RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #7 (Wilt Chamberlain)

[lessthanjake]

If someone wants to make the case that Draymond was as impactful as Curry and Shaq, I would be very interested in hearing that argument! And it would definitely make me a lot lower on their overall contributions if there's a solid case there. I'm a little skeptical because it definitely doesn't align with how I've felt watching the Warriors but it's an intriguing idea.

I'm not saying as impactful but

I do sort of make a case he was
-> very impactful
and
-> probably juices curry's impact
here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107743950#p107743950
(bottom half of post)

I definitely think it's difficult to tease out the impact of Dray and Steph and that's one of the big challenges with evaluating Steph. But intuitively it feels like most of the credit should go to Steph on offense and (based on discussion in the last few posts in the thread) it seems that the various on/off numbers bear out that Steph is more valuable. I'm also not sure that you can rely too much on the fact that Steph's meteoric rise happened at the same time Dray became a starter, because there were several other changes at the same time - Steph was getting better as he entered his prime, and it's also obviously coincident with a big coaching change and the implementation of a new offensive system (which was basically built around Steph's unique strengths).

However - I'm also curious if there's really an argument that Dray was on the same impact tier as Shaq and Curry, because it's quite counterintuitive (and because it seems like that would have big implications for thinking about KG).

I think the right way to conceptualize Draymond is as someone who is similar to Manu Ginobili. A really good player that fit really well with his superstar teammate, such that his impact on his team’s net rating didn’t go down when that superstar was on the court—which results in his overall impact stats looking great.

If you look at Draymond in RS+PS in the last decade (excluding 2019-2020) and calculate his effect on the Warriors’ net rating when Steph is off versus his effect on the Warriors’ net rating when Steph is on, they’re virtually the same. When Steph is off, the Warriors have a +6.68 better net rating with Draymond on. When Steph is on, the Warriors have a +6.38 better net rating with Draymond on. So Draymond’s effect on the team’s net rating is essentially unchanged regardless of if Steph is on or not (even despite the fact that it’s harder to increase net rating when Steph is on, since it’s tougher to increase an already-high net rating). This is similar to Manu Ginobili. From 2002-2003 to 2009-2010, when Duncan was off, the Spurs had a +7.56 better net rating with Ginobili on. And when Duncan was on, the Spurs had a +7.47 better net rating with Ginobili on. Another example is that, at least in the data we have on this (from 2000-2001 onwards), Kobe actually had slightly *more* impact with Shaq on the floor than he did with Shaq off the floor, in their years together. It’s these kinds of symbiotic relationships—where you can have great players on the court and they can extract their full impact even while on the court together—that create historically great teams. And I think it reflects very well on the best player of those teams—who has to play in a way that allows for another great players’ impact to flourish—as well as those secondary players themselves.

In contrast, we can look to pairings that vultured impact from one another. For example, in their years together in Cleveland, Kyrie Irving had a +9.02 effect on the Cavaliers’ net rating in minutes that LeBron was off, but he had just a +0.38 effect on the Cavaliers’ net rating in minutes that LeBron was on. Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court. This kind of vulturing of impact is obviously way more suboptimal. It may juice the superstar’s RAPM—because the secondary star’s lack of impact when the superstar is on the floor makes RAPM regard the secondary star as less good than other guys’ secondary stars, and therefore results in giving the superstar more of the credit—but it’s not actually reflective of a good thing. It’s reflective of something really suboptimal. And I think we should be celebrating great players who are able to have their Draymond or Manu, rather than try to perversely punish something that is a good thing! Of course, I’ll note that no one talked about punishing Duncan in rankings on the back of Ginobili’s really great impact numbers—it has only seemed to come up with Steph/Draymond.

