years before tha, mainly because Manu and Parker got much better in 04, and again in 05. Other solid players were added also like Horry, Hedo, etc.

D.Rob was washed in 03. The Spurs went 15-3 in games he missed. The teams D was better the next 2 years without him. He wasn't much better in 02 honestly.

[lessthanjake]

The thing that’s hard for me to gauge with Kareem is that his floor raising ability basically has two separate stories that go in very different directions. First is that the Bucks instantly went from being a bad team to being a really good team in Kareem’s rookie year. This looks great for Kareem! Second is that Kareem didn’t do a whole lot with his teams in the latter half of the 1970s, even when a few of those teams actually had some really good players (albeit not usually in their absolute prime). This doesn’t look very good. The thing that makes this particularly weird to me is the chronology of this. We wouldn’t expect a player to have substantially better impact as a floor raiser (or otherwise) in their rookie year than they did in any year in a 5-year span in their peak years. It’s hard to conceptualize what was going on there.

Perhaps a part of it is that the pre-Kareem Bucks were better than they’d seem. They *did* add more than just Kareem between 1968-1969 and 1969-1970. Notably, they added Bob Dandridge—a future hall of famer. Flynn Robinson was a pretty good player (he was an all star in 1969-1970), and while he’d been there in 1968-1969, he’d only joined the team during the season, so he was probably better integrated when there for a full season a year later. Meanwhile, there were some other differences: For instance, Greg Smith was a key role player that was in his second season in 1969-1970 and played a fair bit better than he had in his rookie season. There’s also just the likely-quite-significant fact that the 1968-1969 season was the franchise’s first season, and that surely carries some unique growing pains as an organization in countless ways, such that we’d just generally expect a better second season once the organization has things figured out a bit more. So I don’t think we can attribute all of the team’s increase in quality to just Kareem—there’s a lot more going on there.

Even so, I do still find it confusing. Unless the first-year growing pains that the Bucks had were enormous (which is possible!), it’s still hard to reconcile what happened with the Bucks in Kareem’s rookie season with what happened with Kareem’s teams in the late 1970s. One thing I actually wonder is whether we should just conceptualize Kareem’s peak as being his first several years in the NBA. That’s not typical for a player, but then again it’s very atypical for a player to be as incredible and polished as Kareem was in college. Maybe he’s an example of a player who was so polished so early that his peak was early because he had that polish *and* his peak athleticism? To me, this would make sense, especially when I just think the most impressive things Kareem did were all in his first few years in the league (the floor raising in his rookie year; leading a team that’s on the shortlist for greatest team ever in 1970-1971; his statistical peak; etc.).

This criticism is based on the assumption that 1977-79 Lakers teams underperformed and were talented enough to do more. I question this assumption, because we have evidences that this Lakers team wasn't good at all when Kareem missed time and players didn't perform well in the postseason, even though Kareem played fantastic basketball in 95% of postseason games.

Could you give me some arguments behind your assumption? I am open to change my mind.

This isn’t a topic I feel super strongly about to be honest, nor something I’m going to be the most knowledgeable about (I wasn’t alive to watch 1970s basketball live!). That said, my inclination here is based to a significant extent on the talent I see on the rosters. Guys like Dantley, Nixon, Wilkes, Goodrich, Cassie Russell, Lucius Allen, etc. are good players, even if most of them (and especially the better ones listed) weren’t necessarily in their primes yet/anymore. Meanwhile, we don’t really have much information regarding how the Lakers would’ve done without Kareem, but I don’t think that what we do have really suggests they were a terrible team. The only season in question where he missed any meaningful amount of time was 1977-1978, and by my count the team went 8-12 without him. Which isn’t great of course, but when it comes to how a team does in games when they’re unexpectedly missing their main star that they’re built around, I don’t think that’s bad at all. Let’s remember that even a team as good as the KD Warriors had right around a .500 record in regular season games without Steph Curry—it’s hard to win when the central figure of your team is randomly out. And before Kareem joined, the team had 30 wins despite some very significant availability issues and turnover (they only had 3 players that played 70+ games—which was very very low in that era, and the next year they had 7 players that did that and had Kareem and only won 10 more games). It wasn’t good, of course, but 30 wins when your team is an abnormal shambles is not *that* bad, and it’s surprising for them to only win 10 more games when they got Kareem and had a year with much more roster stability.

