One_and_Done wrote:I will note thar Magic and Hakeem played together during their respective primes, and I think most at the time would have been incredulous at the idea that Hakeen was better. Maybe they were all wrong, but I think an extŕaordinary level of proof is required for what would have been seen as an extraordinary claim.
Well that would only apply to the pre-91 years(which I don't think anyone has said Hakeem was an equal for Magic). I don't see how that would apply to 92-95 though. Or 96, 97, ect. Magic was not in the league(or a significant factor).
May as well point to how they were talked about in 96...
I happen to believe the extraordinary claim of Hakeem being pretty darn close to Magic from '85-'91, but if one didn't believe such a thing I see it as very tough to argue Hakeem over Magic at all. That's 7 of Hakeem's 13 relevant seasons.
Not that any of this precludes steph from top 10 consideration but I feel I should repeat the warning I've offered before regarding RAPM-use:
...Okay I have seen this alot and(feel free to check me if it does not apply to you), but I believe for Steph this claim is largely based on -> Comparing the highest single-year scores on apm or apm derivatives(04 kg single highest score on JE'S RAPM SET! Best RS ever!) -> Raw plus-minus and on/off?
I think people need to remember that RAPM(and it's derivatives) are artificial. They are also(like on/off) prone to issues with colinearity. While they make adjustments they are still susceptible to wonky rotations. Beyond that, they also curve down outliers. What you should be looking for in something like LEBRON, EPM or RAPM(ideally over extended samples) is how often a player hits at or near the top historically. It is there to establish a baseline. Not to establish how the best year of Draymond compares to the best year of Steph or CP3.
Per LEBRON, a "state of the art" apm derivative, here are the most valuable seasons(overall) since 2010:
Here are the most valuable seasons(per-possession) since 2010:
notice how best single-scoring years look around the same? That is not real. RAPM is not a substitute for real-world signals. The main benefit of something like WOWY(especially if you are looking at seasons without a player), is that you can truly see what happens to a team when a player leaves.
Adjustments and all, the premise of APM is ultimately still that “winning on the court is good, as is seeing your team become worse without you on the court”. RAPM can approximate that in most cases(given enough time), and it is advantaged in terms of stability(and probably even accuracy looking at hundreds of players), but it is not a replacement for the real thing.
RAPM is also a rate stat. KG may have scored the highest in 2008, but he averaged substantially less minutes than his peers(. Something to keep in mind for those who think Kobe was undeserving of his MVP(he was not).
All that noted, I think there some other pieces of context to consider when people cite Curry's "impact metrics"
-> short-charts excludes a bunch of Lebron's "prime" including two years(and various extended stretches) which look significantly better than 2016's best stretches even from an rs-only perspective:
Spoiler:
OhayoKD wrote:I think there are arguments to be had for Russell, Kareem(and by extension 77 Walton) on a "corp" or "era-relative impact" lens, but with what you seem to be looking at(box-score playing a factor, post-merger years), yeah. Do not think there is much of a "statistical" counter-case. If we look at the seasons you've picked:
2016 Curry? No, not really. For those tempted to toss 1-year rapm or rapm derivatives as positive evidence they're similar...
HeartBreakKid wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:(disclaimer: getting the best, the second best, or the third best season isn't significant inofitself. At a certain treshold, adjusted stuff starts misattributing value, if you want to distingush between single-season, you need to get into the weeds. What's note-worthy is how frequently a player scores near or at the top, and how you look over extended samples. RAPM is great for establishing a baseline of value, not deciding if 2004 kg is more valuable than 2016 draymond)
As far as baseline goes(cheema's been used a bunch, so why don't we use the scaled-apm set Ben likes)
James is, arguably, the king of overall plus-minus stats. 2018 is the 25th season of league-wide plus-minus data, which covers nearly 40 percent of the shot-clock era and touches 12 of the top-20 players on this list. None have achieved LeBron’s heights: He holds four of the top-five scaled APM seasons on record, and six of the top eight. Since 2007, 10 of his 11 years land in the 99th percentile.
Like Nash, LeBron was supercharging dependent talent — finishers who disproportionately benefited from shots served to them on a silver platter. So with his talents in South Beach, Cleveland crumbled in 2011. While most teams fall off after losing a superstar, none imploded like the Lebron-less Cavs; in 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup. LeBron’s not worth 40 wins on a typical club, but no player in history has correlated more strongly with such massive, worst-to-first impact.
FWIW over a small sample(7 gms/szn) the 08-10 cavs played like a 19-win team) in games without Lebron. Perhaps more impressively, during 09/10, in 1785 minutes without Mo-Willams(best offensive teammate) and Ben Wallace(best defensive teammate), the cavs were +14. For a smaller-sample, in 630 minutes without either in 09, they were +10.
Over a much smaller sample(a bit under 700 minuites) 15/16 Steph holds up surprisingly well but not that well with his lineups scoring at +8.55 without Dray and +9 in 389 minutes without dray or klay. Note that these are much shorter stretches. Curry's minutes are significantly more tied to his best teammates than LeBron's are. Very small sample, but for comphrensiveness, in less than 300 minutes in 2016, Steph lineups score at +3.38 without Dray and(tiny 169 minute sample) -0.69 without Draymond or Klay.
And then we get into volume (Lebron)
(Steph)
All considered I'd say there's an the evidence consistently supports 2009 Lebron being more valuable per-possession in the regular season. He's probably more valuable in 2010 too. And probably a peer in in his second Cleveland stint while coasting. And we know the postseason is not a winning case for Steph: (Check where Steph's best teammate is)
Jordan's argument is probably weaker(though he benefits from uncertainty). He's drafted onto a better team(27-win without) and does not lead a better regular-season team until 1992 despite great fit by the back-half of 90.
Frankly, while one could point to conventional box-score as a marginal rs advantage, I think we should apply some context here.
Steph(and Jordan) created(volume) and scored at a nigh unprecedented level. Lebron also did that, but was also a strong secondary paint-protector, a mj-esque man defender(refer to the colts quote before), who was communicating and orchestrating on both-ends, was a more effecient creator(feel free to reference ben's passer-rating), handled the ball significantly more(making the turnover economy very impressive), and was facing substantially more defensive attention.
Then by box he(2009) blows right by both in the postseason(bpm/aupm/pipm/raptor). All considered, I think the "stats" are very clearly in Lebron's favor. And who knows how in his favor they'd be with a more reasonable(imo) set of weightings(BBR BPM puts jordan and steph within range of hakeem and dikembe respectively).
-> also excludes shaq, kg and duncan's prime -> RS Only -> completely excludes pre 97 primes -> when we use sourced data-sets that include everyone(je, cheema, github sets aren't sourced)...
Spoiler:
LeBron James 2012-16 6.46
LeBron James 2013-17 6.27
Kevin Garnett 2003-07 6.17
LeBron James 2006-10 6.15
Kevin Garnett 2000-04 6.01
Tim Duncan 2001-05 6.00
Tim Duncan 1999-03 6.00
Kevin Garnett 2002-06 5.98
Stephen Curry 2014-18 5.81
Kevin Garnett 2001-05 5.76
Yeah not much of an impact king.
RAPTOR likes Steph but besides it not having on/off pre-97, it also is less accurate and stable than other metricx with the benefit of player-tracking(LEBRON, EPM, RPM) because it does not directly input RAPM. Have not chcked EPM, but in RPM(which also excludes duncan and kg and shaq's best years), Lebron is #1 from 05 to 10, #1 again in 12 and 13 and comes close to or outdoes "prime" steph at multiple points in his 30's.
