RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Hakeem Olajuwon)

Moderators: trex_8063, penbeast0, PaulieWal, Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ

User avatar
eminence
RealGM
Posts: 17,050
And1: 11,863
Joined: Mar 07, 2015

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#141 » by eminence » Tue Jul 18, 2023 3:23 pm

therealbig3 wrote:
eminence wrote:
therealbig3 wrote:Re: Curry vs Kobe

I don't think it's clear at all that Curry is a more capable offensive anchor in the PS than Kobe. Kobe's 08-10 Lakers squads were consistently better offensively than most of Curry's Warriors teams. I think Kobe was more resilient as a playoff performer actually. RS wise, Curry may very well be the GOAT, but his dropoff in PS play has always been the issue. Not to say he isn't great or isn't worthy of discussion at this level, but he goes from a clear offensive GOAT to clearly not the offensive GOAT, and more in line with guys like Kobe and Dirk (which is still an incredible offensive talent).


I think that's a pretty clear sample bias, if you look at Kobe's best stretch it'll look nice compared to anyones career because Kobe was a damn good player.

Career to career? Ehh, I'm not seeing it.


I'm comparing to Curry's 15-19 Warriors though, which is Curry's best stretch, outside of 22.

Kobe was also the clear 2nd best player on the Shaq-led Lakers, and often times, the Lakers had a better offense with Kobe and without Shaq than vice versa in the playoffs.

I've also always had a hard time grouping in the KD-era Warriors with Curry's overall offensive accomplishments, which essentially just ignores the presence of Kevin freaking Durant. I think comparing Curry's non-KD years to Kobe's non-Shaq years is a much fairer comparison. The 22 Warriors is really the only time where Curry stepped up and had a comparable PS run to the 08-10 Lakers. The 15 and 16 Warriors were underwhelming by comparison, they largely won with their defense.

Again though, Curry is the RS offensive GOAT, don't think anyone would really offer much resistance to that idea. I think there's a clear dropoff in offensive efficiency in the PS though, which does drop him from offensive GOAT conversation to that 2nd tier of offensive anchors, which is where Kobe exists.


I could see it as 'fairer', but it doesn't look particularly fair. Dray gives the Warriors cast a large defensive edge (the Lakers have a good defensive cast, but the Warriors are great), but the Lakers cast significantly closes it on the offensive end, and you're just looking at the offensive end. Kobe's starting on 2nd in this comparison.
I bought a boat.
therealbig3
RealGM
Posts: 29,537
And1: 16,101
Joined: Jul 31, 2010

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#142 » by therealbig3 » Tue Jul 18, 2023 3:32 pm

eminence wrote:
therealbig3 wrote:
eminence wrote:
I think that's a pretty clear sample bias, if you look at Kobe's best stretch it'll look nice compared to anyones career because Kobe was a damn good player.

Career to career? Ehh, I'm not seeing it.


I'm comparing to Curry's 15-19 Warriors though, which is Curry's best stretch, outside of 22.

Kobe was also the clear 2nd best player on the Shaq-led Lakers, and often times, the Lakers had a better offense with Kobe and without Shaq than vice versa in the playoffs.

I've also always had a hard time grouping in the KD-era Warriors with Curry's overall offensive accomplishments, which essentially just ignores the presence of Kevin freaking Durant. I think comparing Curry's non-KD years to Kobe's non-Shaq years is a much fairer comparison. The 22 Warriors is really the only time where Curry stepped up and had a comparable PS run to the 08-10 Lakers. The 15 and 16 Warriors were underwhelming by comparison, they largely won with their defense.

Again though, Curry is the RS offensive GOAT, don't think anyone would really offer much resistance to that idea. I think there's a clear dropoff in offensive efficiency in the PS though, which does drop him from offensive GOAT conversation to that 2nd tier of offensive anchors, which is where Kobe exists.


I could see it as 'fairer', but it doesn't look particularly fair. Dray gives the Warriors cast a large defensive edge (the Lakers have a good defensive cast, but the Warriors are great), but the Lakers cast significantly closes it on the offensive end, and you're just looking at the offensive end. Kobe's starting on 2nd in this comparison.


I'm not sure I agree with that. Dray was a significant and important offensive contributor as well, as was Klay Thompson, I also see Iggy and Odom as playing pretty similar roles and usefulness on offense. Kobe was also playing with traditional lineups featuring two bigs and a supporting cast that didn't really have great shooting, overall not a team that was optimally designed offensively, unlike what Curry has had, often playing with stretch bigs and good shooters around him, a bevvy of small ball lineups, and one of the more unique offensive bigs in terms of his ability to handle the ball in space, pass, and make quick decisions, not to mention that he was actually a legitimate 3pt threat in those earlier Warriors runs. I think Curry's teams were more optimized offensively, honestly. While having more defensive support.

I think Kobe could have looked even more impressive with improved spacing secondary to better shooters and small ball lineups. Granted, Gasol and also Odom were excellent, I don't want to take away from them, but the offensive impact for guards were more optimized by the time Curry emerged, given that two bigs like that would be very rarely played together, and Gasol would most certainly have been a 5 given his lack of 3pt range and would not have been featured as a post scorer and clogging the paint nearly as much.

Keep in mind that the Lakers were also still employing an offense in the late 00s that was mainly used in the 90s and early 00s. It was not a modern offense, that was optimized for the league they were in. It was very much a defensive oriented team. Unlike the Warriors, who re-introduced offensive philosophies from the Nash Suns, and emphasized player and ball movement and constant screening in the half court, which is now a staple of modern offenses.

And it's not like the offensive performance of the Lakers with Kobe from 08-10 and the offensive performance of the Warriors with Curry in 15 and 16 were actually similar. The Lakers performed much better on the offensive end, and Kobe individually outplayed Curry.
ShaqAttac
Rookie
Posts: 1,189
And1: 370
Joined: Oct 18, 2022

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#143 » by ShaqAttac » Tue Jul 18, 2023 3:56 pm

Okay so imma vote
6. HAKEEM
didnt realize he looks better than shaq in the rapm, but his "impact" looks worse than kg n magic i guess. thing is he goes crazy in the playoffs and he won 2 chips with weak help and made a final punking magic along the way with no help. Wilt bottled over and over even on stacked supersquads. And shaqs impact just too low and hakeem punked him too. probably was the bitw for his era but mj n magic got lucky his teammates always sucked.

7. KG
so he kills all the rapm stuff and apparently got the best longetvity so ig i'll just go with him. cant take him over hakeem coz hakeem had no help and won anyway. Magic prob was better but hiv hurt him.

I'm also going to nom:
Mikan
I wanna vote MIKAN for 2 but imma keep my vote in case i need to use it for bron.

This is also p simple. He was waay better than everyone else in a waay no one else was, was the best on o and d, and won 7 rings.
DoctorMJ wrote:George Mikan (1924) "Mr. Basketball", 6'10" center, the first true big man, 7 total pro titles with Chicago Gears & Lakers

Image
Origin: Illinois
College: DePaul
Series Wins: 23
All-League 1st Team: 8 times
Star-Prime: 8 seasons
POY wins: 8, POY shares: 8.0
OPOY wins: 3, OPOY shares: 3.8
DPOY wins: 6, DPOY shares: 6.2


The obvious top player from the era so maybe not a ton to be gleaned from going into further detail, but some observations:

- Mikan appears to have been the best offensive player in pro basketball basically from the time he turned pro. Eventually others arrive in the league to top him, but he remains elite until the rule change of 1951 that widened the key from 6 to 12 feet specifically to stop him. From that point onward, while Mikan likely remained the best rebounder in the world, it seems that the rule change did have the desired effect.