[lessthanjake]

As a general note, I find JE’s RAPM to be pretty confusing, to be honest. As far as I’m aware, it’s not supposed to have a box component. But there’s outcomes that don’t really make sense as a pure RAPM outcome. Like, for instance, Kevin Garnett ranked #2 in the NBA (and #14 across the entire set) in JE’s RAPM in 2004-2005, in a year where his raw on-off was only +0.7 (and he had no playoff numbers so that didn’t change it). Now, I get that raw on-off and RAPM aren’t the same, but they’re very closely related (RAPM basically just takes raw on-off and makes some adjustments based on who’s on the floor), and it’s quite difficult for me to understand how a player could come out as #2 in the NBA in RAPM in a season where their raw on-off is +0.7. I think the “prior-informed” part of it must be doing quite a lot of work in that model. But I don’t really know what his “priors” are, and whether they’re box-score-based priors, or past years’ on-off, or something else (JE has apparently even used height as a prior in RAPM before). It seems obvious to me that it is very far from just raw RAPM. Does anyone know what priors he’s using? My guess is that it’s at least in part past years’ on-off—which would explain why 2004-2005 Garnett is ranked really highly, since Garnett had really high on-off the previous couple years—but then if there’s a really strong prior for past years’ on-off (which there’d have to be to get a +0.7 raw on-off to #2 in the NBA and #14 in the last 25 years in RAPM), then the model is going to fail to account for quick changes in a player’s ability/impact (i.e. for instance, Steph Curry getting incredibly good really fast, after having had merely pretty good on-off his first few seasons while not really being used to his full potential).

I'm pretty sure each year takes other years in account as a prior. So KG's 05 year, is influenced by his 03 and 04 years which are some of the most bonkers stuff you will see.

Yeah, I think that’s what’s going on too. But using that sort of prior has its issues. For instance, Steph Curry took a quick and big leap as a player once injuries stopped being such an issue for him and when coaching started using him closer to his fullest potential. A RAPM measure that has a strong prior for past impact numbers would IMO improperly downgrade Steph’s performances in those first few years of his prime because it’d be essentially artificially assuming he’s only really as good/impactful as he was in his first few years in the league.

It’s also not entirely clear to me whether the relevant prior is past years’ RAPM or past years’ raw on-off. If it’s a prior based on past years’ RAPM, then the issue would essentially self-perpetuate itself. If you start out relatively slow as a player, then when you do get good the prior will tell the model that you aren’t actually that good and therefore will spit out a lower RAPM number than you deserve. But then even once you’ve been good for a while, the prior will still underestimate how good you are, because the prior will be based on the RAPM from early-prime years that were themselves underestimating how good you were. Not sure this model has that kind of systematic issue, since I don’t know what the exact prior is. But I do want to caution that we really shouldn’t assume that peoples’ models aren’t subject to really serious flaws, especially here where it’s a model basically created by one guy (with no peer review) who is known to have made some really bizarre decisions with other models (i.e. like using height as a significant prior). Even academics at the top of their fields (which people making NBA RAPM models generally are not) tend to spit out wildly flawed stuff. Which is why I think the better approach in general is to look at as much stuff as possible—since it’s probably all flawed but at least with a bunch of models maybe the flaws will generally cancel out.

[DraymondGold]

Voting Post Same voting ballot as last time for now with new nomination, but open to changing if I see anything particularly convincing. Here's an edited version of my last post:

Vote: Wilt Chamberlain.
Alternate: Kevin Garnettl
Nomination: Larry Bird

I've been commenting throughout much of this thread, with posts on Wilt's down years here (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107709117#p107709117) and on Wilts WOWY here (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107709162#p107709162).

Of the remaining players, I have Wilt and Curry as having the best peaks (see peak project: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100029958#p100029958), and I tend to weigh peaks highly. In other words I'd rather have a player with a slightly higher peak and slightly worse longevity than someone who was constant throughout. So this bumps Wilt and Curry up.

In Impact metrics, we just have WOWY/Adjusted WOWY, but these are highly context-dependent, and Zeppelin provided convincing evidence Wilt was injured in 1965. And if we adjust for health just in 1965, suddenly his WOWY doesn't look so bad! (source: post 95, just above: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107748465#p107748465 ). His 10-year prime in this large sample multi-year WOWY data portrays him as about just as valuable as prime Shaq. Slightly worse than prime Curry/Magic/Garnett, though Garnett's raw multi-season WOWY is slightly overrated by the trade to Boston in 2008.
(note: this is not 10 year prime in Thinking Basketball's database, which only uses single-season WOWY data as inputs and thus Wilt's sample ends up dominated in years where he played injured. >50% of his sample is comparing when he's out vs when he's playing injured).
In our average adjusted WOWY metrics, which adjust for teammates like RAPM adjusts' for teammates, Wilt improves more than any of the other (available) players in this tier. This gives me more confidence that his true impact is in line with this tier, and that if we used healthy Wilt as our sample for WOWYR, his impact score would be even higher.