LEBRON excludes a bunch of those pre-10 years including 2009(best "impact" season post-merger with era-adjustment possibly offering 77 Kareem a counter-case) but as you can see from the first graph, Lebron still utterly dominates(will repeat, even though lebron does have the highest war season, these sorts of metrics are about tracking the frequency a player scores near the top of the scale, not where precisely season x or y scores on said scale. Lebron's 10 or giannis's 20 scoring at the top alone does not really tell us those were the best seasons ever(overall or per possesion respectively).
So yeah, not seeing "steph outperforms lebron" here. I'm seeing "steph arguable impact king over a specific stretch vs post-prime(in terms of rs impact). Keep in mind all these metrics(besides cheema's rapm, and maybe je's) have box-priors so good chance they're skewed towards Steph as is. Regardless, post-prime Lebron, Giannis, ect all seem like they have arguments and KG, Prime Lebron, and Duncan all beat Steph in sets where they get their best years(and when we look at individual years, i dont think steph does not really have much of a impact case vs 2009 or 2010).
Steph still does well enough I think he should be considered very soon(maybe even now), but i do not think steph's impact portfolio is some sort of slamdunk. 2015-2017 Lebron looks like a direct regular season peer with both rapm(je, cheema, shotcharts) and real-world stuff(wowy, extended wowy, lineup-ratings) and while I think 2015-2017 rs Lebron is competitive or advantaged alot of players people assume are better(shaq, jordan, ect), I do not see him as a level beyond everyone on the board.
Be it Injury or something else, the playoffs drag steph down.
One_and_Done wrote:Well, the Hakeem crowd seem to think he was just as good in 1991 and before, so it matters. If they think there was only a slight or nil improvement in post 1991 Hakeem's play then that's an issue in a comparison vs Magic.
Discussion would be a lot easier if you were not so insistent on making up things no one said.
As a helpful tip, if you cannot come up with a source for the stance you are imparting onto people, you probably should reassess your perception of the stance. I thought that Duncan being admitted would make you quit doing this, but evidently not.
One_and_Done wrote:Well, the Hakeem crowd seem to think he was just as good in 1991 and before, so it matters. If they think there was only a slight or nil improvement in post 1991 Hakeem's play then that's an issue in a comparison vs Magic.
Discussion would be a lot easier if you were not so insistent on making up things no one said.
As a helpful tip, if you cannot come up with a source for the stance you are imparting onto people, you probably should reassess your perception of the stance. I thought that Duncan being admitted would make you quit doing this, but evidently not.
Ask f4p if he thinks Hakeem got better in 93 onwards. I think his walls of text on the subject make it very clear that is not his position.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
One_and_Done wrote:I will note thar Magic and Hakeem played together during their respective primes, and I think most at the time would have been incredulous at the idea that Hakeen was better. Maybe they were all wrong, but I think an extŕaordinary level of proof is required for what would have been seen as an extraordinary claim.
Well that would only apply to the pre-91 years(which I don't think anyone has said Hakeem was an equal for Magic). I don't see how that would apply to 92-95 though. Or 96, 97, ect. Magic was not in the league(or a significant factor).
May as well point to how they were talked about in 96...
I happen to believe the extraordinary claim of Hakeem being pretty darn close to Magic from '85-'91, but if one didn't believe such a thing I see it as very tough to argue Hakeem over Magic at all. That's 7 of Hakeem's 13 relevant seasons.
Hakeem does not need to be better than prime magic in a stretch which excludes possibly his arguable best 4-year period(and that itself may be an indication that situation is what was keeping hakeem down more than actual ability) to be stronger overall no. That said I have him as arguably "darn close" from 86-88(possibly better if you weigh playoffs highly), so I think 92-95 can absolutely put him over the top, even if 85, 90, and 91 give magic the advantage for that period in general.
The original poster also said "better" not "darn close" so
OhayoKD wrote:Well that would only apply to the pre-91 years(which I don't think anyone has said Hakeem was an equal for Magic). I don't see how that would apply to 92-95 though. Or 96, 97, ect. Magic was not in the league(or a significant factor).
May as well point to how they were talked about in 96...
I happen to believe the extraordinary claim of Hakeem being pretty darn close to Magic from '85-'91, but if one didn't believe such a thing I see it as very tough to argue Hakeem over Magic at all. That's 7 of Hakeem's 13 relevant seasons.
Hakeem does not need to be better than prime magic in a stretch which excludes possibly his arguable best 4-year period(and that itself may be an indication that situation is what was keeping hakeem down more than actual ability) to be stronger overall no. That said I have him as arguably "darn close" from 86-88(possibly better if you weigh playoffs highly), so I think 92-95 can absolutely put him over the top, even if 85, 90, and 91 give magic the advantage for that period in general.
The original poster also said "better" not "darn close" so
He doesn't, I agree, but he does need to be close. And the perception of the time and the OP was that it wasn't - they said "I think most at the time would have been incredulous at the idea that Hakeen was better". Close is good enough to close that 'incredulous' gap.
On a personal opinion - '87/'88 the gap was as big as it ever was.
I don’t really think we can precisely compare the exact totals for different five-year RAPM intervals just as we can’t compare the exact totals for different one-year RAPM measures (i.e. because different scaling, corrections, etc. are done for each interval). As in, if Player A has a 4.0 RAPM in 1997-2001 and Player B has a 5.0 RAPM in 2005-2009, there’s not a direct comparison between the two numbers because they were calculated differently. We can compare generally by how they placed within the league during those time intervals, and perhaps draw an inference by how far ahead of their peers two players were, but I do think there’s a tendency for people to want to compare RAPM values across intervals when it aids an argument they’re making and to say it’s an invalid method when it helps someone else’s argument. Let’s just agree that it’s not a strictly valid method that we can draw a strong conclusion from, and therefore that comparison within the same interval is better, but that comparing values across years can perhaps allow us to draw inferences when numbers or league placements are radically different (i.e. we could be quite sure that 2.0 RAPM and 60th in the NBA in 1997-2001 isn’t as good as 9.0 RAPM and 1st in the NBA in 2005-2009).
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
One_and_Done wrote:Well, the Hakeem crowd seem to think he was just as good in 1991 and before, so it matters. If they think there was only a slight or nil improvement in post 1991 Hakeem's play then that's an issue in a comparison vs Magic.
Discussion would be a lot easier if you were not so insistent on making up things no one said.
As a helpful tip, if you cannot come up with a source for the stance you are imparting onto people, you probably should reassess your perception of the stance. I thought that Duncan being admitted would make you quit doing this, but evidently not.
Ask f4p if he thinks Hakeem got better in 93 onwards. I think his walls of text make it very clear that is not his position.
I'm going to jump in here:
While there's obviously a lot of conversation that happened before this, and AEnigma could have said things in a less aggressive way, he's really right about sources/quotes.
Simply referring to another poster to reference their previously posted opinions is certainly not against the rules, but when someone asks you for quotes and you respond by saying "ask so & so about", the conversation is not going to get us anywhere productive.
I'd like you to focus just on stating the basketball facts as you see them. That doesn't mean you don't reference what others say, but statements that are dismissive of other posters without specific posts for people to read and think about directly should be avoided.
All put up seasons where they were the best player in the NBA. By my estimations, Shaq and KG did it twice, and Hakeem, Wilt, and Magic once.
Looking at all the years where the players were arguably a top 3 player in the NBA, Shaq had 12 seasons, Hakeem and Wilt 11, KG and Magic 9.
All the All-NBA seasons, Shaq had 14, Hakeem 12, Wilt and Magic 10, KG 9.
All star value seasons, Shaq and KG 15, Wilt 13, Hakeem and Magic 12.
All D level seasons, Hakeem 13, KG 12, Shaq 3, Wilt 2, Magic 0. (I had him at 9 all D prev, but have revised him up to 13).
At this point in the conversation, Magic bows out. He just doesn't have the longevity of the other 3, and his peak wasn't sufficiently higher than them to warrant a place in the conversation.