I don’t feel *super* strongly about this era of Kareem’s career, but it does seem perplexing to me to see what Kareem did with the Bucks in his rookie year and then to contrast that with what he was able to do in the latter half of the 1970s. I’m more concerned with ceiling raising, so it’s not an *enormous* blemish to me, to be honest, but it’s definitely perplexing. The tentative conclusion I’ve come to is that Kareem was just a better player in his first few years than he was in the latter half of the 1970s—and I do think there’s pretty good backing for that conclusion actually.

[ZeppelinPage]

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.

Thank you for doing this, AEnigma. I have Wilt and Kareem at the top of my list, so this is certainly an intriguing thought experiment. You aptly point out Wilt's strong postseasons and brutal luck, which is important to acknowledge when evaluating his career. Hard to fault anyone for valuing Kareem so highly, and I believe everyone's criteria is valid. Here's some extra details I wanted to add for some of these comparisons:

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.)

Let's consider a few points on Wilt's side, focusing on the playoffs while setting aside his impressive regular-season numbers:

-He averaged 35 PPG in the playoffs--37 PPG against the Nationals, and 33.6 against the Celtics.
-He scored 56 points and had 35 rebounds in the elimination game against the Nationals.
-He led the playoffs in rebounds, even out-rebounding Russell.
-He finished 2nd on his team in APG during the playoffs.
-Despite Tom Gola only playing four games and 107 minutes, Wilt brought the Celtics, with an 8.25 SRS, to seven games, eventually losing off a Sam Jones buzzer.

Considering all of these points, I give Wilt the edge here. Of course, Kareem was fantastic. However, while he was swept, Wilt nearly toppled the highest SRS team in the entire Celtics dynasty. Losing Tom Gola, second on the team in minutes, rebounds, and assists, and an impactful defender, was a significant blow. His minutes per game dropped from 41 in the regular season to 26.8 in that Celtics series. Nearly winning with Gola injured the entire series is quite the feat and shows the level of play Wilt was playing at on both offense and defense.

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.)

I can see both sides. The Lakers won more games, so that could definitely be a valid argument for ranking Kareem higher. But Wilt does average more points, rebounds, and field goal attempts with the same TS+.

I do have to point out how ludicrous it is that Wilt finished with 374.9 in TS Add, yet his team finishes with -60.3 in total. In contrast, Kareem finished with 252.2, and his team ended with +160 in total. Absolutely brutal scoring around Wilt, and I can't imagine players like Guy Rodgers, Gary Phillips, or Wayne Hightower contributing significantly on offense in any scenario, as they had poor offensive careers.

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.)

This is close as Kareem has an incredible season here. Although I find Wilt's roster to be the worst supporting cast to ever make the Finals, with rookie Nate Thurmond and Tom Meschery as the top players around him. Also, I want to mention team TS Add again:

'74 Bucks: +387
'64 Warriors: -133

Wilt finished with a higher (286.1) TS Add than Kareem (234.2) yet his team finished below the Lakers by 520 points total! The playoff performances on both sides are remarkable; however, Wilt, despite his already weak supporting cast suffering from injuries, demolishes the Hawks, scoring 50 in Game 5. During the Finals, he averages 29 PPG on a 2.4 rTS% against the greatest defensive team ever by relDRtg (-10.8). These performances, combined with Wilt's rebounding ability and an outstanding defensive season, likely put him ahead for me. He was significantly stepping up defensively in both the regular season and playoffs:

Hannum on how Wilt must play for the team to win:

Spoiler:

Hannum on Wilt's defense in 50-point performance against the Hawks:

Spoiler:

Wilt scores 39, blocks a dozen shots in Game 7 against the Hawks:

Spoiler:

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.)