In box metrics, Wilt looks significantly better than the other players in this tier. His career Backpicks VORP, Basketball Reference VORP, and Win Shares (which I value in descending order) all look like outliers.

Context: Wilt's prime was more inconsistent year to year than other players, but I've seen compelling arguments that at least some of this is situation-driven. From a team building perspective, I see him as slightly worse than some of these other players with a poor coach, but slightly better if you put a good coach and system around him. I give him a *ton* of credit for leading the GOAT level team up to that point in 1967. His fantastic ceiling raising in 67 and 72 make me confident you can build all-time teams around him.

That just leaves longevity...
An Aside on Wilt's Longevity:
The average length of a career was ~71% longer in the 2010s vs the 1960s (source: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=106874307#p106874307). I suspect a number of factors are at play: better money (like Doc mentioned), improved training, improved sports medicine, improved focus on coasting / preserving your body, improved tools, etc. Some of this change might be driven by role players, but stars also had fewer years in the nba back in the day. This kind of longevity relative to era helps Wilt bridge the gap with the other longevity players like Shaq and KG.

With Wilt, I also see that longevity as being helpful towards his overall career value. 1960 Rookie Wilt (23 years old after time with the Globetrotters) was easily one of the best rookie seasons ever. He was an MVP candidate in his first year. So it's pretty reasonable to expect that in another era, he would have more younger seasons adding to his longevity. He also had one of the best last seasons of a player ever (Thinking Basketball gave him the ~2nd best Final Season ever out of players who aged out, rather than getting injured out of the NBA). So if we time-machine him to a later era, it would not be unreasonable to expect a larger number of valuable early and late seasons. Or again, even without the time machine, if we look at his longevity *for his era*, he starts to catch up a lot more than the simple "Wilt Played 14 seasons, Shaq played 19" would suggest.

...
Garnett has some of the best career total stats, with a fantastic top-10 level peak and arguably the best longevity of the remaining players. His prime WOWY looks like better than everyone but Curry, his adjusted WOWY metrics look better than everyone (no data for Curry). He's below Wilt in box stats, but ahead of everyone in Basketball Reference VORP and in WS. In Backpicks VORP (which I trust more), he's just behind Magic.

Context wise, I think peak Garnett had just about the worst situation of any Top 15 player ever. I just have a hard time blaming him for his lack of postseason success early on, even more so when Sam Cassell's injury before the 2004 Western Conference Finals potentially prevented him from making it to the finals over the Lakers in his best year. Even so, he still floor-raised the 04 Timberwolves to a better ELO ratings than any Hakeem team ever (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107696166#p107696166).

And of course when he gets to Boston, he immediately leads them to contention. The 2008 Celtics were one of the best regular season teams ever. They underperformed (for their Top 15 regular season ever) in the playoffs... but the underperformance was primarily against weaker competition on the road. They were just as expected against better opponents. And when Garnett was healthy, the Celtics continued to be dominant. He was just 5 points short of a second championship in 2010. The RAPM and WOWY based metrics make it abundantly obvious that it was Garnett driving the success of those Celtics -- they fell apart completely without him.

Playstyle wise, I'm generally a fan of Wilt and Garnett (and Curry and Shaq for that matter). Both have limitations. With Wilt, it seems like you needed a better coach (which he might have gotten in a later era), and he didn't perform quite as well as we'd hope (or wasn't used properly?) in the Princeton offense of 1969. But he could clearly lead a GOAT level team relative to era with a spoke-and-wheel style offense of 667, like the kind you might have with Walton or Hakeem or Jokic. Garnett meanwhile, is the picture of scalability. You don't want him floor raising offenses as the sole volume scorer deep in the playoffs, but add some good teammates around him... and you get possibly a Top 5 defender ever (certainly top 10), a brilliant basketball mind to orchestrate your offense and defense, a stretch big who can pull opponents out of the floor, a big with off-ball value, complementary passing, and a scoring package that's still great as a secondary scorer.