Shaq was mostly an offensive force, peaking at 29.7 pp75 on + 7.3 rTS%, and his 3 year championship run was at 30.3 pp75 on +6.6 rTS%.
Hakeem was another defense first guy, peaking at 25.2 pp75 on + 4.1 rTS%, and his best 3 yr playoff stretch was 28.3 pp75 on +4.3%.
Wilt despite his gaudy ppg numbers, only averaged 28.7 pp75 on +5.7 rTS%. Although his peak years, his scoring was more like 16 pp75 on +14 rTS%. His 3 year playoffs best was 24.7 pp75 on +6.7 rTS%.
KG who I rate the best passer of this group by far, as well as the best shooter, was more offensively focused early career, and then skewed heavily as a defensive player after his 2009 injury. He peaked at 24.9 pp75 on +3.1 rTS%, and due to the horrible Timberwolves teams, and him missing the playoffs for a few seasons, the best 3 yr PS strech is 24 pp75 on +0.4 rTS%
As we can see, when comparing big men to big men, they all should be fairly efficient. Shaq comes out on top as the best offensive force here, while Hakeem and KG are on top defensively.
Time for Wilt to bow out.
Ultimately, you could argue either of the 3 final candidates. Shaq probably had the best peak in 99-00 from a statistical standpoint, however, I don't find his defense that compelling, and his poor FT% hurts him also. KG was the most versatile, both defensively, and offensively with his passing and mid range shooting, and if he didn't get hurt in 2009, I'd be calling his name right now.
However, I must give #6 to Hakeem Olajuwon. With 26946 RS points, another 3755 pts in the playoffs, 13.7 k rebs, 3k assists, 2k steals, 3.8k blocks in the RS, he has the peak, longevity, defense and scoring output.
7. KG
8. Shaq
I'll nominate Kobe begrudgingly. His longevity is something to be admired.
One_and_Done wrote:I will note thar Magic and Hakeem played together during their respective primes, and I think most at the time would have been incredulous at the idea that Hakeen was better. Maybe they were all wrong, but I think an extŕaordinary level of proof is required for what would have been seen as an extraordinary claim.
Hakeem came in the league in 1985 and was already playing like an All NBA talent. By 1987 he was a force. Magic retired in 1991, undoubtably playing like a perennial MVP since 1984.
After 1991, Hakeem really exploded. He pulled off 4 amazing seasons, where he was undoubtably a MVP candidate, and then 2 more after where he was a weaker MVP candidate. That’s 6 whole seasons vs the 7 he played alongside Magic. Half his career.
lessthanjake wrote:I don’t really think we can precisely compare the exact totals for different five-year RAPM intervals just as we can’t compare the exact totals for different one-year RAPM measures (i.e. because different scaling, corrections, etc. are done for each interval). As in, if Player A has a 4.0 RAPM in 1997-2001 and Player B has a 5.0 RAPM in 2005-2009, there’s not a direct comparison between the two numbers because they were calculated differently. We can compare generally by how they placed within the league during those time intervals, and perhaps draw an inference by how far ahead of their peers two players were, but I do think there’s a tendency for people to want to compare RAPM values across intervals when it aids an argument they’re making and to say it’s an invalid method when it helps someone else’s argument. Let’s just agree that it’s not a strictly valid method that we can draw a strong conclusion from, and therefore that comparison within the same interval is better, but that comparing values across years can perhaps allow us to draw inferences when numbers or league placements are radically different (i.e. we could be quite sure that 2.0 RAPM and 60th in the NBA in 1997-2001 isn’t as good as 9.0 RAPM and 1st in the NBA in 2005-2009).
Assuming Cheema's set is not designed for cross-period comp(i imagine it is since he charts them all in the same graph and ranks them together), I would say the more removed you are the messier it gets. Contesting 2013-17 Lebron versus 2014-18 Curry is wierd(4-years of overlap, 2018 is a very favorable addition for curry) but there is some merit to objecting to 2009-13.
However, let's just say we should only compare the gaps within tiers. Lebron still looks miles better with this approach.
(note: it's important to track who is being compared to who here and general league context. Beating 30+ Karl Malone with expansion does not mean you were crushing peak Magic in the 80's)
Of course this is all ignoring one key caveat noted above. RAPM is a rate-stat. In 2018, Steph played way less minutes than Lebron.
Here's what happens when we adjust for that:
Spoiler:
LA BIRD wrote:Curry was the best player in the league in 2018 on a per possession basis but he played the equivalent of 19.9 minutes per game last regular season from his resting and injuries. And since he also missed the entire first round of the playoffs, one could make the argument that his injuries would have ended his team's postseason run if they weren't stacked enough to win a playoff series without him. Curry could be the best player in the league for the next few year but that is only if he stays healthy.
However, regardless of future projections, Curry has not already been the best player in the league for 4 straight seasons. Claiming Curry was better than LeBron in 2014 is absolutely crazy. You use NPI RAPM as your argument but then dismiss everybody ahead of Curry for some excuse or another, claiming that "Curry would get a boost with more data". Guess what - we do have more data from JE, who published full RAPM up until this past season. (For 2018, he only released Win Probabiliby)
LeBron was ahead of Curry every season except 2017 (7.49 vs 7.57), but his higher minutes played would have made up for the negligible per possession difference that year anyway.
Also, for somebody that is supposedly pro impact stats, this post reeks heavily of anti-LeBron bias
Lebron is ahead of steph, every-year from 2014 to 2018. If coming 2nd to Lebron this late is so impressive it demands a spot in the top 8, it's really a wonder Lebron didn't destroy the last peaks project(no one pre-showtime was seriously considered)
To be fair to our prematurely crowned "impact king", that probably changes for 2019-2023 with Lebron suffering multiple crippling injuries. But then again, things seem to swing the other way if you use 2023 despite Lebron playing some games with a torn tendon and playing alot of other games with terrible spacing.
Keep in mind, none of this includes two regular-seasons steph really does not have any decent case against. Heck, if we buy RPM, Lebron was already the most valuable guy as early as 2005. Who knows how many secret 2016's have been tossed aside.
Frankly, Steph might look better if we were to focus on the box-score and his ceiling raising, because by impact, he's really more of a prince than a king. And while I think that is acceptable to be nominated, I do not see how it puts him in his own category relative to everyone else.
Was Hakeem really the best defender post-Russell, or even the best of his era? From what I can tell, David Robinson might be superior as a team defender. He was longer, seemed more fundamentally sound rather than relying as much on athleticism (on the defensive end, not talking about offense), and his much larger regular season sample seems superior though again, Hakeem strongest selling point is his playoff performance. That doesn't mean Robinson is in Hakeem's league overall; his playoff scoring was far less resilient and his later entry into the league combined with his serious knee injury gives Hakeem a longevity edge as well as his two championships without a Tim Duncan beside him. But, before that one playoff series, general consensus that I heard favored Robinson; the narrative of that one head to head matchup changed the whole story.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
penbeast0 wrote:Was Hakeem really the best defender post-Russell, or even the best of his era? From what I can tell, David Robinson might be superior as a team defender. He was longer, seemed more fundamentally sound rather than relying as much on athleticism (on the defensive end, not talking about offense), and his much larger regular season sample seems superior though again, Hakeem strongest selling point is his playoff performance. That doesn't mean Robinson is in Hakeem's league overall; his playoff scoring was far less resilient and his later entry into the league combined with his serious knee injury gives Hakeem a longevity edge as well as his two championships without a Tim Duncan beside him. But, before that one playoff series, general consensus that I heard favored Robinson; the narrative of that one head to head matchup changed the whole story.