I'm surprised by this! Kareem edges out Wilt 110 to 107 in TS+ and fails to make the playoffs. Wilt also has far from a decent postseason, in my opinion. Takes on the '65 Celtics (-9.4 relDRtg) and averages 30.1 PPG on an insane +9.6(!) rTS%. That series is probably Wilt's best performance against the Celtics ever. It's a close series where Larry Costello is injured and averages only 5.5 PPG, and the 76ers go on to lose off the Havlicek steal.

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.)

Hard to argue against someone taking Kareem here, I can certainly understand it. I would add, though, that Wilt was impressive in the post-season, especially on defense, as he led all players in rebounding while the Lakers finished with the highest DRtg at 89.6.

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.)

It's a fair point that Kareem had a more robust regular season and giving Kareem an advantage here makes sense. But I actually do think Wilt played exceptional in the playoffs, especially considering he was coming off a knee injury. He returned early and led the Lakers past the Suns after going down 3-1. In the Finals, he averaged 23/24 on a 62% FG, including a 45-point performance in Game 6 to stave off elimination.

[One_and_Done]

I am of the personal opinion that Duncan doesn't quite belong in the GOAT discussion, and is a tier lower, but I'm looking forward to reading more about his case.

For the people that are high on KG as well, knowing that by pretty much all objective evidence, him and Duncan were virtual equals throughout their prime and that there are team circumstances where KG would actually be better, what in their career evaluations separates Duncan from KG for you, in that Duncan belongs in this conversation while KG does not? Or more from my POV: what is it that is elevating Duncan above KG into this tier, for you?

I've never really seen Duncan's peak being considered on par with Kareem for example, until now.

Duncan was better is the easy answer, and I disagree that they were seen as neck and neck at the time. Award voting backs me up across most of TDs prime from 98 to 07. If Duncan wasn't hurt in 04 he'd probably have 3 straight MVPs and KG would have zero. Disagree if you like, but the Spurs had the much higher SRS in 04 and won a single game less. If Duncan doesn't miss 13 games the narrative is different, and based on the Spurs % with Duncan that year the Spurs would have over 60 wins with a healthy Duncan compared to 58 for the Wolves.

KG is more mobile on the perimeter, in that sense he should in theory translate to the modern game more. In theory KGs insane athleticism should let him be better too. But theory and practise are different. In theory P.George is better than Butler. Longer, taller, more athletic, a better shooter, etc. In reality Butler has performed better. We can debate the why, but ultimately it doesn't matter why. It happened. This is a list for ranking the careers people actually had.

Defensively and offensively Duncan also gives you stuff KG does not. He's more of a viable offensive hub, and his rim protection and man D lets you build your system around an anchor in a way KG doesn't. Duncan's excellent defensive play we talked about vs Shaq? KG has no shot guarding Shaq. So there are trade offs to more mobility. For a big it is anchoring the D as a rim protector that is the most valuable skill.

I think there was one year KG had comparable team success on the Wolves to Duncan's prime Spurs, and it came when he had a much better support cast than Duncan had in 02 or 03. I think a bunch of the Wolves support teams were better than they get credit for, and we saw KG couldn't provide comparable floor or ceiling raising to Duncan. The 02 Wolves is a good example. It looks pretty similar in quality to Duncan's support cast in 02 or 03, but did much worse. Sure the 03 Wolves sucked, but not every support cast was the 03 Wolves.

I still have KG bottom of the top 10 though.

[70sFan]

Take for instance this comparison between Duncan and Kareem per 100 possessions. Kareem’s best per 100 possession playoffs that we know of is in 1977. He posted insane playoff stats of 37.8 points, 19.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists per 100 possessions on 646. TS%. Crazy right. Yet Duncan posts comparable stats in some playoffs. In 2002 for instance, at his peak, Duncan put up 36.5 points, 19.1 rebounds and 6.6 assists per 100 possessions. Sure, his TS% was only 550, but we can all agree Kareem has the offensive advantage.

That said, in 2006 Duncan put up 37.1, 15.1, and 4.7 per 100 on 625. TS%.

I don't think it's a right way to compare the ability to score between two low post players across eras.