Longevity wise, he looks great. His late-career RAPM for example shows he was having a greater impact than late-career Shaq. The arguments for Shaq are rarely just longevity based of course, usually they're peak and prime based with the thought that he has enough longevity for his peak and prime to get him over his competition -- I'm just saying longevity is another point in KG's favor.

The thing holding back Magic and Curry is primarily longevity. The thing holding back Shaq is that I'm not quite convinced that his prime or peak are as dominant as his reputation suggests, compared to these other four guys.

As for nominating Bird, well he led one of the 10 best teams ever. He's a pretty ideal ceiling raiser. His '10 year prime WOWY' based on individual-season samples doesn't look as good, but his 'multi-season WOWY' looks fantastic. His prime WOWYR is lower, but it also has the highest uncertainty of almost anyone, and the prime WOWYR data we have before it gets larger uncertainty in the later 80s looks on pace to be just as good as any 1960s prime.

[DraymondGold]

OK, but Wilt got traded twice in his prime. With Hakeem most of those changes you're looking at are his impact from age 35-39 when he was well past his prime. It makes sense that Hakeem from age 35-39 shouldn't show the same level of change as peak Wilt.

For Wilt's sample, by my count (might be slightly off?), it uses: 43 missed games from 1965 76ers (vs compared to when he was on the court that year *but playing injured*), 42 missed games from 1965 Warriors (*compared to when he was on the court that year *but playing injured*), 1 missed game from 1966, 1 missed game from 1969, and... depending on when the prime years are set (can't check, the old website's down currently), either 3 missed games from 1960, or 70 missed games in 1970.

So... that Thinking Basketball raw Prime WOWY score is based off a sample that's either 54% or 94% Injured Wilt only. So that's why I mentioned that we can go to multi-year WOWY samples for Wilt, to correct for the health concern.

Admittedly not big into WOWY but wouldn't the 76ers having injuries to Greer, Costello, and Jackson after starting 9-2 impact Wilt's score?

Some people are more into it, some people are less. Which is okay! I'm somewhere in the middle myself (I don't value it quite as much as OhayoKD compared to say RAPM data), but
-it is basically the true impact data that goes back to the 60s,
-it is wholistic and lineup independent (though not roster/context independent),
-many people in this thread do seem to use it to argue for players (just look at the arguments for Hakeem)
... so I've been diving in pretty deep.

Presumably this is for 1965 after Wilt joined the 76ers? If so... wow, I didn't realize Wilt's arrival came just before those injuries! In that case, yes, having your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th man all get injured would certainly limit Wilt's WOWY score!

I'd say this is a reason not to throw out WOWY as a whole (like ty 4191 was saying in their rant), but a reason why it's absolutely crucial to look at the context behind the raw number. And in the case we see something that might bias our results (like here!), it's another reason to dig deeper and try to produce approximate health-corrected values like I did in my post.

As well as the Warriors replacing Wilt after the trade with a Hall of Fame center in Nate Thurmond?

Yep! Although here it's not like Nate Thurmond wasn't on the roster before. It's more like the roster was well equipped to replace Wilt's role on the team once Wilt left.

To find a parallel with plus minus data:
-Raw plus minus can be biased by lineups (like who's replacing your minutes when you're off!)
-Raw WOWY can be biased by rosters (like who's replacing your games when you leave a team!)

I also wonder how much having Nate with Wilt limited both their impacts when Wilt was still on the Warriors. The Warriors were 3rd in defensive rating for that year, which is good, but still significantly behind the Celtics. I might have hoped for a twin-towers lineup of both Wilt and Nate would produce something closer to Russell's. But in fairness, Wilt was injured and Thurmond was a rookie (their team defense was actually better pre-Thurmond with healthy Wilt in 64).