Well, iirc Robinson's defenses generally did not hold up in the postseason against good offenses. I would also add that agility and length seems to be generally more important than just being longer. Tracking the most valuable defenders of the various eras(especially in a playoff setting) I would say the most valuable defenders were
60's: Russell(very similar build to Hakeem) 70's: Walton (excluding 80's/90's for circular reasons) 2000's: KG(similar to Hakeem) 2010's: Draymond/Giannis 2020's: Draymond/AD/JJJ/Giannis
I think nba history predicts hakeem would come out on-top(and that arguably manifested itself in playoff results).
lessthanjake wrote:I don’t really think we can precisely compare the exact totals for different five-year RAPM intervals just as we can’t compare the exact totals for different one-year RAPM measures (i.e. because different scaling, corrections, etc. are done for each interval). As in, if Player A has a 4.0 RAPM in 1997-2001 and Player B has a 5.0 RAPM in 2005-2009, there’s not a direct comparison between the two numbers because they were calculated differently. We can compare generally by how they placed within the league during those time intervals, and perhaps draw an inference by how far ahead of their peers two players were, but I do think there’s a tendency for people to want to compare RAPM values across intervals when it aids an argument they’re making and to say it’s an invalid method when it helps someone else’s argument. Let’s just agree that it’s not a strictly valid method that we can draw a strong conclusion from, and therefore that comparison within the same interval is better, but that comparing values across years can perhaps allow us to draw inferences when numbers or league placements are radically different (i.e. we could be quite sure that 2.0 RAPM and 60th in the NBA in 1997-2001 isn’t as good as 9.0 RAPM and 1st in the NBA in 2005-2009).
Assuming Cheema's set is not designed for cross-period comp(i imagine it is since he charts them all in the same graph and ranks them together), I would say the more removed you are the messier it gets. Contesting 2013-17 Lebron versus 2014-18 Curry is wierd(4-years of overlap, 2018 is a very favorable addition for curry) but there is some merit to objecting to 2009-13.
However, let's just say we should only compare the gaps within tiers. Lebron still looks miles better with this approach.
Okay, but the size of the gaps depends on the metric we’re looking at.
For instance, if we look at RPM, Steph had two out of the three largest gaps to 2nd place that Steph and LeBron have had (including having the year with the largest gap), and Steph’s average gap to 2nd place was higher than LeBron’s (despite having led the league one extra time). NBAshotcharts one-year RAPM goes back to 2009-2010 (so, to be fair, doesn’t include the 2008-2009 season for LeBron, but does include the others in his prime), and Steph again has two of the top three biggest gaps the two have had, including having by far the biggest one. And Steph has way larger gaps in that RAPM in the longer time horizons. Meanwhile, this is despite Steph contending with prime LeBron in these measures, while LeBron in the earlier era wasn’t contending with prime Steph (or prime Duncan, prime KG, prime Shaq, etc.—there was a bit of a lull in prime top-tier all-time greats at the time, which would naturally make having a gap to 2nd place easier).
The reality is that LeBron was pretty dominant in these sorts of measures in the 5 years or so before Steph’s prime, and Steph was actually pretty dominant in the next 5 years or so. The size of the gaps they had is going to depend on the measure. I don’t think a whole lot can be read into those exact differences in this case. But also, I’m not really all that interested in comparing LeBron 2009-2013 to Steph 2015-2019 or whatever. As I said, the measures don’t really lend themselves to proper cross-interval comparisons like that, beyond perhaps making some really obvious inferences (which I don’t think could properly be made here, where they both were pretty dominant in the league), and my argument is centered around comparing prime Steph to LeBron in the second half of his prime—where a direct comparison can be much more properly made. If you want to section off LeBron’s prime and assert that the first half his prime was a lot better than the second half of his prime, then that’s fine and you can argue that if you want, but I’m going to maintain that it’s impressive for prime Steph to have generally outdone second-half-of-his-prime LeBron in these metrics.
(note: it's important to track who is being compared to who here and general league context. Beating 30+ Karl Malone with expansion does not mean you were crushing peak Magic in the 80's)
Yes, I agree, and Steph was beating prime LeBron (while first-half-of-his-prime LeBron was beating Chris Paul). That’s my point! The context of Steph’s era makes his impact-metric success probably more impressive than anyone else’s databall-era impact-metric success has been. And I think that impressiveness is a huge reason he should be voted in very very soon (though of course I’ve given other good reasons as well).
Of course this is all ignoring one key caveat noted above. RAPM is a rate-stat. In 2018, Steph played way less minutes than Lebron.
Here's what happens when we adjust for that:
Spoiler:
LA BIRD wrote:Curry was the best player in the league in 2018 on a per possession basis but he played the equivalent of 19.9 minutes per game last regular season from his resting and injuries. And since he also missed the entire first round of the playoffs, one could make the argument that his injuries would have ended his team's postseason run if they weren't stacked enough to win a playoff series without him. Curry could be the best player in the league for the next few year but that is only if he stays healthy.
However, regardless of future projections, Curry has not already been the best player in the league for 4 straight seasons. Claiming Curry was better than LeBron in 2014 is absolutely crazy. You use NPI RAPM as your argument but then dismiss everybody ahead of Curry for some excuse or another, claiming that "Curry would get a boost with more data". Guess what - we do have more data from JE, who published full RAPM up until this past season. (For 2018, he only released Win Probabiliby)
LeBron was ahead of Curry every season except 2017 (7.49 vs 7.57), but his higher minutes played would have made up for the negligible per possession difference that year anyway.
Also, for somebody that is supposedly pro impact stats, this post reeks heavily of anti-LeBron bias
Lebron is ahead of steph, every-year from 2014 to 2018. If coming 2nd to Lebron this late is so impressive it demands a spot in the top 8, it's really a wonder Lebron didn't destroy the last peaks project(no one pre-showtime was seriously considered)
To be fair to our prematurely crowned "impact king", that probably changes for 2019-2023 with Lebron suffering multiple crippling injuries. But then again, things seem to swing the other way if you use 2023 despite Lebron playing some games with a torn tendon and playing alot of other games with terrible spacing.
Keep in mind, none of this includes two regular-seasons steph really does not have any decent case against. Heck, if we buy RPM, Lebron was already the most valuable guy as early as 2005. Who knows how many secret 2016's have been tossed aside.
Frankly, Steph might look better if we were to focus on the box-score and his ceiling raising, because by impact, he's really more of a prince than a king. And while I think that is acceptable to be nominated, I do not see how it puts him in his own category relative to everyone else.
To begin with, we do actually have metrics from Steph’s prime that are not rate stats and do still have Steph easily ahead. For instance, RAPTOR is a rate stat, but they also convert that into a non-rate stat with their WAR measure. And by that measure, Steph is ahead of LeBron every year in the last decade except 2017-2018 and of course 2019-2020. RPM has a similar non-rate version of their stat, and that has Steph ahead of LeBron every year in the last decade except 2017-2018, 2019-2020, and 2022-2023. So basically, in both those stats, compared to using the rate-stat version of it, the non-rate-stat version just puts LeBron ahead in 2017-2018 as well (i.e. the season Steph played just 51 regular season games), but Steph remains dominant overall.
In any event, to be honest, I’m more concerned with how good the player is, not exactly how much they played. Missing some games in the regular season can hurt a team by potentially making it hard to make the playoffs and whatnot, but when your team wins at a 68-win pace when you play and you do actually play a good bit, your team isn’t going to have issues with that. There’s room for reasonable people to differ on this, but that’s how I feel about it. And I especially feel this way when we realize that teams themselves have plainly revealed that they don’t value their stars playing all the time, since there’s rampant load management. Of course, something like Steph’s 2019-2020 season is totally different, and missing that season obviously matters, but I’m of course not giving him credit for anything that season. Either way, though, it’s really not clear that this matters here, given that non-rate versions of these metrics still favor Steph.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
penbeast0 wrote:Was Hakeem really the best defender post-Russell, or even the best of his era? From what I can tell, David Robinson might be superior as a team defender. He was longer, seemed more fundamentally sound rather than relying as much on athleticism (on the defensive end, not talking about offense), and his much larger regular season sample seems superior though again, Hakeem strongest selling point is his playoff performance.