- Mikan almost certainly would have been an even more impactful defender from the jump if not for the banning of goaltending. As it was, it seems like it took Mikan some time to re-optimize his defensive play. He had a recurring issue of foul trouble that was often the Achilles heel for his teams win the lost.

- So far as I can tell, Mikan's defensive dominance in the NBA was less about shotblocking and more about rebounding. Certainly the shotblocking threat was there to a degree, but in a league with such weak shooting percentage, rebounding was arguably king.

ik we dont got data, but he won the 2nd most and he was way better than every1 else. Seems like a simple 2 to me.

Hope that was good!

thats my vote!
lessthanjake
Analyst
Posts: 3,338
And1: 3,005
Joined: Apr 13, 2013

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#144 » by lessthanjake » Tue Jul 18, 2023 4:14 pm

therealbig3 wrote:
eminence wrote:
therealbig3 wrote:Re: Curry vs Kobe

I don't think it's clear at all that Curry is a more capable offensive anchor in the PS than Kobe. Kobe's 08-10 Lakers squads were consistently better offensively than most of Curry's Warriors teams. I think Kobe was more resilient as a playoff performer actually. RS wise, Curry may very well be the GOAT, but his dropoff in PS play has always been the issue. Not to say he isn't great or isn't worthy of discussion at this level, but he goes from a clear offensive GOAT to clearly not the offensive GOAT, and more in line with guys like Kobe and Dirk (which is still an incredible offensive talent).


I think that's a pretty clear sample bias, if you look at Kobe's best stretch it'll look nice compared to anyones career because Kobe was a damn good player.

Career to career? Ehh, I'm not seeing it.


I'm comparing to Curry's 15-19 Warriors though, which is Curry's best stretch, outside of 22.

Kobe was also the clear 2nd best player on the Shaq-led Lakers, and often times, the Lakers had a better offense with Kobe and without Shaq than vice versa in the playoffs.

I've also always had a hard time grouping in the KD-era Warriors with Curry's overall offensive accomplishments, which essentially just ignores the presence of Kevin freaking Durant (who himself was capable of anchoring dominant PS offenses in OKC which outperformed the 15 and 16 Warriors in fact). I think comparing Curry's non-KD years to Kobe's non-Shaq years is a much fairer comparison. The 22 Warriors is really the only time where Curry stepped up and had a comparable PS run to the 08-10 Lakers. The 15 and 16 Warriors were underwhelming by comparison, they largely won with their defense.

Again though, Curry is the RS offensive GOAT, don't think anyone would really offer much resistance to that idea. I think there's a clear dropoff in offensive efficiency in the PS though, which does drop him from offensive GOAT conversation to that 2nd tier of offensive anchors, which is where Kobe exists.


I think this is a fair point to at least some degree. The Warriors’ postseason ORTG+ (i.e. offensive rating compared to league playoff average that year) in 2014-2015, 2015-2016, and 2021-2022 was overall better than the Lakers’ postseason ORTG+ in 2007-2008 through 2009-2010, but only by a small amount. Meanwhile, if you compare the years Steph had with Durant and the years Kobe had with Shaq, the Warriors’ postseason ORTG+, the Warriors’ ORTG+ is a good bit higher on average, but the Shaq/Kobe Lakers did peak very close to as high in this regard as the Warriors did. The other years for each player are broadly-speaking comparable, but those other years do make up a much larger portion of Kobe’s playoff career—which is notable. Overall, the Steph Warriors look better in this regard, but it’s somewhat close and if you wanted to I bet you could probably massage the numbers to go the other way if you took into account specific defenses played or something (and I’m sure they could be re-massaged the other way too). However, we are comparing a relative strength to a relative weakness here. Kobe is an all-time great player, who has a relative strength in terms of playoff resilience, whereas Steph is a player for whom playoff “dropping” is probably the biggest critique.

I’d also caution against looking at just these sorts of numbers to conclusively determine offensive effect of one player, though. The game is a fluid one where lineups can be geared more or less towards offense or defense. Except at times in the Durant years, the Warriors have always run very defensive lineups—knowing that Steph can still make the offense good. Draymond + Looney (two non-shooters) is a *really* defensive lineup in this era. It’s a lack of floor spacing that other teams almost never run because for most teams that sort of floor spacing would be unplayably bad offensively. Meanwhile, in those earlier years, running Draymond + Iguodala + Bogut (or Speights) was also a *really* defensive lineup relative to the era. There was virtually always at least two of those guys out there (and of course sometimes even three). Furthermore, players like Jordan Poole and DeMarcus Cousins that were good offensively but weak defensively saw their minutes cut deep in the playoffs, while a guy like Iguodala typically had his minutes increased especially as the team got deeper in the playoffs. David Lee was turned into a bench player who got virtually no playoff playtime, in favor of defensive solidity. The Warriors have basically almost always chosen to stack their team with very defensive lineups and rely on Steph to make the offense good regardless. This is a good strategy that has worked well for them, but an obvious consequence is that it suppresses their raw offensive output, particularly in the playoffs. And when they didn’t do that as much (i.e. in the Durant years), the offense obviously exploded in the playoffs.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
ShaqAttac
Rookie
Posts: 1,189
And1: 370
Joined: Oct 18, 2022

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#145 » by ShaqAttac » Tue Jul 18, 2023 4:42 pm

eminence wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
eminence wrote:
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.

wasnt hakeem better in 87 and 88 than he was in 86?

i get he didnt win as much but wasnt that coz his team got worse? didnt hakeem go crazy in the po's anyway?

hakeem already whopped magic in 86 with mid. if he had a good team like magic did why wouldnt he just beat magic again?

tbh the more im readin the more hakeem seems like 80's bron.
iggymcfrack
RealGM
Posts: 11,923
And1: 9,421
Joined: Sep 26, 2017

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#146 » by iggymcfrack » Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:23 pm

Vote: Hakeem Olajuwon
His playoff numbers are signficantly better than the other defensive stars and he's the consensus #2 defensive player of all-time. The only one who arguably has a numbers edge is Magic and Hakeem has a massive longevity edge on him as well as a smaller longevity edge on the other remaining candidates (maybe tied with KG). He has better clutch bonafides than anyone else remaining and arguably better accomplishments too. Comparing his 2 rings to Wilt's 2 rings, there's a Grand Canyon sized chasm in terms of difficulty and level of accomplishment. Shaq and KG are both close and have cases, but I think Hakeem just maxed out his situation better than any of the other remaining candidates.

Alternate: Shaquille O'Neal
Shaq's the only person other than Hakeem or Wilt who could possibly win and I think he dominated and brought consistent winning during his prime on a level that Wilt couldn't have imagined. The dominant 3-peat is what everyone remembers, but the consistency is just as impressive. Shaq at least made the second round every year from 1995-2006.

Nominate: Stephen Curry
4 rings as the best player, incredible advanced stats, I think he does a better job at actually making a case to be voted in now than any of the players who haven't been voted in yet. If you compare him to Bird, he has equal longevity, more rings, better stats in both the regular season and postseason, basically a better player all-around.
User avatar
cupcakesnake
Senior Mod- WNBA
Senior Mod- WNBA
Posts: 15,584
And1: 32,066
Joined: Jul 21, 2016
 

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#147 » by cupcakesnake » Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:31 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
cupcakesnake wrote:It's pretty fun when two strong candidates emerge and we get a ton of this head-to-head debate. I had Hakeem and Wilt in a tier here so to get to read all kinds of takes specific to this ranking is one of the things that makes this project great.