First of all, the efficiency standards were lower in 1977 than 2002, meaning that Kareem's insane efficiency edge is even larger than it looks at first place.

Secondly, based on my tracking data, 1971-79 Kareem scored 67% of his points in the post, meaning that he was almost strictly a halfcourt scorer. Higher pace didn't really help Kareem's volume in this case, because he didn't run transition offense for the Lakers.

Lastly, such comparisons of small playoff samples don't tell the whole story. If we compare Kareem and Duncan scoring profile across their best years, Kareem crushes Duncan:

1974-80 Kareem: 28.0 adjusted pp75 on +10.3 rTS% in 44.2 mpg
2001-07 Duncan: 26.3 adjusted pp75 on +3.6 rTS% in 39.5 mpg

Such a massive gap in efficiency matters.

Then there’s the other side of the coin, where defensive play was not exactly Kareem’s strength.

It's not his strength relative to Duncan maybe, but Kareem was an elite defensive player for the majority of his prime.

Kareem and Jordan also played in an era where the rules very much favoured them in a comparison with 2002 or 2003 Duncan. Illegal defence rules for instance, which greatly helped players like Kareem (and Hakeem) were absent during Duncan’s peak, and he coped fine

I think you can argue that it's an evidence that post players weren't really affected by this change - at least at that time.
Kareem played in an era where illegal defense didn't exist in 1980s/1990s form either by the way.

[One_and_Done]

I'm not going to reward Kareem because he played in a worse era. I'm not punishing him either, if I was he wouldn't be my #2 vote, but I don't care about stats like 'efficiency relative to era'. People today are more efficient because players are better. It doesn't follow that Kareem would be even more insanely efficient today. He'd likely be the same or worse given changes to the way defense is played. If you prefer think of him as a constant, unaffected by era.

Once we stop looking at era relative efficiency Kareem's big advantage on O becomes tiny, though the degree depends on the sample used. On D however Duncan remained far better.

[f4p]

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.

what is this based on? his 1986-88 playoff stats actually look better than his 1993-1995 playoff stats. and include an incredible finals run, so it's not just all fluff.

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.

award voters are notoriously ringz based people and even more "big market" based people. both factors worked very strongly against hakeem (see 1989 all defensive team voting where prime hakeem, playing all 82 games, having the only 200 block/200 steal season in nba history, didn't even make the 2nd team).

The slander of Duncan by f4p I can't take seriously, it's clearly not an objective take.

based on? it's not like i made up the numbers. we are grading on a curve here. playing poorly as your team loses a series were it is the favorite and/or has a 2-0 lead is not the end of the world, but when guys like hakeem and jordan essentially have 0 such examples to point to, then it does become a big deal in being compared to them.

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.

okay, but Duncan lost 8 times as a favorite. only 2 of those were to lazy shaq teams. even if you wanted to say the 2001 lakers should have matched what was a very successful 2000 season where they had an 8.4 SRS, which is unlikely as even teams with more motivated regular season players than shaq have trouble matching all-time seasons in consecutive years, the 2001 spurs were all the way up at 7.9 SRS. so it would still not really be an unfair matchup. keep in mind, the 2000 lakers were a portland collapse from blowing a 3-1 lead in 2000. they were a ref rig job from losing in 6 to the kings in 2002. they weren't invincible. the lakers beat the 2001 spurs by an average of 22.3 points per game. the lakers largest win in the entire rest of the playoffs was 22 points. so their average win over the #1 SRS spurs was better than their best win over their lesser opponents. i'm not sure how to spin that.

[70sFan]

This criticism is based on the assumption that 1977-79 Lakers teams underperformed and were talented enough to do more. I question this assumption, because we have evidences that this Lakers team wasn't good at all when Kareem missed time and players didn't perform well in the postseason, even though Kareem played fantastic basketball in 95% of postseason games.

Could you give me some arguments behind your assumption? I am open to change my mind.

Could you share some of your thoughts for arriving at 'not good at all'? I see a below average team to be sure, but 'not good at all' seems very strong. I don't see those Lakers as particularly terrible (likely teams capable of winning 30 some games per season without Kareem).