Offensively, I can't imagine that Nate was at all a good fit to go with healthy Wilt. One signal I noticed was that Wilt's passing went way down in 1965 compared to 1964 or 1966 (the chart at the end of the recent Thinking Basketball video on Wilt emphasizes this). I wonder if playing alongside Nate encouraged this? It's a lot easier to pass to a perimeter player who's a bit more mobile and a better shooter compared to a slower big who's going to clog the paint even more. I haven't seen enough film to say at all, just hypothesizing.

I genuinely don't know how much WOWY accounts for things like that. But, along with the small sample size and him coming off a possible heart attack, it definitely seems like that would impact his WOWY. That "Prime WOWY" score just doesn't seem right to me considering how close Wilt had injured teams like the '62 Warriors and '65 76ers to beating the Celtics. The way you accounted for Wilt's injury definitely seems closer to what one would expect for Wilt's impact.

Prime raw WOWY doesn't account for those things at all. So you're exactly right to push back against it.

Now WOWYR would correct for those things. WOWYR is adjusted WOWY. To draw a parallel back to plus minus data.... raw plus minus is to raw WOWY as APM/RAPM is to WOWYR. APM/RAPM adjusts for the impact of teammates to isolate the contributions of a single individual, and WOWYR uses the exact same mathematical process to adjust for teammates using WOWY data. And you'll notice Prime WOWYR looks much more on line with the other players being voted around now.

However, one thing WOWYR does not do is adjust for healthy. If you're playing injured but still playing, that's going to be averaged into its treatment of 'normal healthy Wilt'. And if much of Wilt's own sample comes from when he's playing injured, that could obviously limit how good his WOWYR looks.

To summarize:
-Raw WOWY doesn't adjust for teammates or health
-Adjusted WOWY metrics (like WOWYR, or alt-WOWYR or GPM if you want to list alternative metrics) does adjust for teammates, but not for health.
-We can manually calculate WOWY to adjust for health (like I did in my post), but it's much harder to calculate WOWYR adjusting for health (without getting Thinking Basketball to change the input samples and rerun the code, which he presumably doesn't have time for).

I'm not sure how much better Wilt's WOWYR would look if we also adjusted for health when feeding in the samples to it. It's possible that it uses the signal from the teammates data to get quite close to the 'true' impact of Wilt. But we're certain adjusting for Wilt's health wouldn't make his WOWYR go down (since his raw WOWY only goes up)... and it's at least possible that his WOWYR could go up a fair bit more.

Let me know if you have any other thoughts or questions!

[LukaTheGOAT]

A few Career Totals so people have them in one place

Obviously these miss many of the subtleties of ranking different players (how to we weight longevity vs peak? How did their situation affect their performance? How do we see them fitting on a championship team? Do we consider curving for the strength of their era or consider any time machine arguments?), but career stats can do a better job at summing the total contributions of a player (measured in a certain way) than just qualitatively describing the players alone.

To me, the ideal analysis incorporates many sides -- impact stats, qualitative descriptions, historical context, film analysis, team performance, etc. Many of these I can't provide for you, but I can gather a lot of impact stats in one place for ease of access and to help guide future discussion. I've included some leftover players in brackets from when I first gathered these stats to provide some comparative context...

Impact Metrics : These are based off actual impact, and so are less likely to underrate stuff like defense or off-ball creation or BBIQ. But they can be a bit noisier, more uncertain, and context-dependent, especially the WOWY based stuff.

Career PIPM (in units of "wins added", box estimate is used for the pre-97 seasons):
[no Wilt available]
[Duncan: 284 wins added]
Garnett: 261.4
Shaq: + 232 (with box estimates for early years)
Curry: ~202 (if we consider 2021-2023 to be 3 average prime years. ~181 if we add 3 average career years. +142 pre 2021).
Magic: + 188 (box estimate)

Career RAPM: tbd, haven't calculated, would also depend on RAPM source.