Does anyone have strong feelings on how Wilt and Dream compare defensively, especially relative to era? In a vacuum, I think Hakeem is a better defensive player due to his quickness advantage (those ballerina feet help him in almost every kind of defensive situation, some of which have been well-documented in this thread). But Wilt is probably the greatest athlete ever at that size, and the sheer obstacle he was in that era of basketball is mountainous. Goaltending wasn't as strict either, which meant Wilt was allowed to occasionally snatch shots out of the sky.

Not an expert myself, but there have been some pretty great breakdowns of Hakeem's defense and impact from previous projects linked here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107691144#p107691144
(defense)
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107691402#p107691402
(impact)
I do a bit of my own impact breakdown here as well:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107607357#p107607357

Personally I think Hakeem is probably the best post-russell defender and I think his impact proabably compares well to anyone left. Pair that with him being the best playoff-riser left(maybe the best playoff-riser ever) and I do think Hakeem has a strong impact case even if we pay no mind to situation which, it doesn't seem to be the case for you:
I have Hakeem and Wilt categorized amongst NBA greats who were poorly utilized in their own eras due to combinations of poor coaching, roster construction, roster talent level, and era related rules. I think it's more egregious with Wilt, who was the subject of a flawed basketball experiment (let the highest FG% player take all the shots!) for most of his physical prime. Not only that, but basically anyone who wasn't on the Celtics in the 60s should be considered to have poor fortune when looking at their career success and championship equity. But Hakeem is on the short-list of stars who played with low levels of talent for most of his career.

I do feel equating wilt and hakeem's situation is a bit off. Wilt did have very strong "talent-level" from 67 to 72. Frankly he probably had more talent than Hakeem won with in 67. 68, and 69.

I also think Hakeem himself suffered from bad coaching potentially suppressing what he offered in the 80's :
I don’t actually think Hakeem is having a huge offensive impact during the Chaney years because of how poorly the offense is organized/structured. There’s really not much synergy between him and his teammates. Watching the Lakers series in ’90, when he’s getting an outrageous amount of defensive attention, Rockets are basically clueless on how to actually take advantage of all the defensive attention he is drawing. Even when the first pass by Hakeem was a proper one, the second and third passes by his teammates weren’t (very lazy, slow, indecisive passing that allows defense to recover despite how compromised it was). There is very poor player movement, the floor spacing is puzzling at times and the Rockets were known for being a very poor half court passing team (the guards not exactly a smart, altruistic bunch). In contrast, Lakers know exactly where the ball is going after Magic or Worthy (who btw undressed Buck Johnson in the series) kicks it out of a double team and the second and third guys make the quick hitting plays to get the right guy the ball. To be fair, Hakeem iirc was also was frustrated by the attention and forced bad shots at times, but it's alarming how incapable Houston was of exploiting such aggressive double/triple teaming.

And here, we get to another big difference. Wilt literally went to a team with optimal coaching and then left even though it was the optimal situation to win. Then he joins another very talented team and loses again. For all the talk about Hakeem as "mercurial" I'd say Hakeem was pretty patient all considered:

After letting him down over and over again the Rockets then accuse him of faking an injury and try to make him the scapegoat for them losing. He only really got a co-star in 95(rockets were basically unaffected by both sampson and thorpe's absences over large samples) while Wilt was handed optimal coaching and a stacked cast and then he left that very good to join what was on pace to be the best rs team ever with west the previous year and still lost. Don't think you can say their situations were comparable. That the end-result was I think reflects very well on Hakeem:
There is one difference. Actually, two. Two championships to go with two finals MVPs in the playing his best(or near-best) basketball. Garnett won one as he massively scaled down his minutes in a role closer to what Draymond offers than what we would want from one of the best at their best. But Hakeem did not win two scaling down, he won two as his team's best scorer, defender, and creator to crown an impressive apex where, at least at the end of two consecutive seasons, he was the consensus best player in the league. Impact suggests he should have entered that conversation much sooner. By my guess, he was already the league's best player by 93, but set that aside.

In a comparison with Olajuwon I do not think it would be unfair to expect a three-peat from 67 to 69(injuries made 68 tricker but they did have a 3-1 lead and I do not think Russell was on a great team at that point), especially if we account for the fit issues in 69 being partially self-inflicted(Wilt had a great situation with the Sixers). Yet Wilt only emerged with one, and it would take another great situation in 72(benefitted greatly by Kareem's help breaking down) for him to pull up even.


Me categorizing them as "NBA greats who were poorly utilized in their own eras due to combinations of poor coaching, roster construction, roster talent level, and era related rules" is the same thing as equating them. I don't disagree with almost any of your points but/so I don't think I said anything that this countered. My comparison was broad and I never said Wilt didn't play with talent. I grouped him with players who had combinations of problems outside their own games, but wasn't saying they each had ALL of these problems. Sorry if that was poorly worded or unclear.

With Wilt I was more talking about his early career where he was over-utilized as a scorer in a way that didn't create good offense. I feel Wilt's game and career are so weird and due to him being an outlier in the early days of the game when there was relatively less data on basketball strategy. Hakeem played in suboptimal conditions with suboptimal talent, but he was still getting to play to strengths in more normal ways. The reason I make this distinction is because Wilt feels like the player who would change the most if you plopped him in a different era and used his size and athleticism in different ways. Even over his career there were 3 completely different playstyles (the non-passing binge scorer, the post hub passer, the aging defensive anchor). While Hakeem's game would change in different eras as well, Wilt feels like a total mystery to me sometimes.
"Being in my home. I was watching pokemon for 5 hours."

Co-hosting with Harry Garris at The Underhand Freethrow Podcast
Doctor MJ
Senior Mod
Senior Mod
Posts: 53,516
And1: 22,527
Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Location: Cali
     

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#148 » by Doctor MJ » Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:38 pm

f4p wrote:When people started nominating Mikan, my initial thought was "way too early". Mikan is an oddball situation. He's the guy you get to after you get to everybody else. After we clear the decks of the top 10, after we knock out some Kobe's and West's and Steph's and Malone's. When there's no one else left and we just have to acknowledge his dominance.

After all, it's hard to watch those old Mikan tapes and think you are watching modern basketball. If I had to say how most people categorize basketball eras, I think a lot of people think of the "modern era" starting in 1979-80. Magic and Larry entered the NBA, the 3 point line was introduced. The game started looking like the current game. They didn't take 3's, but games on are national TV, big stars are on great teams, the athleticism seems higher, the jump shots seem smoother. It's just a hop, skip, and a jump to the 90's when I think defense took a major leap forward. And beyond Magic and Larry, the extended definition of the "modern era" usually starts with Bill Russell. Russell and the Celtics start dominating just as the shotclock is also introduced. This feels like the first time the NBA is the NBA.

So of course Mikan comes before all of this. Before the shotclock, before even the minimal amount of 60's tape that we have. But then I think of Jerry West and Oscar Robertson and how we have to "get to them first" before we can get to Mikan, and I think why? They feel like they are from a much more modern NBA, but their careers only start 12 years after Mikan's. Are we really to believe the NBA was that different just 12 years before? And of course, Mikan obliterates them in terms of impact in his era.

His first 3 years, they only have WS because they don't track minutes played, and he leads all 3 years. The first 3 years they have PER, he leads the league. Given that all of his per game stats look better the 3 years before, he almost certainly leads PER for 6 straight seasons. And in the playoffs, he leads in PER the first 3 years they have it and WS48 in 2 of the 3 years they have it. In 1949, even if he played all 48 minutes of every game, his 4.2 WS in 10 games would give him the playoff record of 0.420 WS48.