Not directly 70s directed right now, but I've also seen several characterizations of the Lakers trading for Kareem as significantly impacting their squad (that they gave up a lot or some such), and I'm really not seeing it. They sent out an average at best C and a rookie-bench guard with some picks. I've never heard that type of talk for the Celtics acquiring KG/Allen or other similar deals (Wilt moving to Philadelphia being the most relevant here).

"Not good at all" doesn't mean "terrible", so I guess it's semantic choice from me.

The only WOWY sample we have for this period shows us these things:

- Lakers went 37-25 with Kareem (49 wins pace),
- Lakers went 10-12 without Kareem (37 wins pace),
- Lakers had +4.1 SRS with Kareem, giving them 53 wins pace (per Ben's article),
- Lakers had -1.7 SRS without Kareem (36 wins pace).

Again, is that horrible, all-time bad supporting cast? Definitely not. The problem is that people argue that it was a talented roster, talented rosters don't go to ~35 wins without their best players. It's not an all-time carryjob (like the season before) of course, but what expectations do we have from such a supporting cast?

Another important thing that we often forget is not only how the teams fares without their best players, but also how they fit to their best players. I would argue that Lakers roster construction (many high volume scorers able to replace some of Kareem's strengths and Nixon as a PG) actually allowed them to tread water when Kareem missed time, but they didn't fit next to Kareem at all and weren't well constructed team in general.

About 1976 - I struggle to make definitive statements about the value Lakers lost in a trade (I have no 1976 Lakers games in my collection unfortunately and only few from 1975) but we have to consider that the roster looked completely different in 1975 than in 1976 (no Smith, Hariston, Winters, Beaty, Hawkins, Washington missing even more games). I get that some people are underwhelmed by Kareem missing playoffs in that year, but again - I think most people wouldn't think that way if the Lakers won 41 games and make the playoffs instead.

[70sFan]

I'm not going to reward Kareem because he played in a worse era. I'm not punishing him either, if I was he wouldn't be my #2 vote, but I don't care about stats like 'efficiency relative to era'. People today are more efficient because players are better.

Are you aware that the major reason why players are more efficient now than in the 1970s is caused by one little thing that didn't exist in the 1970s - three point line? Today players wouldn't post 58 TS% averages with 1970s rules, you know? Not even close in fact.

It doesn't follow that Kareem would be even more insanely efficient today. He'd likely be the same or worse given changes to the way defense is played. If you prefer think of him as a constant, unaffected by era.

Then keep in mind that Duncan would be inefficient by modern standards, while Kareem would be still among the most efficient volume scorers in the league. Do you agree with that conclusion?

Once we stop looking at era relative efficiency Kareem's big advantage on O becomes tiny, though the degree depends on the sample used.

No, it doesn't become tiny. Even looking at the raw efficiency numbers, 1974-80 Kareem posted 60.8 TS% in the playoffs compared to only 55.8% for 2001-07 Duncan. It's not tiny, it's the difference between efficient volume scorer and inefficient player in the 2020s.

On D however Duncan remained far better.

What do you base it on?

[70sFan]

This isn’t a topic I feel super strongly about to be honest, nor something I’m going to be the most knowledgeable about (I wasn’t alive to watch 1970s basketball live!). That said, my inclination here is based to a significant extent on the talent I see on the rosters. Guys like Dantley, Nixon, Wilkes, Goodrich, Cassie Russell, Lucius Allen, etc. are good players, even if most of them (and especially the better ones listed) weren’t necessarily in their primes yet/anymore. Meanwhile, we don’t really have much information regarding how the Lakers would’ve done without Kareem, but I don’t think that what we do have really suggests they were a terrible team. The only season in question where he missed any meaningful amount of time was 1977-1978, and by my count the team went 8-12 without him. Which isn’t great of course, but when it comes to how a team does in games when they’re unexpectedly missing their main star that they’re built around, I don’t think that’s bad at all.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this is what we know.