Approximate Career raw WOWY (prime WOWY per game x total games):
-Curry: +10.2 per game * 882 games= +8996.4 in his career (40% ahead of Hakeem)
-Garnett: +5.7 per game * 1462 games = +8333.4 in his career (29% ahead of Hakeem)
[-West: +7.8 per game * 932 games = +7269.6 in his career (13% ahead of Hakeem)]
-Shaq: +5.5 per game * 1207 games = +6638.5 in his career (3% ahead of Hakeem)
-Hakeem: +5.2 per game * 1238 games= +6437.6. in his career
[-Bird: +5.3 per game * 897 games = 4754.1 in his career]
-Magic: +4.7 per game * 906 games = 4258.2 in his career
-Wilt: +1.2 per game * 1045 games = 1254 in his career *[note Wilt's prime WOWY is dominated by 1965, when he was apparently playing injured!]

Approximate Career Adjusted WOWY (average between prime WOWYR/alt-WOWYR/GPM per game * total games):
[no Curry available]
-Garnett: +6.3 per game * 1462 games = +9210.6 in his career (35% ahead of Hakeem)
-Magic: +9.0 per game * 906 games = +8154 in his career (19% ahead of Hakeem
-Shaq: +6.4 per game * 1207 games = +7724.8 in his career (13% ahead of Hakeem)
[-Hakeem: +5.5 per game * 1238 games= +6809. in his caree]r
[-West: +7.3 per game * 932 games = +6803.6 in his career (equal to Hakeem)]
-Wilt: +5.2 per game * 1045 games = 5434 in his career *[note Wilt's prime WOWY is dominated by 1965, when he was apparently playing injured! This likely biases WOWYR too.]
[-Bird: +5.3 per game * 897 games = 4754.1 in his career *[note Bird has highest adjusted WOWYR uncertainty, likely due to WOWYR over-crediting small-sample Reggie Lewis for the Celtics success in 88-91. Bird is +7.9 WOWYR from 80-83, which is on pace for +7086.3 for his career, above Hakeem). ]

Now for the box stats. These are less noisy, more stable, but can miss some of the subtler ways of impacting the game (rim deterrence, off-ball creation, BBIQ, etc.).

Backpicks VORP (Thinking Basektball's Box Plus Minus per 100 possessions over total career possessions. This is generally considered more accurate than Basketball Reference BPM or WS, and it goes back to the 50s. However, it's missing seasons below a certain minute/game/etc. threshold):
Wilt: 6472.7
[Russell: 5250.6 ]
Magic: 4425.5
Garnett: 3984.2 (missing 2014–2016)
[Hakeem: 3731.8 (missing 2000–2002)]
Shaq: 3720.5 (missing part of 2008, 2010, 2011)
Curry: 3210.5 (missing 2012, 2020)

Career RAPTOR (WAR, in units of wins added. This is the historical box component, which goes back until the 70s).
[No Wilt available]
[Duncan: 230.0]
Garnett: 216.9
Magic: 216.5
Curry: ~191.7 (if 2023 was like 2022. 176.8 pre-2023!).
[Hakeem: 190.8]
Shaq: 178.3

Basketball Reference VORP (Basketball Reference's Box Plus Minus over total career, in units of wins added I believe):
[Wilt/West/Ocar unavailable]
-Garnett: 96.86 (31% ahead of Hakeem)
-Magic: 79.97 (1% ahead of Hakeem)
[-Bird: 77.24 (equal to Hakeem)]
-Shaq: 75.51 (equal to Hakeem)
-Hakeem: 74.22 (equal to Hakeem)
-Curry: 65.61

Total Career Win Shares:
-Wilt: 247.26 (52% ahead of Hakeem)
-Garnett: 191.42 (18% ahead of Hakeem)
-Shaq: 181.71 (12% ahead of Hakeem)
[-Hakeem: 162.77]
[-West: 162.58 (equal to Hakeem)]
-Magic: 155.79
[-Bird: 145.83]
-Curry: 128.00