And as some of my Hakeem posts have shown, the only guy who keeps Hakeem from topping some of these "playoff riser" lists is George Mikan. He goes up in the box score more than Hakeem. His team's actual vs expected titles could only be explained without the word "playoff riser" if Mikan was 13.5 wins and 5 SRS better in every regular season. So we have not only the most dominant regular season player of his era, but a player who arguably is the best playoff riser of all time. And he only started 12 years before West and Robertson.

Now of course, Mikan compounds the confusion by not only playing in a weak era but also only giving us 6 seasons to work with. But they would appear to be the most impactful stretch of 6 seasons ever.

Where does this mean Mikan should go? I don't really have an idea. But I'm starting to think a Top 10 placement isn't as crazy as I thought it was a few weeks ago.


I think this is quite understandable, and yes, depending on one's individual approach, I can totally see putting Mikan in the Top 10. Further, with my most recent run through of history and the criteria that felt most reasonable coming out of it, Mikan is higher on my list than before.

The line that particularly strikes me here is the one I've bolded about the 12 year gap. Did that much really change in that time?

So first, let me say that yes, a ton was changing in the 50s. I tend to point to an S-curve growth pattern to point out what should be expected in a situation like this:

Image

If you look at theleague season averages for the NBA over on bkref, you see some indicators that the 50s was a time of steep growth. To me the one that stands out the most is the FG%.

To point the general pictures:

'46-47: 27.9% (first year of BAA, first year of data)
'53-54: 37.2% (Mikan's final year as a star)
'63-64: 43.3%
'73-74: 45.9%
'83-84: 49.2%
...
'22-23: 47.5%

Noting up front that the mature adoption of the 3 really changes what the stat means, what we can say is that the gap between Mikan's final year as a star and 10 years later in '63-64 is bigger than the gap between '63-64 and the entire rest of NBA history.

And of course, the canyon between '46-47 & '53-54 dwarfs said gap.

This is among the factors that has led me to conclude that the gap between the '60s and the '00s is really pretty small compared to earlier eras.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Next thing I feel is important to point out is the difference drop off in Mikan's TS Add between '50-51 & '51-52. Mikan had an elite TS Add up through '50-51 averaging around +300. There were only 2 other guys racking up numbers like Mikan in that time frame: Alex Groza & Ed Macauley.

From '51-52 on, he drops down to 69.0, 105.2, 67.2, which place him out of the Top 5 in 9-team leagues. Still effective, but considerably less so. What happened? 2 things to point out:

1. The NBA widened the key from 6 to 12 feet specifically to stop Mikan before the '51-52 season.

2. The previous playoffs saw Mikan break his leg, which led to the Lakers not winning the title that year.

I think (1) is the big factor here, but I bring up (2) because I think people should consider for themselves. I absolutely believe that (2) is why the Lakers lost that title...but if it truly crippled Mikan's game for the rest of his career, it's hard to imagine the Lakers would have kept winning titles as a matter of course.

Meanwhile (1) the shooting efficiency data for Mikan looks basically just like I'd imagine the NBA hoped for when they made a move to curtail him.

Now, given that Mikan still led the team to the title one could be forgiven for thinking it's not that relevant in this project, but for anyone trying to judge players here based on "dominance", there's something kinda sticky:

Mikan's dominance through '50-51 is something categorically different from what it is from '51-52 onward. Even ignoring that the NBA in '51-52 was quite primitive compared to what it was in the '60s, how do you judge a man's contemporary dominance when you see a split like that?

I'll leave the questions there for folks to chew on.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Let me hit something quick before I get to my last point:

If Mikan stopped being as dominant as a scorer but the team still won the title, perhaps what that says is that Mikan's defensive impact was through the roof like Russell.

There I'd say: I do think Mikan's defensive impact was central to the Lakers success...but we need to be careful not to look at Mikan as a not-quite-Russell. Mikan's contemporary Bob Kurland was the Russell of that generation, and by all accounts I've seen this got significantly curtailed once goaltending was implemented. Mikan certainly blocked some shots, but it wasn't his "thing" the way it was for Russell, and the way it became the thing for defensive anchors from then on out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay so last point:

When we talk about league degree-of-difficulty in this context, there's some ambiguity to the term that I feel it's important to separate out into two interpretations:

a) the average quality of basketball in the league

b) top competition faced

While (a) isn't irrelevant here, I think (b) is most relevant to a project like this, and here I'm informed by my experience with tennis GOAT rankings, and you could think of it as the Venus Williams Frustration.

Venus Williams won 7 major titles, and lost in the finals 9 times. Who did she lose to?

Martina Hingis once in 1997. Garbine Muguruza once in 2017. The other 7 times came in between, and came to her sister Serena.

Now, if you're ranking Venus based on Grand Slam success, Serena isn't the competition because she's in a higher tier and would have also kept Venus' rank-rivals from winning their slams. So if you're comparing Venus' 7 to someone else's 7, you're underrating her. Minus Serena, Venus arguably wins 14 slams.

Move over to basketball:

When you bring up Oscar Robertson, you implicitly acknowledge that you don't think Mikan tops Russell or Wilt...which means we should think about how Oscar would stack up if Russell & Wilt didn't exist.

I have Oscar as the #1 player in zero seasons, #2 in 2 seasons, and #3 in 5 seasons. Only 2 top 2 seasons, but clearly a lot more seasons bump up to Top 2 sans Russell & Wilt.

If I do take away Russell & Wilt, Oscar goes up to 8 Top 2 seasons.
That's 4 seasons at #1. 3 seasons at #2 behind Jerry West. 1 season at #2 behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Given that Kareem is clearly in a higher tier, and that West is a legend comparable to West, that's really 8 seasons that can be argued to be comparable as POY candidates as Mikan's 8 such seasons.

And note that this doesn't include a season like Oscar's rookie season where he came in and had arguably that GOAT Offensive season the NBA had ever seen.

So, was Oscar truly less dominant than Mikan, or was that just how it appeared because of the existence of Russell, Wilt, West & Kareem?

Now, as I say that, of course it makes sense to point out that Oscar's teams were necessarily "next in line" to win the title if we take out these other players. I can see the perspective that Mikan made all his teams champions or even top contenders as a matter of course whereas Oscar wasn't able to do anything like that.

Do consider though that when Mikan retired, the following year in '54-55 the Lakers had the #2 DRtg in the league and a 40-32 record. And now consider how that Laker team would have done if they had even rookie Oscar from '60-61. I would certainly favor them to win the title.

Of course that's what people call "time-machining", but as you said, the timescales here are small. If you're skeptical that 12 years can make that much of a difference, is it really time-machining a mere 6 years really beyond the pale?
Getting ready for the RealGM 100 on the PC Board

Come join the WNBA Board if you're a fan!
User avatar
eminence
RealGM
Posts: 17,050
And1: 11,863
Joined: Mar 07, 2015

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#149 » by eminence » Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:44 pm

therealbig3 wrote:.


An agreement - Curry was rough in the '16 Playoffs. I happen to think it was mostly due to rushing back from an injury and so is not particularly insightful as to his playoff resiliency.

But we're in pretty strong disagreement on those offensive casts.