I think Robinson could be argued as the more purely intimidating rim protector, but otherwise, no, I do not see much of a skillset that made for superior team defences when all else is equal — and especially not for a defence that maintained into the postseason.
fatal9 wrote:Hakeem had quicker hands, was stronger (especially lower body), overall motor and activity level was noticeably higher, had better, more instinctive timing. Greater lateral mobility due to superior balance and footwork which made him better at defending perimeter players (in current era, Hakeem would be much better at switching than D-Rob imo). Robinson was also elite in many of these areas, but the extra bit of timing and fluidity in how they moved, coupled with a more tenacious and aggressive approach to the game, makes me stylistically prefer Hakeem. Maybe D-Rob could be better on raw, straight line stuff (and he had a couple of inches on Hakeem too) but I think Olajuwon just had better "basketball athleticism" which helped him on both ends.
- Hakeem was a much better defensive rebounder (we can talk about how much this actually matters, as this is probably the easiest stat to pad), but Hakeem (in his 20s particularly) could leap out and challenge a shot, then turn around and position himself to grab a contested board. Usually when you chase blocks as aggressively as Hakeem did, your rebounding takes a little bit of a hit, but he was incredible at landing and immediately fighting for a rebound (his hunger for a loose ball in general was second to none). Hakeem's top three year DRB% was almost 28% (Robinson never got above 25%), and even in his mid-30s, when people think Hakeem stopped rebounding or something, he was putting up drb% comparable to D-Rob's best seasons. Again it's not that Robinson was bad or something, but just another component where Hakeem had a higher ceiling.
- Hakeem applied a lot more pressure on his man, and did that at every stage of the possession, from when the opposing player is trying to establish position, to when about to make the catch, to when making the move, to when they finally attempt a shot, if they do at all. I think ElGee's career writeup pointed out that Hakeem was in his own league in terms of reducing both efficiency and volume of players he would guard, and that doesn't surprise me, he was an extremely difficult player to develop any kind of a rhythm against because of how much pressure he would put on you paired with his ability to make adjustments if you were having success doing something (was good at "fitting" his defense to the opponent...also a feature of his game on offense btw). His motor on both ends also probably helped in wearing down opposing players in his individual matchups.
- Hakeem also had this incredible rope-a-dope ability to give a player he was guarding a half-step, put himself in what would seem to be a compromised position (and indeed it would be for any other player), but only because he knew that he would recover most of the time...this would allow him to make a quick gamble or apply pressure, and then recover right away. This is partly what allowed him to play defense as aggressively as he did, and I think he was extraordinary in this regard compared to other bigs (keeping Russell out of this because just not enough footage exists for me to judge). His positioning could look unorthodox at times, and he could sometimes get burned, but I don't know anyone I've seen who could play defense that aggressively and get away with it. So this unparalleled ability to recover allowed him to play this uniquely aggressive style of defense (this is not something you would teach young players, you need certain physical tools to pull it off). This is probably the aspect of his defense which declined most with age.
- Robinson was less of a risk taker, though still susceptible to leaving his feet. Also had a bit more length, and less offensive responsibilities as he got older so his defense aged better in his mid-30s. His later year impact numbers also benefited from being on the floor with Duncan, which created this supercharged rim protection when they were on the court together. In the later years I would prefer D-Rob because I don't know if Hakeem could've stepped away from offense enough to play the sort of role D-Rob did.
- If one were to make a case for D-Rob, I guess you could point to the defensive ratings of the Spurs in his first few years in the league (back to back #1 in '91 and '92), but he had one of the best defensive coaches in Larry Brown. When Brown left in '92, the defenses went from elite to merely good in most years (from '93-'96, they rated 10th, 9th, 5th and 3rd...had Rodman for two years). Hakeem never had a defensive coach of that caliber, in fact a large chunk of his defensive prime was spent under someone who I consider to be in contention for worst coach of all time (we'll say minimum 200 games), the personnel also wasn't impressive (though those Chaney teams did have some athletic players who could play nice swarming D when things were clicking...but not the smartest bunch), but anyways that didn't matter, he was anchoring top 1-4 defenses year in, year out...coaching changes, roster changes and all, he's the common denominator through the years.
- I Don Chaney might have been "defensive minded" (I think I remember reading something along those lines when he got the job, that he'd focus on defense)...but that doesn't mean he was any good. Every team he coached in his ~7.5 years outside of Houston was below average defensively. In 4 of those years, his team was either the worst or second worst defensive team in the league. There is nothing to point at to show that he was anything but a thoroughly bad coach on both sides of the court, and that the defensive ratings Houston put up were due to having one of the GOAT defensive players in his prime, not anything Chaney was orchestrating.
- Hakeem fouled more, especially in his early and mid-20s. Some years this meant he could only play ~36 mpg in regular season instead of 38-40 as was common back then. But now its best practice to keep star players <36 mpg, so idk how much this matters anymore.
DatWasNashty wrote:I would put guys like David Robinson, Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan on his level but would hesitate taking any of them before the Dream. Mostly because Admiral, while a great weakside shot blocker and interior defender, wasn't as good as a man defender. I also want to know how much of that great early 1990s Spurs defense is influenced by Larry Brown's defensive schemes and Admiral's defense. No doubt Admiral was a terrific defender and rightfully won a DPOY award but the Spurs DRtg took a hit in the 1992-93 season (first full year without LB) and this was with Admiral playing all 82 games. Their DRtg in 1994, 1995 and 1996 isn't as good, relative to league average, either. By no means am I implying Robinson didn't have a huge impact and he did because the Spurs were horrible without him when he went down late in the 1991-92 season but it does generate some food for thought.
Dream has a greater impact than Duncan on the defensive end due to his major edge in athleticism which is something Mario Elie commented on when comparing the two players. Garnett is a very good defender and better on the defensive glass but he doesn't have Dream's overall impact due to Dream being a greater paint defender and shot blocking threat. It's all subjective, though.
To give more examples of Hakeem's jaw-dropping defense, I'd point to the 1986 finals like bastillon mentioned. Parish couldn't manage anything against him. One thing I didn't talk about was his versatility as a defender. His determination in running the floor, protecting the basket and not giving up on any play. You should check out that chasedown block (all the way from halfcourt) he had on Rod Strickland in the 1994 playoffs. Just mind-boggling quickness and recovery time. He also had one on K.J. with K.J. falling flat on his arse. I've seen him guard power forwards as well. For reference, see his stellar defense on Karl Malone in game 4 of the 1994 Western Conference Semi finals. Otis Thorpe was in foul trouble and Dream got the job of checking Malone in the second half if I'm not mistaken. He shut Karl down and helped the Rockets take a big lead. It's the infamous game where the Utah time keeper doesn't start the clock. He also checked Barkley for stretches in the 1994 and 1995 conference semis and held his own. The thing about his defense was that he didn't let anyone get anything going inside. I remember being astonished at how Cedric Ceballos, the snake (great nose for the ball, terrific rebounder), couldn't finish around the basket because of Dream's presence. Most of the points he got that series were with Hakeem coming over to help on penetration. We had to take him out of games 6 and 7 and start AC Green although some of it had to do with the defensive mismatches we had (Thorpe posting up Chuck, Dream beasting etc).
I remember the start of the 1994-95 season. Rockets got off to a 9-0 start with Hakeem being a strong MVP candidate. There was a game against the Pacers where Dream absolutely annihilated Rik Smits by holding him to 1/11 shooting while putting up a 43 pts/16 reb/8 blks statline. Couple of games later, he took a dump on the Nets with 31 pts/10 reb/5 stl/5 blk and holding Derrick Coleman (back when he actually gave a F) to 1/15 from the field.