The only WOWY sample we have for this period shows us these things:

- Lakers went 37-25 with Kareem (49 wins pace),
- Lakers went 10-12 without Kareem (37 wins pace),
- Lakers had +4.1 SRS with Kareem, giving them 53 wins pace (per Ben's article),
- Lakers had -1.7 SRS without Kareem (36 wins pace).

I don't think it shows that the Lakers were title contenders or that you should expect them to win the title. Especially considering a poor fit of most of these players to Kareem.

Let’s remember that even a team as good as the KD Warriors had a losing record in regular season games without Steph Curry—it’s hard to win when the central figure of your team is randomly out.

If you are talking about 2018/19, then keep in mind that almost all of the games Curry missed happened in November, when Green also missed almost all of the games. I think the Warriors without Green and Curry weren't anything to rave about and I wouldn't be surprised if they hover around 50%.

And before Kareem joined, the team had 30 wins despite some very significant availability issues and turnover (they only had 3 players that played 70+ games—which was very very low in that era, and the next year they had 7 players that did that and had Kareem and only won 10 more games). It wasn’t good, of course, but 30 wins when your team is an abnormal shambles is not *that* bad, and it’s surprising for them to only win 10 more games when they got Kareem and had a year with much more roster stability.

The main thing missed here is that 1975 Lakers and 1976 Lakers are not the same teams + Kareem and more roster stability. They missed most of the significant players from the previous season. +4 SRS lift isn't an all-time great performance, but it is quite significant under those circumstances.

I don’t feel *super* strongly about this era of Kareem’s career, but it does seem perplexing to me to see what Kareem did with the Bucks in his rookie year and then to contrast that with what he was able to do in the latter half of the 1970s. I’m more concerned with ceiling raising, so it’s not an *enormous* blemish to me, to be honest, but it’s definitely perplexing. The tentative conclusion I’ve come to is that Kareem was just a better player in his first few years than he was in the latter half of the 1970s—and I do think there’s pretty good backing for that conclusion actually.

It is a reasonable opinion, though I don't think I'd agree with that - certainly not with 1970 Kareem over 1978 Kareem.

Then we have to remember that we have another WOWY sample from 1974/75 season suggesting that Kareem had an all-time level floor raising ability:

- Bucks went 35-30 with Kareem (44 wins pace),
- Bucks went 3-14 without Kareem (14 wins pace),
- Bucks had +2.6 SRS with Kareem, giving them 49 wins pace (per Ben's article),
- Bucks had -4.5 SRS without Kareem (28 wins pace).

[Clyde Frazier]

I'm not going to reward Kareem because he played in a worse era. I'm not punishing him either, if I was he wouldn't be my #2 vote, but I don't care about stats like 'efficiency relative to era'. People today are more efficient because players are better. It doesn't follow that Kareem would be even more insanely efficient today. He'd likely be the same or worse given changes to the way defense is played. If you prefer think of him as a constant, unaffected by era.

Once we stop looking at era relative efficiency Kareem's big advantage on O becomes tiny, though the degree depends on the sample used. On D however Duncan remained far better.

How are you against era-relative efficiency when it's one of the few objective ways to compare players across eras? If a player is significantly more/less efficient than their peers that's certainly worth noting. Also, Kareem of all people is an odd example to use. In 6 of his 12 highest volume scoring seasons he was at 60+% TS. He was a very efficient scorer period.

[LukaTheGOAT]

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.

I don't know about this.

I know people always point to Hakeem's 93-95 stretch for why he is worthy of being top 10. However, I think Hakeem demonstrated even before his peak, why he should be ahead of Robinson.

If we look at the time of Hakeem's First Run to A Championship to 1991 (Hakeem was not in the 1992 playoffs), you can already see the profile of a special big.

Like if we look at at analysis of Hakeem WITHOUT his 93-95 seasons, and compare it to the best 6-year peak of Duncan in the PS (99-05):

Hakeem averaged an Inflation Adjusted 26.3 pts per 75 on rTS% of 5.7%.