I would note that the key lineups for the Lakers from '08-'10 were not the Gasol/Bynum lineups, but the more modern Fisher/Kobe/fill-a-forward/Odom/Gasol (Radmanovic/Ariza/Metta all taking turns as the forward).
I bought a boat.
User avatar
eminence
RealGM
Posts: 17,050
And1: 11,863
Joined: Mar 07, 2015

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#150 » by eminence » Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:54 pm

ShaqAttac wrote:
eminence wrote:
OhayoKD wrote: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.

wasnt hakeem better in 87 and 88 than he was in 86?

i get he didnt win as much but wasnt that coz his team got worse? didnt hakeem go crazy in the po's anyway?

hakeem already whopped magic in 86 with mid. if he had a good team like magic did why wouldnt he just beat magic again?

tbh the more im readin the more hakeem seems like 80's bron.


I don't feel he was significantly better than '86 until he got into Rudy T's system.

Hakeem did play well in the playoffs those seasons.

Feels to me like you've over-indexed into one playoff series that fits your narrative. Magic and Hakeem met twice more, when Hakeem had a decent cast (16-10 without him in '91) and Magics cast was worse than it had been in the mid/late 80s, and the Lakers smacked the Rockets 3-1 and then 3-0.
I bought a boat.
Bklynborn682
Pro Prospect
Posts: 983
And1: 162
Joined: Apr 15, 2016
   

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#151 » by Bklynborn682 » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:07 pm

ShaqAttac wrote:Okay so imma vote
6. HAKEEM
didnt realize he looks better than shaq in the rapm, but his "impact" looks worse than kg n magic i guess. thing is he goes crazy in the playoffs and he won 2 chips with weak help and made a final punking magic along the way with no help. Wilt bottled over and over even on stacked supersquads. And shaqs impact just too low and hakeem punked him too. probably was the bitw for his era but mj n magic got lucky his teammates always sucked.

7. KG
so he kills all the rapm stuff and apparently got the best longetvity so ig i'll just go with him. cant take him over hakeem coz hakeem had no help and won anyway. Magic prob was better but hiv hurt him.

I'm also going to nom:
Mikan
I wanna vote MIKAN for 2 but imma keep my vote in case i need to use it for bron.

This is also p simple. He was waay better than everyone else in a waay no one else was, was the best on o and d, and won 7 rings.
DoctorMJ wrote:George Mikan (1924) "Mr. Basketball", 6'10" center, the first true big man, 7 total pro titles with Chicago Gears & Lakers

Image
Origin: Illinois
College: DePaul
Series Wins: 23
All-League 1st Team: 8 times
Star-Prime: 8 seasons
POY wins: 8, POY shares: 8.0
OPOY wins: 3, OPOY shares: 3.8
DPOY wins: 6, DPOY shares: 6.2


The obvious top player from the era so maybe not a ton to be gleaned from going into further detail, but some observations:

- Mikan appears to have been the best offensive player in pro basketball basically from the time he turned pro. Eventually others arrive in the league to top him, but he remains elite until the rule change of 1951 that widened the key from 6 to 12 feet specifically to stop him. From that point onward, while Mikan likely remained the best rebounder in the world, it seems that the rule change did have the desired effect.

- Mikan almost certainly would have been an even more impactful defender from the jump if not for the banning of goaltending. As it was, it seems like it took Mikan some time to re-optimize his defensive play. He had a recurring issue of foul trouble that was often the Achilles heel for his teams win the lost.

- So far as I can tell, Mikan's defensive dominance in the NBA was less about shotblocking and more about rebounding. Certainly the shotblocking threat was there to a degree, but in a league with such weak shooting percentage, rebounding was arguably king.

ik we dont got data, but he won the 2nd most and he was way better than every1 else. Seems like a simple 2 to me.

Hope that was good!

thats my vote!

Do you have a source for Hakeems RAPM?
Owly
Lead Assistant
Posts: 5,662
And1: 3,171
Joined: Mar 12, 2010

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#152 » by Owly » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:07 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
cupcakesnake wrote:It's pretty fun when two strong candidates emerge and we get a ton of this head-to-head debate. I had Hakeem and Wilt in a tier here so to get to read all kinds of takes specific to this ranking is one of the things that makes this project great.

Does anyone have strong feelings on how Wilt and Dream compare defensively, especially relative to era? In a vacuum, I think Hakeem is a better defensive player due to his quickness advantage (those ballerina feet help him in almost every kind of defensive situation, some of which have been well-documented in this thread). But Wilt is probably the greatest athlete ever at that size, and the sheer obstacle he was in that era of basketball is mountainous. Goaltending wasn't as strict either, which meant Wilt was allowed to occasionally snatch shots out of the sky.

Not an expert myself, but there have been some pretty great breakdowns of Hakeem's defense and impact from previous projects linked here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107691144#p107691144
(defense)
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107691402#p107691402
(impact)
I do a bit of my own impact breakdown here as well:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107607357#p107607357

Personally I think Hakeem is probably the best post-russell defender and I think his impact proabably compares well to anyone left. Pair that with him being the best playoff-riser left(maybe the best playoff-riser ever) and I do think Hakeem has a strong impact case even if we pay no mind to situation which, it doesn't seem to be the case for you:
I have Hakeem and Wilt categorized amongst NBA greats who were poorly utilized in their own eras due to combinations of poor coaching, roster construction, roster talent level, and era related rules. I think it's more egregious with Wilt, who was the subject of a flawed basketball experiment (let the highest FG% player take all the shots!) for most of his physical prime. Not only that, but basically anyone who wasn't on the Celtics in the 60s should be considered to have poor fortune when looking at their career success and championship equity. But Hakeem is on the short-list of stars who played with low levels of talent for most of his career.

I do feel equating wilt and hakeem's situation is a bit off. Wilt did have very strong "talent-level" from 67 to 72. Frankly he probably had more talent than Hakeem won with in 67. 68, and 69.

I also think Hakeem himself suffered from bad coaching potentially suppressing what he offered in the 80's :
I don’t actually think Hakeem is having a huge offensive impact during the Chaney years because of how poorly the offense is organized/structured. There’s really not much synergy between him and his teammates. Watching the Lakers series in ’90, when he’s getting an outrageous amount of defensive attention, Rockets are basically clueless on how to actually take advantage of all the defensive attention he is drawing. Even when the first pass by Hakeem was a proper one, the second and third passes by his teammates weren’t (very lazy, slow, indecisive passing that allows defense to recover despite how compromised it was). There is very poor player movement, the floor spacing is puzzling at times and the Rockets were known for being a very poor half court passing team (the guards not exactly a smart, altruistic bunch). In contrast, Lakers know exactly where the ball is going after Magic or Worthy (who btw undressed Buck Johnson in the series) kicks it out of a double team and the second and third guys make the quick hitting plays to get the right guy the ball. To be fair, Hakeem iirc was also was frustrated by the attention and forced bad shots at times, but it's alarming how incapable Houston was of exploiting such aggressive double/triple teaming.

And here, we get to another big difference. Wilt literally went to a team with optimal coaching and then left even though it was the optimal situation to win. Then he joins another very talented team and loses again. For all the talk about Hakeem as "mercurial" I'd say Hakeem was pretty patient all considered:

After letting him down over and over again the Rockets then accuse him of faking an injury and try to make him the scapegoat for them losing. He only really got a co-star in 95(rockets were basically unaffected by both sampson and thorpe's absences over large samples) while Wilt was handed optimal coaching and a stacked cast and then he left that very good to join what was on pace to be the best rs team ever with west the previous year and still lost. Don't think you can say their situations were comparable. That the end-result was I think reflects very well on Hakeem.


I do not think it's fair to say hakeem and wilt's situations were comparable.


Frankly he probably had more talent than Hakeem won with in 67. 68, and 69.

Okay for sure in '68. But much worse playoff health. Different sources offer different info but the '68 series seemingly sees Cunningham out and every rotation 76er reported as injured in some way.