General Trends:
-Garnett's combination of great impact and longevity basically always has him near the top.
-Wilt is the top of every box stat we have, but is lower in WOWY based stuff (perhaps because he was injured during his largest off sample in 1965).
-Curry's the top of the WOWY stuff by a large margin, and sneaks ahead of Magic in PIPM, and also looks near the top of available players in RAPM samples. Box stats are much lower on him, likely missing the subtler off-ball stuff he does on offense.
-Magic's ahead of Shaq in more of our box stats (Backpicks VORP, Raptor, Basketball Reference VORP); Shaq closes the gap in impact metrics like PIPM, raw WOWY, although Magic is ahead in adjusted WOWY)

Brief aside on playoffs: ceoofkobefans suggested I bring in postseason into these career stats. I fear that may be a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison for players that made it to the postseason a bunch and had four-series postseasons in a larger league (e.g. Magic, Curry) compared to players that weren't on postseason teams or had two-series postseasons in a smaller league (e.g. Garnett, Wilt). Definitely still worth looking at postseason numbers... e.g. how much do players improve or fall by? If they improve by 10%, are the close enough in the regular season stats to bump their ranking up?... but from a "career volume" perspective, I might have postseason volume as a separate category.

Also adding on

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[One_and_Done]

I will never understand the Stockton overrating. Isiah and Kobe I get; I find them very overrated, but I can get why because they were on teams who won rings and had a big media presence. Stockton was the Robin on a team that not only never won a title, but who had many underwhelming playoffs. I say that as someone who has Karl Malone around 13th all-time. That's sort of my point; if Stockton was secretly a superstar then the Jazz should have performed far better given all the years next to an all-timer like Malone.

As near as I can tell it's driven by 2 things. The only one I can mention is some advanced stats that should be taken well salted.

[OhayoKD]

I'm not saying as impactful but

I do sort of make a case he was
-> very impactful
and
-> probably juices curry's impact
here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107743950#p107743950
(bottom half of post)

I definitely think it's difficult to tease out the impact of Dray and Steph and that's one of the big challenges with evaluating Steph. But intuitively it feels like most of the credit should go to Steph on offense and (based on discussion in the last few posts in the thread) it seems that the various on/off numbers bear out that Steph is more valuable. I'm also not sure that you can rely too much on the fact that Steph's meteoric rise happened at the same time Dray became a starter, because there were several other changes at the same time - Steph was getting better as he entered his prime, and it's also obviously coincident with a big coaching change and the implementation of a new offensive system (which was basically built around Steph's unique strengths).

However - I'm also curious if there's really an argument that Dray was on the same impact tier as Shaq and Curry, because it's quite counterintuitive (and because it seems like that would have big implications for thinking about KG).

I think the right way to conceptualize Draymond is as someone who is similar to Manu Ginobili. A really good player that fit really well with his superstar teammate, such that his impact on his team’s net rating didn’t go down when that superstar was on the court—which results in his overall impact stats looking great.

Hmmm...

(Duncan)


(Manu)


(Steph)


(Draymond)




Yeah, I'm pretty skeptical of Draymond = Manu. Personally if I was to conceptualize Draymond I'd first go: "oh cool a manu who plays as many minutes as duncan".

Then I'd go "oh cool a manu who literally plays as many minutes without duncan as duncan plays without him"

Then I'd go "oh cool a manu who has literally won playoff series without duncan"

And then I'd point out that Duncan hadn't won two titles without Manu, hadn't had 2 of his best looking regular seasons without Manu, and hadn't seen his team be unaffected by Manu's absence over 14 games in his signature season.

And then equating the two might make sense.

In contrast, we can look to pairings that vultured impact from one another. For example, in their years together in Cleveland, Kyrie Irving had a +9.02 effect on the Cavaliers’ net rating in minutes that LeBron was off, but he had just a +0.38 effect on the Cavaliers’ net rating in minutes that LeBron was on. Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court.

Personally I think kyrie spear-heading a bad team(-1.9 by lineup-ratings, much worse by wowy) and an even worse team with kevin love(-1.99) and then seeing his teams jump to +10(peaking at +14) and then elevating further to all-time playoff performances(where his lineups and the lineups without him improve) is actually very impressive cieling raising from Lebron.

And no I do not think that is how rapm works. If Lebron was getting off kyrie he wouldn't also be seeing equally impressive results without him(or love). Especially given he staggered minutes with both.