BPM-7.5

PER-26.7

WS/48-.229


Duncan averaged an Inflation Adjusted 25.8 pts per 75 on rTS% of 4.1%.

BPM-7.6

PER-26.5

WS/48-.226

It's remarkable how similar their box-score metrics, ain't it? Like they are almost both exactly the same player. They both do things defensively, and with their interior gravity on offense that doesn't get picked up by the box-scores. This is once again, without me including Hakeem's 3-year peak, that would almost certainly swing things in his favor. Duncan won 3 champions during this time span, and Hakeem won 0. Hakeem showed early on he could be the best player on a title team, however, his team didn't get back there until much later in his career, possibly due to his running mate in Sampson having injuries.

Hakeem was good, even when his team wasn't good.My point is Hakeem, was an underrated PS performer even outside his peak years. If Hakeem came up short in 94 and 95, he likely would have gone down in history as a choker, but that really shouldn't be the case. Hakeem generally WAS an all-timer, even before his peak years.

Per Thinking Basketball's Backpicks OBPM, Hakeem has one of the largest increases in PS offensive performance ever for the prime span of a player's career. Once again, yes, 93-95 Hakeem was great, as this video shows, Hakeem CONSISTENTLY elevated his game in the PS, not just during a couple years in his career. What Hakeem did during these pre-peak years was not an abberation.

Watch on YouTube

The final thing, is that I believe my discussion so far, probably underrates Hakeem's defense. 89 and 90 Hakeem is very probably the best defender of the modern era. 93-95 Hakeem turned up his defense in the PS, but a strong argument could be made that his best defensive years were before that period.

Hakeem was also an absurd man defender. In an era, where offense was more likely to be ran through bigs in the post, I think Hakeem's defensive value was amplified here. In ‘90, Hakeem held All-Star centers to -2.1 points per 36 below their average and -6.4 rTS% below their average per Backpicks. That is ABSURD, and considering he has a good argument as a better rim protector due to quicker leaper, and better help defender due to better horizontal short-area quickness, it is something to thinking about.

[One_and_Done]

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.

what is this based on? his 1986-88 playoff stats actually look better than his 1993-1995 playoff stats. and include an incredible finals run, so it's not just all fluff.

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.

award voters are notoriously ringz based people and even more "big market" based people. both factors worked very strongly against hakeem (see 1989 all defensive team voting where prime hakeem, playing all 82 games, having the only 200 block/200 steal season in nba history, didn't even make the 2nd team).

The slander of Duncan by f4p I can't take seriously, it's clearly not an objective take.

based on? it's not like i made up the numbers. we are grading on a curve here. playing poorly as your team loses a series were it is the favorite and/or has a 2-0 lead is not the end of the world, but when guys like hakeem and jordan essentially have 0 such examples to point to, then it does become a big deal in being compared to them.

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.

okay, but Duncan lost 8 times as a favorite. only 2 of those were to lazy shaq teams. even if you wanted to say the 2001 lakers should have matched what was a very successful 2000 season where they had an 8.4 SRS, which is unlikely as even teams with more motivated regular season players than shaq have trouble matching all-time seasons in consecutive years, the 2001 spurs were all the way up at 7.9 SRS. so it would still not really be an unfair matchup. keep in mind, the 2000 lakers were a portland collapse from blowing a 3-1 lead in 2000. they were a ref rig job from losing in 6 to the kings in 2002. they weren't invincible. the lakers beat the 2001 spurs by an average of 22.3 points per game. the lakers largest win in the entire rest of the playoffs was 22 points. so their average win over the #1 SRS spurs was better than their best win over their lesser opponents. i'm not sure how to spin that.