'69 ... mileage can differ on the exact quality of that cast ... talent can be regarded as non-diminishing, offense focused, star focused and Chamberlain has star names. Perceptions of Baylor's value at that point can differ. Information on deeper players is imperfect, winning tends to give such players shine, box production occurs within a context etc.

Title era Olajuwon has evidence of big impact, clear impact team leader, production etc. I do think Houston were mostly deep on competence. That only gets you limited title equity of course. '95 I think they all shot really well in the playoffs (and Drexler throughout that season, I believe, and the playoffs was very good - and this is in line with the above where he's acknowledged as a genuine star).

After letting him down over and over again the Rockets then accuse him of faking an injury and try to make him the scapegoat for them losing. He only really got a co-star in 95(rockets were basically unaffected by both sampson and thorpe's absences over large samples) while Wilt was handed optimal coaching and a stacked cast and then he left that very good to join what was on pace to be the best rs team ever with west the previous year and still lost

So I'm not rewatching the video but recall it was ... more pro-Hakeem than some contemporary reporting.

The phrasing here also aligns strongly with one version of events.

"letting him down" ... I'd say is loaded phrasing carries baggage often regarding intent, moral failure etc
"accuse him of faking an injury" is one angle ... he was cleared by team doctors and didn't play would be the other side. Some contemporary reporting (thinking primarily Rick Barry's Pro Bsketball Scouting report 1992-93 edition) errs on the less friendly side with regard to the contract re-negotiations and Olajuwon's behavior as they perceived it. Obviously hard to know the reality of individuals' bodies. Houston seemed confident enough fining him and as far as I can tell, didn't get any blowback (I would guess if felt to be unjust there would be an appeal mechanism? IDK). Guys should protect their bodies long term, they have to live in them (after we've stopped paying attention to their wellbeing). The account above though, is, I think, incomplete.

rockets were basically unaffected by both sampson and thorpe's absences over large samples

Not sure what the large sample without Thorpe would be. The sample the aforementioned spreadsheet has numbers for is 10 games in '93, which has them better by 4.2 SRS (to a 4.5 SRS level with him). This may have been superseded by better data.

WIlt ...
handed optimal coaching and a stacked cast and then he left

Which optimal coaching are you saying he left? Hannum who himself was going (and known to be so, I believe, though Wilt is one of the sources). Or Ramsey whom I'd understand might prefer a collegiate style motion offense with an active, shooting pivot?

"to join what was on pace to be the best rs team ever with West" ...
Best RS team ever ... these things are noisy depending how one measures, Ben's old WoWY spreadsheet had them 7.7 SRS with West (I would think, fwiw, for a full season you regress that back a bit - "on pace" is one thing,). Elite but weaker than the '47 Capitols, '67 76ers, '62 Celtics, '50 Lakers, '69 76ers and about even with the '50 Royals so far as NBA/BAA SRS (multiple NBL teams rank highly in terms of points dif, points ratio type dominance - though these like early 50s are in smaller sample seasons). Ben does seem to be using the playoffs as part of the in sample fwiw.

Did Chamberlain join that team that West played on? Arguably not, with a West, Clark, Goodrich guard rotation [arguably a better fit for that coach than Chamberlain]. Not that you expect to get him for nothing. Nor that Chamberlain wasn't a disruptive force.
DraymondGold
Senior
Posts: 687
And1: 884
Joined: May 19, 2022

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#153 » by DraymondGold » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:11 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
f4p wrote:
DraymondGold wrote:Scroll down just a bit, mon ami, and you'll find this retrospective on the 2018 Rockets: :D


yes, i remember him trying to walk it back later, but too little too late as far as i'm concerned when your initial writeup for one of the best teams ever is "james harden choked! couldn't beat vastly more talented team with best teammate injured. also, rockets not really that good if you think about it." maybe write the "oops, my formula underrated the warriors" part first.

someone had also suggested to him at one point in the project, non-rockets related, that iterating the results could help. basically until they stabilize. so you don't get the 2018 warriors as the 5th best team ever and the team that took them to 7 as a -0.3 SRS team.



2020 Celtics vs 1995 Rockets in every team stat I can find:
Regular Season SRS: 5.83 > 2.32
Regular Season MoV: 6.3 > 2.1
Regular Season Healthy MoV: 7.24 (games with Tatum) > 0.9 (games with Drexler)
Regular Season Record: 48 wins > 47 wins
Regular Season Healthy Record: 56 win pace (with Tatum and Walker) > 44 win pace (with Drexler / Hakeem)
Sansterre Playoff SRS: +12.39 > 7.75
Playoff Record: won 59% games < won 68% games
Sansterre Overall SRS: 9.92 > 7.47
Overall SRS standard deviation: 1.87 > 1.50
Peak ELO: 1710 > 1665
Mean ELO: ~1640 (by eye) > 1589
Final Playoff ELO: 1692 > 1665
Overall ELO: ~1681 > 1640
Playoff cNET Rating: TBD, Thinking Basketball website is down.

Team Stats where 2020 Boston wins: 12
Team stats where 1995 Rockets win: 1.


So... where exactly are all the stats that favor 1995 Rockets over 2020 Celtics?? What stats is sansterre supposed to pull from to get such a great rating for the 1995 Rockets over the 2020 Boston Celtics?

Literally the only stat I've seen so far that favors the rockets is playoff record, where the Rockets won by 9%. Every other stat favors Boston, many by more than 9%. Would you prefer we just rate every team all time exclusively by playoff record?

Are we really so sure that the 1995 Rockets are that much better than the 2020 Celtics? There's almost no evidence for that to be the case.


if you want to tell me the 2020 celtics are better than the 1995 rockets, then i'm not sure what to say. there has to be some benefit to beating 4 straight 6 SRS teams, even if the margins aren't crazy, over just beating a good raptors team by a lot in the 2nd round. at this point, it's even less the rockets being 100th and why would the 2020 celtics be the 47th best team ever? i think this probably shows that playoff SRS could use an adjustment. it tends to get in a self-reinforcing loop. the 2016 spurs are amazing because they were a 10+ SRS team. the thunder beat them so they must be even more amazing. the warriors, already a 10+ SRS team, beat the thunder so they're even more amazing. the cavs beat the warriors so they're even more amazing. some part of this chain probably involves significant underperformance from one of the great teams as opposed to continual outperformance by the teams ranked lower at the beginning of the playoffs. the 2020 celtics get a +15 SRS for beating the post-kawhi raptors and a +8 for losing to a heat team that was +2.6 when the playoffs started, while the 1995 rockets are languishing at a +7.8 for knocking off 4 straight teams with an average 6 SRS, all on the road.

With all this talk about injury I may as well as note that there are significant opposing injuries in every title-run. The only two exceptions I can think off going back all the way to 89 would be....

Miami Heat's run in 2012....and the Houston Rocket's run in 94. Injury is also an especially odd to fixate on if you're backing Steph when his team was a big beneficiary of opposition health in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022. Iow, every time He's won a title
Agreed there's injuries for basically every title run! This isn't meant to suggest otherwise. Like I said in... some post a few pages back?... the last thread?... I'm not someone to claim there's an asterisk to a championship run or anything like that.

I just bring injuries up as I think it's a potential bias for a metric like 'Titles compared Expected Titles', along with variability. If you're just counting rings (or rings vs expected rings), you may overrate teams that had favorable variance and opposing injuries, while underrating teams that had unfavorable variance / opposing players.