Just incredible all-around play. As for Admiral's defense, it was great but a couple of things stick out. How much of the early 1990s Spurs DRtg is influenced by Larry Brown's defensive schemes? And Hakeem having the series of his career against Robinson kind of sticks out here. I thought he could be taken one-on-one. He didn't seem as psychologically dominating/intimidating either, contrary to what his numbers imply. I'd point to the 1994 playoffs, here. Karl Malone had a greater impact on both offense and defense. I don't remember this series very well but I do remember the Jazz switching match ups by putting Karl on David and roughing him up. It proved to be successful as David was held to 41% shooting. Karl, meanwhile, beasted in the series with the Rodman/Robinson duo being unable to stop him. I'm not sure how much Robinson guarded Karl but it's a negative either way. Either he didn't step up to the challenge and guard Karl or he was unable to keep Malone from going off.
Hakeem captained comparable regular season defences and better postseason defences without a defensive coach anywhere near the level of Larry Brown.
ElGee wrote:It’s worth taking a moment to discuss Brown. He’s on the shortlist of greatest defensive coaches, dating back to the ABA, where he coached the top defense in the league in Denver, who then finished atop the NBA after the merger in ’77. When Brown left in 1980, the Nuggets lost nearly 3 points of defensive efficiency (to 2.3 points below average) with a nearly identical core. He then joined the Nets in 1982, and with an overhauled roster, New Jersey rose from a below average defense to elite, posting -4.6 and -5.8 relative efficiencies in Brown’s two years, before dropping back 3 points after he departed.
This pattern continued when he returned from coaching in college: When Brown arrived in Indiana (1994), a more defensively inclined roster improved 4 points on D (to a -2.1 rDRtg). When he took over in Philadelphia in ’98, the Sixers also jumped 4 points on defense (with upgraded personnel), and then another 5 points in his second season (to a -4.6 rDRtg). In 2009, Charlotte improved by 4 points in rDRtg and in Detroit in 2004, the Pistons improved with Brown’s arrival and then, after trading for Rasheed Wallace, were arguably the greatest defense in league history, posting an unheard of -10.9 rDRtg in their 45 games with Sheed.
Brown’s arrival in San Antonio was no different, coinciding with a 5-point improvement in defensive efficiency (to about league average in 1989). In 1991, with the same core, the Spurs jumped to a 56-win pace when healthy (5.4 SRS), an improvement from the previous season’s 50-win clip (3.6 SRS). But Brown was sort-of-fired midway through the ’92 season, replaced by Bob Bass. With Bass at the helm and Robinson in the lineup, San Antonio posted an rDRtg of -2.9, down slightly from Brown’s two-hand-a-half years with Robinson.
I would have a much easier time advocating for Dikembe as the secret top defender of the era than I would Robinson — and to whatever extent we might be willing to entertain that Dikembe was enough of a shot-blocking outlier to have a results edge over Hakeem (and obviously by extension Robinson), there is still the matter of Hakeem’s substantially superior versatility and his unparalleled (outside of Thurmond) man defence against other top scoring bigs. Like I do not really know how it become fashionable to imply that Hakeem was not a game-breaking defensive talent outside of being uniquely disruptive in man coverage against the top players of his era, but it reminds me a lot about how Thurmond is similarly boxed in as a sort of one-on-one merchant despite being more mobile and defensively dynamic in space than Wilt.
But, before that one playoff series, general consensus that I heard favored Robinson; the narrative of that one head to head matchup changed the whole story.
That is news to me considering before that “one playoff series”, Hakeem had won two Defensive Player of the Year awards to Robinson’s one and completed that MVP/DPoY/FinalsMVP dream ( ) season. Seems like a deeply strange consensus.
(See “Career Data” Tab). Wilt faced the greatest defenses in NBA history in the playoffs. And look at his record, nonetheless.
Further supplemented with data here:
ty 4191 wrote:
feyki wrote: I'd explain it(for the thousandth time) with that way, Kareem played against 1th best defence(93,5) with 34,8 PPG and %67,5 TS and played against second best defence(93,6) with 32,6 PPG and with %55,2 TS in the 1974 Playoffs. Wonder Why?
That's true, although, Kareem never faced a single All Time Great (-7 or better) defense in his career, in 49 Series across 18 Seasons.
Wilt vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses: 45% of total playoff games played 47.2 MPG 25.0 PPG 26.6 RBG 3.5 AST/G rTS%: +3.8%
Lebron vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses: 22.1% of total playoff games played 42.3 MPG 26.3 PGG 7.8 RBG 6.5 AST/G rTS%: -1.3%
Kareem vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses: 13.9% of total playoff games played 42.1 MPG 29.4 PPG 14.2 RBG 3.8 AST/G rTS%: +4.8%
Jordan vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses 33.0%of total playoff games played 42.1 MPG 32.7 PPG 6.3 RBG 6.3 AST/G rTS%: 0.15%
From this amazing 70s Fan thread/project:
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1836300
SNIP
The Rings Argument is LAZY argumentation. Specious and facile.
Michael Jordan through age 27, Playoffs, before they built a Dynasty around him: -Playoffs (53 games) -Team Record: 24-29 -Team Series Record: 5-6 -3 first round exits, including 2 first round sweeps -Two ECF
Jordan's line: 36.2/6.9/6.7 on +4.7% rTS. Led all players those years in all advanced and traditional metrics in the playoffs.
Nikola Jokic through age 26, Playoffs: -Playoffs: (48 games) -Team Record: 21-27 -Team Series Record: 4-4 -1 first round exit -1 WCF
Jokic's line: 26.4/11.5/6.4 on +4.1 rTS%. Top 3 player in all advanced and traditional metrics in the playoffs those 4 years.
Kevin Garnett through age 27, Playoffs: -Playoffs: (47 games) -Team Record: 17-30 -Team Series Record: 2-8 -7 first round exits -1 WCF
Garnett's line: 23.3/13.4/5.0. 2nd in Defensive Rating in the playoffs, those years, among players with 2000 MP. RAPM ranks him as the second most impactful player of 2002-2007 period, overall, in the NBA.
Wilt Chamberlain through age 28, Playoffs: -Playoffs: (47 games) -Team Record: 21-26 -Team Series Record: 4-5 -Much shorter playoffs structure, so they're incompatible. Still:
Wilt's line: 33.4/26.0/3.2 on +4.7 tTS%. Clearly the MVP in the playoffs in all advanced and traditional box score metrics.
Oscar Robertson through age 31, Playoffs: -Playoffs: (39 games) -Team Record: 15-24 -Team Series Record: 2-6 -4 first round exits -2 EDF
Oscar's playoff line: 29.7/9.3/9.4 on an astounding +8.2 rTS%. Clearly, a top 2-3 player overall in the playoffs in all advanced and traditional box score metrics. He had 8 triple doubles in those 39 games, and that's when the assist rule precluded assists if the player receiving the ball dribbled before he took the shot. Much harder to get assists back then vs. today.
What did Michael Jordan win before they built an amazing team around him, while also bringing in the greatest coach of all time?
What did Wilt win, while he had coaches (that got fired or resigned every year or so) 1960-1965? What did he win before he got great coaches, teammates, ownership, management around him?
Or maybe, just maybe, it's not how great YOU are, but how great your teammates, coaches, management, ownership are?
SNIP
I have compiled shot block data for 137 of Wilt's games, 1959-1973. (Note that 75 of the games (45%) are post Wilt's 11/9/69 knee surgery, so this is likely an underestimate of his true totals and average BPG.)
Wilt averaged 8.75 blocks per game during these 137 contests, with a high of 23 against the Suns on 12/25/68. I have it in Excel if anyone is interested.