Your posts about Duncan are quite obviously not objective, so I am not going back and forth with you on this. I will note some of the obvious issues in just the above however:
1) looking at 'who was the favourite' has to be done in an objective, nuanced way. Nobody had the Spurs as 'the favourite' vs LA in 02 for example: the media heavily picked against them, and they were a dog in vegas. Why? Because the Lakers were repeat champs who coasted in the regular season then hit the accelerator in the playoffs. Guys also missed games for rest. Meanwhile the Spurs were actually trying in the regular season. Nobody thought they were favourites vs LA though. They thought 'wow, how incredible is Duncan, carrying that garbage team to more wins than the 2 time champs in the regular season'. D.Rob was pretty washed, but as people noted he was also hurt in the 02 playoffs anyway. Similar arguments apply to 03, except the Spurs actually won somehow. The 04 Lakers were heavy favourites heading into the 04 season but had drama and injuries that led to another 'we'll flip the switch' team who didn't take the regular season too seriously. Duncan had Malone and Shaq ganging up on him those playoffs, while his role players couldn't shoot to save their lives.
2) Hakeem lost to absolutely laughable teams in his prime, including the sub-500 Sonics. You are just not being objective. Cherry picking certain small samples of playoff runs, while ignoring his whole regular season stats, is also not objective.
3) MVP/all-nba voting over Hakeem's career shows that guys were getting plenty of love without rings, or even team wins. Guys like Barkley were regularly beating Hakeem out by large margins with similar team records and no 'ringzzzz'. Hakeem was seen as around the 7th to 10th best player in the league before 1993 when everything in his game clicked. His stats rose markedly too.

Duncan in his prime, from 98 to 07, is what we should be focusing on for prime to prime comparisons. That version of Duncan did not lose '8 times as the favourite'. That Duncan did not lose even once as the favourite. Indeed, it is hard to find a better prime narrative, where the team did as well or better than could have been expected in every year given the support cast and quality of opposition. Your lazy and contextless 'Whoever had a higher SRS was the fave!' analysis is not helpful. I don't want to hear that it's ok Hakeem lost to (insert mediocre team here), I want to know why Hakeem's impact was so weak that year that his team had such a lousy SRS to begin with? And in other years why did his team have to play such a tough first round opponent? Why didn't Hakeem get them enough wins to ensure a easier opponent.

[penbeast0]

One_and_Done warned for twice calling out another poster as not objective.
Discuss the players and the ratings, don't attack those who disagree with you. I am calling this closer on the top 100 project than normal board posts because these things can snowball and derail the project.

[therealbig3]

I mean, based on what actually happened, KG's impact profile is extremely comparable to Duncan's, if not slightly better. It's simply a more dramatic example of LeBron vs Jordan...actual statistics (including box score stats) once adjusted for the opponent and teammate quality, does not favor Duncan. Discussing stylistic points about Duncan's superior offense or defense doesn't actually bear out in the results.

I also think his 02 and 03 supporting casts are getting vastly underrated. These are teams that don't have specific teammates that stand out in an obvious way, but as a collective unit, they perfectly complemented Duncan and were superior to other supporting casts that may have more recognizable names. Especially with Popovich as the coach.

Duncan got old, and the Spurs did not have a single top 10 player in the league on the team, and yet they won the title in 2014...coaching and roster construction plays a huge part in being able to win, and Duncan was in pretty much the perfect situation his entire career. Obviously major props to him for delivering on that situation and winning multiple titles and being a clear MVP-level player for many years, but KG was also a clear MVP-level player for many years. The story of Duncan vs KG is a pretty clear example of how important the rest of the team is, because I don't see any obvious difference between the two in terms of how good they were as overall players. There are some things Duncan was better at, there are some things KG was better at, but overall, they made the same contributions towards winning from what I can see.

But obviously, I'm in the minority with that opinion...my question is mainly for the rest of that minority that view Duncan and KG as comparable players...what is separating the two of them for you in this conversation, where Duncan is in the GOAT tier and KG is not? IMO, both are on the same tier of player, and for me, both are one level below the tier 1 GOATs. And that seems to have been where the two of them ranked pretty consistently amongst the "KG is as good as Duncan" crowd. But recently, even amongst that group, Duncan has climbed the ranks it looks like...what is the difference that popped up after the two of them retired?

Eminence gave the reason that he takes team success into account with these rankings...I don't agree with that, but it's his criteria. Is that the case for the others that also think KG and Duncan are otherwise comparable (Doctor MJ and 70sFan are the two that come to mind)?