That's one of the reasons I tend to prefer SRS or other similar metrics. They're not perfect, but they certainly do a better job at capturing variance (a close series gets less credit than a blowout series, thus giving less credit to a team that may have benefited from variance). SRS doesn't capture injuries inherently, but there's to ways it can handle injuries better:
1) if an opposing player was injured in the regular season or earlier rounds of the playoffs, it will lower the value of the opponents, which is an imperfect/approximate correction for certain longer-timescale injuries.
2) We can manually calculate MoV or SRS only when a team's healthy or facing healthy opponents, and these are easier to calculate than rings over expected rings when both teams are healthy. E.g. we can look at the 2018 Warriors' performance vs 2018 Rockets when everyone was healthy and see that the Warriors were the better team. Compare this to 'Rings vs Expected Rings': if you just look at rings vs expected rings when everyone's healthy, you start dealing with even smaller sample sizes than we were already dealing with, making the measurement far noisier as a method for approximating team goodness in era.

As for Curry, sure, he had injured opponents when he won. His team was also injured every time they lost up until 2022 (16, 19, 20, 21). Regardless, SRS tends to portray Curry's teams as clearly better than Hakeem's, even if we just focus on the series when both teams were healthy. Obviously this is supporting cast driven, but again the impact metrics make it clear that Curry was the more valuable to his team's performance regardless.

I certainly don't weigh team results as my only metric -- there's plenty of stuff that measures a player's value more directly -- but I have a hard time looking at the Rockets and the Warriors' performance and not seeing this as a point for Curry, if we're going to incorporate stuff like team results at all.
User avatar
eminence
RealGM
Posts: 17,050
And1: 11,863
Joined: Mar 07, 2015

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#154 » by eminence » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:15 pm

Owly wrote:Which optimal coaching are you saying he left? Hannum who himself was going (and known to be so, I believe, though Wilt is one of the sources). Or Ramsey whom I'd understand might prefer a collegiate style motion offense with an active, shooting pivot?


On this, Ramsay reports Wilt as wanting out pretty shortly after Richman died (he wanted part franchise ownership and Kosloff wasn't interested) and negotiating a deal to get out after '68 midway through the '66-'67 season.
I bought a boat.
DraymondGold
Senior
Posts: 687
And1: 884
Joined: May 19, 2022

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#155 » by DraymondGold » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:17 pm

Bklynborn682 wrote:
ShaqAttac wrote:...

Do you have a source for Hakeems RAPM?

I posted them in Top 100 Project #4 (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107606823#p107606823)! :D

Here's the data we have:
RAPM: We have small samples of Hakeem's RAPM, thanks to Squared2020. We have ~136 prime games (14 games in 1988 + 25 games in 1991 + 19 games in 1996 = 58 games in his 10-year prime, plus full-season data in 1997). We also have full post-prime and 9 games from his rookie season. Small samples can be very noisy (so larger uncertainty range), but 25 games in 1991 is big enough to not be entirely noise (particularly when boosted by the context of data from 3 other prime years, and data from 6 non-prime years).

How does Hakeem look in prime RAPM? His values are +1.82 in 1985, +1.52 in 1988, +3.19 in 1991, +3.50 in 1996, +3.37 in 1997. In other words...
Bird, Magic, Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, Curry >> Hakeem (with no data for Russell, Wilt, Oscar, West). I.e., Hakeem's RAPM data is significantly lower than all the available players in this tier. But we're dealing with small samples, where Hakeem's teams underperformed vs their full-season rate.

What if we curve Hakeem's numbers up, based on his team's full-season play (so if Hakeem's teams performed 12% worse in the games we have vs their full-season rating, what if we assume the underperformance is equally from Hakeem and his teammates and so boost Hakeem's numbers by 12%)?
Hakeem ends up having +1.7 in 1988, +3.4 in 1991, +4.8 in 1996. Which is an improvement!... that still isn't enough to get Hakeem over the better years of literally any of the other available players in this tier.

Okay, if we still think the measurement is too noisy, what if we only compare the full-season data at equivalent ages (so age 34+). This gives a handle on how players aged, and maybe can help us infer prime value based on the decline.
Hakeem (age 34+): 3.37, 3.11, 2.62, 1.56, 0.5, 1.04
Shaq (age 34+): 1.97, 2.96, 0.62, -1.32, 0.43.
Duncan (age 34+): 3.26, 5.1, 5.24, 4.03, 3.04
Garnett (age 34+): 5.73, 6.89, 6.3, 3.46, 1.53
Kobe (age 34+): 0.74, 1.89, 0.18, -0.86
Finally, at least he's not last again!

So in (limited) prime RAPM, Hakeem looks worse than every available player in this tier. As an older player, Hakeem looks better than Shaq and Kobe (but under Duncan and Garnett). But again, this data is not ideal, and it may not capture his playoff improvement (which I'll try to get to in the coming posts/days).

...

*note that RAPM is a per 100 possessions stat. I'll edit in per-season values in a sec:
Owly
Lead Assistant
Posts: 5,662
And1: 3,171
Joined: Mar 12, 2010

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#156 » by Owly » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:26 pm

eminence wrote:
Owly wrote:Which optimal coaching are you saying he left? Hannum who himself was going (and known to be so, I believe, though Wilt is one of the sources). Or Ramsey whom I'd understand might prefer a collegiate style motion offense with an active, shooting pivot?


On this, Ramsay reports Wilt as wanting out pretty shortly after Richman died (he wanted part franchise ownership and Kosloff wasn't interested) and negotiating a deal to get out after '68 midway through the '66-'67 season.

Oh certainly there was other motivation for leaving and I considered discussing.

My otoh understanding was ...
As alluded to Wilt seemingly felt Richman promised him things and Kosloff wouldn't honor them. Regardless of the reality that relationship meant Wilt had been looking away from Philly for some time. If I remember correctly and understood correctly in the first place (it seemed a bit odd) they had (chose?) to redo Wilt's final year of his deal (without any extension) just to get him to play.
User avatar
eminence
RealGM
Posts: 17,050
And1: 11,863
Joined: Mar 07, 2015

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#157 » by eminence » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:29 pm

I think the only impact style data I'd seriously look at for Hakeem would be:

-Wowy signal from his rookie arrival (quite good, improving from 29 to 48 wins)
-Wowy signal from missing games in '86 (okay, 7-7 without, 44-24 with)
-Wowy signal from missing games in '91 (poor, 16-10 without, 36-20 with)
-Wowy signal from missing games in '92 (quite good, 2-10 without, 40-30 with)

Pollacks '94-'96 +/- data (converted into a pretty good estimates for on and on/off here)
'94: +7 on, +14.5 on/off
'95: +5.6 on, +11.9 on/off
'96: +4.9 on, +10.3 on/off

Full play by play from then on. Source of your choice for APM product.
I bought a boat.
lessthanjake
Analyst
Posts: 3,338
And1: 3,005
Joined: Apr 13, 2013

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#158 » by lessthanjake » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:33 pm

What is the quantitative evidence backing the idea that Hakeem was a top 2 defensive player of all time?

We do actually have at least a little data on this, and I don’t think it backs a strong conclusion in that regard.

- For instance, Hakeem’s Rockets made the playoffs 14 times. In those 14 years, their postseason defensive rating was only better than the league average postseason defensive rating 8 of the years. If you take a weighted average of how much the Rockets did better or worse than the league average PS defensive rating in the years Hakeem was there, it’s only 0.59 better than average. In the regular season, the Rockets did have some good defenses, but they averaged a rDRTG of just -1.33 in his career. It was -2.28 if you cut it off at 1996-1997. Even if we take that -2.28 number, it’s definitely good, but not exactly evidence of top-2-defensive-player-ever impact. It’s akin to the Pelicans this past season or the 2022 Mavericks.