What data do you have, overall, and what does it tell us?
penbeast0 wrote:Was Hakeem really the best defender post-Russell, or even the best of his era? From what I can tell, David Robinson might be superior as a team defender. He was longer, seemed more fundamentally sound rather than relying as much on athleticism (on the defensive end, not talking about offense), and his much larger regular season sample seems superior though again, Hakeem strongest selling point is his playoff performance. That doesn't mean Robinson is in Hakeem's league overall; his playoff scoring was far less resilient and his later entry into the league combined with his serious knee injury gives Hakeem a longevity edge as well as his two championships without a Tim Duncan beside him. But, before that one playoff series, general consensus that I heard favored Robinson; the narrative of that one head to head matchup changed the whole story.
AEnigma already did a fantastic job presenting Hakeem's case over Robinson, so I will only add that I don't think Robinson was more fundamentally sound defender. They both relied heavily on their athleticism and Robinson gambled just as much as Hakeem - he simply was a bit less agile and I'd argue his motor is slightly worse (not by much, he was a monster).
I've been seeing a lot of team results based arguments for Hakeem over Wilt/Magic/Bird/Shaq/Garnett/Curry, which I find surprising because that's one of my main concerns for Hakeem.
The main arguments I've seen are: 1) Rocket's over performed in the playoffs relative to regular season SRS (particularly title run 86, titles in 94–95) 2) Hakeem's playoff record as an SRS underdog more generally 3) Hakeem's box elevation suggesting Hakeem's the reason for this team over performance
Part 1: Overall Team Performance We have two major stats to evaluate in-era dominance by a team in the regular season and playoffs combined: overall SRS (by Sansterre) and ELO (by fivethirtyeight). Stating the obvious, these are team metrics, not player metrics. Teammates matter.
ok, but then you just list all these team performances anyway.
But team playoff (over-)performance is one of the primary arguments for Hakeem, and team performance does still give us a handle on how good these players are at ceiling raising, so let's dive in...
does it? specifically which ceilings was hakeem supposed to be raising? seemed like he had a lot of one story homes taking on water.
team performances
Spoiler:
Overall SRS team performance: [spoiler]Curry’s 17 Warriors (+16.15, +3.27 standard deviations) Curry’s 18 Warriors (+12.9, +2.69 standard deviations) Bird’s 86 Celtics (+12.55, +2.53 standard deviations) Shaq’s 01 Lakers (+12.2, +2.47 standard deviations) Curry’s 15 Warriors (+12.9, +2.34 standard deviations) Wilt’s 72 Lakers (+11.77, +1.75 standard deviations) Magic’s 85 Lakers (+11.36, +2.52 standard deviations) Magic’s 87 Lakers (+11.26, +2.24 standard deviations) Wilt’s 67 76ers (+11.25, +2.06 standard deviations) Curry’s 16 Warriors (+10.98, +1.90 standard deviations) Curry’s 22 Warriors (+9.4, +1.85 standard deviations) Shaq’s 02 Lakers (+9.06, +2.11 standard deviations) Bird’s 82 Celtics (+8.98, +2.06 standard deviations) Garnett’s 08 Celtics (+8.91, +1.66 standard deviations) Wilt’s 73 Lakers (+8.86, +1.48 standard deviations) Magic’s 89 Lakers (+8.76, +1.54 standard deviations) Bird’s 81 Celtics (+8.45, +1.92 standard deviations) Bird’s 80 Celtics (+8.43, +1.96 standard deviations) Shaq’s 00 Lakers (+8.0, +1.70 standard deviations) [Kareem/Magic’s 80 Lakers (+7.79, +1.81 standard deviations)] [Kareem/Magic’s 82 Lakers (+7.62, +1.74 standard deviations) Bird’s 85 Celtics (+7.72, +1.72 standard deviations) Magic’s 86 Lakers (+8.54, +1.72 standard deviations) Magic’s 91 Lakers (+7.67, +1.47 standard deviations) Magic’s 84 Lakers (+7.65, +2.20 standard deviations) Bird’s 84 Celtics (+7.48, +2.15 standard deviations) Hakeem's 95 Rockets (+7.47, +1.50 standard deviations) [Shaq/Wade’s 06 Heat (+7.05, +1.71 standard deviations] Hakeem's 94 Rockets (+7.0, +1.34 standard deviations)
So Hakeem’s teams are 2/3 of the very worst by overall SRS: Wilt has 3 teams better, Bird has 6, Magic has 6–8 (depending if you credit Kareem in 80/82), Shaq has 3, Garnett has 1, Curry has 5 so far. By standard deviations, Hakeem’s 95 Rockets improve to 4th to last (sneaking above Magic’s 91 Lakers and Wilt’s 73 Lakers, falling behind Shaq/Wade’s 06 Heat).
What about these teams' rankings in ELO? Team Rankings by ELO: Curry’s 17 Warriors (~1831) Curry’s 15 Warriors (1796) Curry’s 16 Warriors (~1795) Bird’s 86 Celtics (1784) Curry’s 18 Warriors (1737) Magic’s 85 Lakers (1736) Chamberlain’s 67 76ers (1734) Chamberlain’s 72 Lakers (1732) Shaq’s 01 Lakers (1731) Magic’s 87 Lakers (1730) Shaq’s 00 Lakers (1724) Shaq’s 02 Lakers (1720) Garnett’s 08 Celtics (1710) [Kareem/Magic’s 80 Lakers (1706)] Garnett’s 09 Celtics (1704) Shaq’s 98 Lakers (1702) Bird’s 81 Celtics (1702) Bird’s 82 Celtics (1701) Bird’s 87 Celtics (17000) Magic’s 88 Lakers (1701) Magic’s 86 Lakers (1699) Bird’s 85 Celtics (1698) Bird’s 84 Celtics (1688) Curry’s 19 Warriors (~1686) Curry’s 22 Warriors (~1683) Magic’s 90 Lakers (1680) Magic’s 91 Lakers (1676) [Kareem/Magic’s 82 Lakers (1676)] Magic’s 89 Lakers (1676) Garnett’s 04 Timberwolves (1673) Garnett’s 11 Boston (1671) Shaq’s 05 Heat (1673) Bird’s 80 Celtics (1665) Chamberlain’s 73 Lakers (1665) Shaq’s 04 Lakers (1664) Hakeem’s 94 Rockets (1661) Garnett’s 10 Boston (1659) Magic’s 83 Lakers (1657) Chamberlain’s 68 76ers (1653) Shaq’s 96 Magic (1649) Bird’s 88 Celtics (1648) [Wade/Shaq’s 06 Heat (1647)] Shaq’s 03 Lakers (1645) Shaq’s 95 Magic (1644) Hakeem’s 95 Rockets (1640) Bird’s 83 Celtics (1638) Hakeem’s 97 Rockets (1636) Magic’s 84 Lakers (1634) Hakeem’s 93 Rockets (1631) By ELO, Wilt has 3 teams better, Bird has 6, Magic has 7-9 (depending if you credit Kareem in 80/82), Shaq has 6, Garnett has 4, Curry has 6 so far. So this measure is even more favorable for the other players.
What if we look at playoffs-only SRS? Well the 95 Rockets certainly improve: from 93rd in overall SRS to 55th in playoff SRS pre-2021 (note: the 95 Rockets are currently 100th in overall SRS through 2023). But Wilt still has 2 teams better in playoff SRS only, Bird has 2, Magic has 4, Shaq has 1, Curry has 5.
ooh, 100th. guess beating the best combined opponents in nba history ain't what it used to be. didn't old San also have the 2018 Rockets, who took his 5th all time team to 7 games, in like 95th place? guess he forgot to take out the "if team = Rockets, underscore indiscriminately" line in his code (spreadsheets can't be perfect, him defending it was a problem).