- We have snippets of defensive RAPM numbers for Hakeem and they don’t look incredible. The GitHub RAPM only starts at 1996-1997 (so it doesn’t really have almost any prime Hakeem), but it never has Hakeem anywhere near the top of the league in DRAPM in any season or any playoff. Meanwhile, we have snippets of earlier seasons from Squared, and Hakeem’s defense isn’t graded out very highly in those data sets. His DRAPM in the 1984-1985 set is positive but there’s a whole ton of players above him in it. In the 1987-1988 set, Hakeem’s DRAPM was negative. Hakeem’s DRAPM in the 1990-1991 set looks good, but there’s still about 10 players ahead of him that I can see. And then the 1995-1996 numbers are positive but half the players in the top 40 have a better DRAPM in that set than Hakeem does. These are very small sample sizes, but Hakeem not coming out super high in any of them seems unlikely if he was really having top-2-all-time defensive impact.

The consensus on Hakeem seems to be built around film analysis, but I’m always pretty skeptical of film analysis when it comes to defense, since there’s so much that goes into defense that is really hard to notice or precisely value when watching the film. So I’m pretty skeptical of calling someone the best defender in history besides Russell when there’s not really any available data that supports him having that kind of impact.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
Bklynborn682
Pro Prospect
Posts: 983
And1: 162
Joined: Apr 15, 2016
   

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#159 » by Bklynborn682 » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:33 pm

DraymondGold wrote:
Bklynborn682 wrote:
ShaqAttac wrote:...

Do you have a source for Hakeems RAPM?

I posted them in Top 100 Project #4 (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107606823#p107606823)! :D

Here's the data we have:
RAPM: We have small samples of Hakeem's RAPM, thanks to Squared2020. We have ~136 prime games (14 games in 1988 + 25 games in 1991 + 19 games in 1996 = 58 games in his 10-year prime, plus full-season data in 1997). We also have full post-prime and 9 games from his rookie season. Small samples can be very noisy (so larger uncertainty range), but 25 games in 1991 is big enough to not be entirely noise (particularly when boosted by the context of data from 3 other prime years, and data from 6 non-prime years).

How does Hakeem look in prime RAPM? His values are +1.82 in 1985, +1.52 in 1988, +3.19 in 1991, +3.50 in 1996, +3.37 in 1997. In other words...
Bird, Magic, Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, Curry >> Hakeem (with no data for Russell, Wilt, Oscar, West). I.e., Hakeem's RAPM data is significantly lower than all the available players in this tier. But we're dealing with small samples, where Hakeem's teams underperformed vs their full-season rate.

What if we curve Hakeem's numbers up, based on his team's full-season play (so if Hakeem's teams performed 12% worse in the games we have vs their full-season rating, what if we assume the underperformance is equally from Hakeem and his teammates and so boost Hakeem's numbers by 12%)?
Hakeem ends up having +1.7 in 1988, +3.4 in 1991, +4.8 in 1996. Which is an improvement!... that still isn't enough to get Hakeem over the better years of literally any of the other available players in this tier.

Okay, if we still think the measurement is too noisy, what if we only compare the full-season data at equivalent ages (so age 34+). This gives a handle on how players aged, and maybe can help us infer prime value based on the decline.
Hakeem (age 34+): 3.37, 3.11, 2.62, 1.56, 0.5, 1.04
Shaq (age 34+): 1.97, 2.96, 0.62, -1.32, 0.43.
Duncan (age 34+): 3.26, 5.1, 5.24, 4.03, 3.04
Garnett (age 34+): 5.73, 6.89, 6.3, 3.46, 1.53
Kobe (age 34+): 0.74, 1.89, 0.18, -0.86
Finally, at least he's not last again!

So in (limited) prime RAPM, Hakeem looks worse than every available player in this tier. As an older player, Hakeem looks better than Shaq and Kobe (but under Duncan and Garnett). But again, this data is not ideal, and it may not capture his playoff improvement (which I'll try to get to in the coming posts/days).

...

*note that RAPM is a per 100 possessions stat. I'll edit in per-season values in a sec:

Thank you. this falls far more in line with what I’ve seen/thought. no offense to the original poster but they made several hyperbolic statements that made me question it.
iggymcfrack
RealGM
Posts: 11,923
And1: 9,421
Joined: Sep 26, 2017

Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Deadline 11:59 PM EST on 7/18/23) 

Post#160 » by iggymcfrack » Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:48 pm

DraymondGold wrote:
Bklynborn682 wrote:
ShaqAttac wrote:...

Do you have a source for Hakeems RAPM?

I posted them in Top 100 Project #4 (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107606823#p107606823)! :D

Here's the data we have:
RAPM: We have small samples of Hakeem's RAPM, thanks to Squared2020. We have ~136 prime games (14 games in 1988 + 25 games in 1991 + 19 games in 1996 = 58 games in his 10-year prime, plus full-season data in 1997). We also have full post-prime and 9 games from his rookie season. Small samples can be very noisy (so larger uncertainty range), but 25 games in 1991 is big enough to not be entirely noise (particularly when boosted by the context of data from 3 other prime years, and data from 6 non-prime years).

How does Hakeem look in prime RAPM? His values are +1.82 in 1985, +1.52 in 1988, +3.19 in 1991, +3.50 in 1996, +3.37 in 1997. In other words...
Bird, Magic, Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, Curry >> Hakeem (with no data for Russell, Wilt, Oscar, West). I.e., Hakeem's RAPM data is significantly lower than all the available players in this tier. But we're dealing with small samples, where Hakeem's teams underperformed vs their full-season rate.

What if we curve Hakeem's numbers up, based on his team's full-season play (so if Hakeem's teams performed 12% worse in the games we have vs their full-season rating, what if we assume the underperformance is equally from Hakeem and his teammates and so boost Hakeem's numbers by 12%)?
Hakeem ends up having +1.7 in 1988, +3.4 in 1991, +4.8 in 1996. Which is an improvement!... that still isn't enough to get Hakeem over the better years of literally any of the other available players in this tier.

Okay, if we still think the measurement is too noisy, what if we only compare the full-season data at equivalent ages (so age 34+). This gives a handle on how players aged, and maybe can help us infer prime value based on the decline.
Hakeem (age 34+): 3.37, 3.11, 2.62, 1.56, 0.5, 1.04
Shaq (age 34+): 1.97, 2.96, 0.62, -1.32, 0.43.
Duncan (age 34+): 3.26, 5.1, 5.24, 4.03, 3.04
Garnett (age 34+): 5.73, 6.89, 6.3, 3.46, 1.53
Kobe (age 34+): 0.74, 1.89, 0.18, -0.86
Finally, at least he's not last again!

So in (limited) prime RAPM, Hakeem looks worse than every available player in this tier. As an older player, Hakeem looks better than Shaq and Kobe (but under Duncan and Garnett). But again, this data is not ideal, and it may not capture his playoff improvement (which I'll try to get to in the coming posts/days).

...

*note that RAPM is a per 100 possessions stat. I'll edit in per-season values in a sec:


Don’t small sample RAPM numbers tend to peak much lower in general? Like if the leaders for a regular season RAPM will be at +7, the leaders for postseason RAPM will be more like +3? I don’t think you can compare fragment data from a 14-25 game sample and expect them to be on remotely the same scale as full season data. I feel like the fact that his post-prime full season data tends to be higher than his peak numbers from small season fragments would tend to support this hypothesis.

Return to Player Comparisons