...
Playoff-only SRS is also blind to opponent injuries. In 94 and 95, Hakeem's two biggest team over performances, Hakeem benefited from a number of injuries that have gone pretty unnoticed so far. In 1994 and 1995, Hakeem's championship teams got taken to the final game four times. They benefited from injured opponents all four times. We can certainly credit Hakeem for being clutch -- but when a team over performs by that much, does it not seem likely that a bit of luck was also involved? -1994 2nd Round vs Phoenix Suns: Charles Barkley struggled with a back injury for much of the season and got a groin injury in game 6. The Rockets won in game 7. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-22-sp-60780-story.html%3f_amp=true, https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1994/05/21/maxwell-promises-suns-will-set-today/). -1994 4th Round vs New York Knicks: Power Forward Charles Oakley (4th in minutes) played through a sprained left ankle and a bruised right foot. Point Guard Doc Rivers (5th in minutes) missed the 2nd half of the season and the playoffs. The Rockets won in game 7 by 6 points, and the Rockets were outscored in the series. -1994 1st Round vs Utah Jazz: Center Felton Spencer (4th in minutes, 1st in rebounds) missed the 2nd half of the season and the playoffs. The Rockets won in game 5 (first round went to 5 games) by 4 points. -1995 2nd Round vs Phoenix Suns: Power Forward Danny Manning (3rd in Minutes, 2nd in points, 3rd in rebounds, 1st in blocks) missed the end of the season. The Rockets won in game 7 by 1 point.
come on. other than barkley, who still played, we're talking doc rivers and danny manning and an ankle sprain on oakley? felton spencer (RIP) being injured just changed which jazz center was gonna take that whoopin'. these aren't earth-moving injuries in the context of nba history. and certainly not at the level of rearranging stats to account for them.
I don't think it's crazy to imagine a world where a healthy Phoenix Suns knock the Rockets out in the 2nd round both years.
it's not. but not because of injuries, but because they were super close series. also not crazy to imagine bill russell losing 5 of his 7 super close game 7's and we barely mention him in the top 10. but we have to go with what happened unless we're just straight up talking a huge piece of a team (or the player themselves like 2000 duncan) missing games/series.
Part 2: Team Playoff Record as an SRS underdog
This is a new metric calculated by f4p. It's quite the interesting metric, and there may be some true information inside these numbers. Still, I fear it's quite a noisy metric, that's dominated by team performance, that doesn't actually rank player goodness.
it's not different than calling someone a playoff riser or faller, except in the context of generating series wins.
Let's look at how players' teams over performed in the playoffs by number of years. This should help avoid double-counting if it's a player's teammates that are over performing or getting worse in the playoffs:
this seems dubious. beating the 1995 spurs didn't suddenly become easy because the rockets beat the 1995 jazz. you can even see the odds for the series still have the rockets as significant underdogs through the west playoffs as vegas doesn't seem convinced that the rockets have just become much better.
i erased some of the guys below and moved things around. numbers are interesting, the adjustments involve too much opinion (in my opinion).
-Hakeem's team over performed in 6 years, underperformed in 1 (4-1 discounting injuries)
Hakeem: [(9th) upset by 85 Jazz (13th)] -86 (6th): beat Lakers (3rd) -87 (9th): beat Blazers (7th) [upset by Sonics (11th)] -94 (6th): beat Suns (5th), Knicks (2nd) (Rockets opponents injured) -95 (11th): beat Jazz (2nd), Suns (6th), Spurs (4th), Magic 3rd) (Rockets opponents injured) -96 (12th): beat Lakers (6th) -97 (7th): beat Sonics (3rd) (Barkley injured in RS underrates SRS) 300/53 =5.67 with Barkley. 4.48 full season
so we're not counting 1994 or 1995 as underdog accomplishments for hakeem? his pieces de resistance? 2 titles won with 6 underdog series (and a series as a 0.1 favorite), one of them won with all 4 underdog series? this is quite the adjustment. it would appear 1995 doesn't make the cut because felton spencer was injured. that definitely isn't going to fly. and if we're adjusting for primes like with other people, wouldn't rookie hakeem, his only underperforming year, need to be removed? i will just count it and go with 6-1. also, 1997 barkley going from a 49.5% shooter and better player before the regular season injury to a 44% shooter after and a 43.6% shooter and worse player in the playoffs was a much bigger hit to the playoff rockets than whatever small bump they would get to regular season SRS (which even with your adjustment isn't above the Sonics).
So Hakeem is definitely ahead. But if we account for injuries/primes, Hakeem's not clearly better than Curry,
well, yeah, if we don't count 1994 and 1995 for hakeem, with 1995 basically being THE underdog story in nba history, and remove 2016 and 2019 for steph curry, with 2016 basically being THE story of a favorite losing in nba history, then things will look better for steph curry. they are straight up on opposite sides of the spectrum for this measurement with 1995 and 2016. and if chris paul's injury is somehow less significant than felton spencer's so we keep 2018 in there, then it will definitely help curry if we're painting 2018 as an "underdog" story where the most talented roster in history, featuring 4 future hall of famers all between the ages of 27 and 29, is somehow an underdog accomplishment on par with what hakeem has done because they didn't try so hard in the regular season and then got a HOF point guard injury to help them (and if iggy is the "injured" for the warriors, then mbah-a-moute should cancel him out even before we get to cp3). remember, the first time hakeem had a hall of fame teammate was February 16, 1995, and it was 32 year old clyde drexler when hakeem was also 32.
and of course, we have to note that the 1997 rockets are listed as having benefited from barkley missing some games, but the 2022 warriors are not mentioned for having their big 3 play a total of 11 minutes together in the 2022 regular season, almost certainly holding their SRS down a ton compared to what turned out to be all 3 staying completely healthy in the playoffs. there's a reason curry's overperformances are on a 4 HOF roster that didn't try in the regular season and a 3 HOF roster that was injured all season.
It's also worth considering: [u]Team playoff over performance rewards someone for being a worse player in the regular season.
Let's consider a thought experiment: Let's say we change Shaq's career, so that he performs exactly the same in the playoffs, but coasts significantly more in the regular season. By every logical measure, we should consider this new Shaq as the worse player. But in this metric (team playoff performance as an SRS underdog), Shaq would *improve*. This seems backwards to me. Hakeem is pretty clearly the worse regular season performer of the bunch: are we sure this metric isn't just rewarding him for being worse for most of the season?
Overall, I'm not sure team stats are a good argument for Hakeem. But can we argue improved playoff performance? See Part 3 in the next post...
it is worth considering. which is why i also made the following table, showing how much better a player would have needed to be to explain how many championships they won. in other words, if hakeem was merely being a worse regular season performer than these other guys, and really his teams should have won 2 championships all along, hakeem just wasn't performing in the regular season but then he was performing in the playoffs, then how much was hakeem underperforming in the regular season. well, it turns out it would be a massive 13 win per season (4.8 SRS points). second only to mikan. considering we know (or at least everyone agrees) that hakeem was posting some of the best defensive seasons ever, we would theoretically need basically all of that to come from offense. which either means hakeem needed to be providing some of the highest offensive value in history, or you think the level he was providing was some of the worst in history. i don't really find either explanation plausible nor do i see that he was underperforming by 13 wins a season. occam's razor would say that the guy with the massive box score increase in the playoffs being on the teams who overperformed the most in the playoffs is very likely just because he was a playoff riser.
one thing to note. until we get to lebron, it's basically hakeem and a bunch of guys who showed up to the playoffs with really good teams. because having really good teams is bar far the best way to win championships in nba history (duh) and to accumulate "actual vs expected" deltas. hakeem being up there is probably even more of an outlier than it appears.
) season. Seems like a deeply strange consensus.