Nor do I think "we should celebrate players for what their teammates do" is all that compelling. Duncan has been hit for supposed colinearity benefits. The problem is the case there is a lot weaker. Additonally Duncan has demonstrated he does not need Manu to be super valuable and what we've seen without would suggest at least one of his teams wasn't capable of even going .500 without him

That is more that can be said for Steph or a very similar player who was voted above him. This equivalency doesn't work. Draymond is not Manu. He's better and(importantly), Steph is tied to him in a way Duncan is not tied to Ginobli.

I would also add that by all accounts it was Duncan who led the team off-the court. From what we can tell for the Warriors that's Draymond. On and off the court, these are two very different scenarios.

[f4p]

Vote: Wilt
Alternate: Shaq
Nom: Bird

Wilt is the most polarizing player in the history of the sport. His game is confusing on so many levels, and any new NBA fan has so much to learn before they can being to understand what Wilt's game was. It's harder to understand players from older eras in general but learning Wilt specifically feels like such a roller coaster ride:
- Wilt scored 100 in a game. Averaged 50ppg in a season. He is off the charts and must be the best player of all-time!
- Wilt didn't win very much? Some guy named Bill beat him every year. Maybe he is overrated.
- I heard he slept with 1 billion women and hung out with Andre the Giant and Arnold!
- Wilt once led the league in assists. The numbers on this guy are too cool!
- I saw my first Wilt footage. He doesn't dunk on guys like Shaq. He played against plumbers.
- Apparently, Wilt was a garbage person. Kareem told me so.
- I just learned about 60s basketball offensive foul officiating. I get how Wilt was held back physically.
- Wilt's scoring numbers are inflated for all kinds of reasons? Why did I ever think he was good? I've been tricked!
- Oh Wilt's one of the best rim-protecting bigs ever? He probably had quadruple doubles before they recorded blocks?

Does anyone else have a similar early fan experience of Wilt and this slow back-and-forth development of your understanding?

yeah, that is pretty much how i've felt following the wilt rollercoaster. and yeah, some days he doesn't seem all that great, other days you think "how could the biggest, strongest guy with the best numbers who led two of the greatest teams ever" not be having a huge impact.

i think i'm coming into this project on a big of a wilt ebb right now so i suppose i'm going to end up voting him 9th. and yet, it just feels wrong.

[lessthanjake]

Some interesting numbers, regarding two related things: (1) how often players faced 5+ SRS teams in the playoffs; and (2) what percent of playoffs series’ against 5+ SRS teams the player won.

Obviously, this 5 SRS cutoff is both underinclusive and overinclusive (there are really good teams below 5 SRS and occasionally not so great or injured teams above it), but it is generally a pretty good cutoff for a good team (i.e. a roughly 55+ win type of team). And it’s playoff series’ against good teams that matter the most for great players and reveal the most IMO. What’s interesting is that the relevant players varied massively in how often they played teams like that, and also how often they were able to beat those sorts of teams.

So here’s the listing for players that have been voted in already, are nominees now, or are the two most likely new nominees here (i.e. Bird and Kobe):

Percent of Playoff Series’ that were against 5+ SRS teams

1. Michael Jordan: 56.8% (21 out of 37)
2. Kobe Bryant: 53.5% (23 out of 43)
3. Hakeem Olajuwon: 44.8% (13 out of 29)
4. Kevin Garnett: 42.3% (11 out of 26)
5. Wilt Chamberlain: 41.4% (12 out of 29)
6. Shaquille O’Neal: 40.9% (18 out of 44)
7. Stephen Curry: 35.7% (10 out of 28)
8. Tim Duncan: 31.3% (15 out of 48)
9. Magic Johnson: 27.5% (11 out of 40)
10. LeBron James: 26.4% (14 out of 53)
11. Larry Bird: 25.0% (8 out of 32)
12. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 22.4% (11 out of 49)
13. Bill Russell: 10.3% (3 out of 29)


Players’ series winning % against 5+ SRS teams

1. Michael Jordan: 66.7% (14 out of 21)
2. Bill Russell: 66.7% (2 out of 3)
3. Magic Johnson: 63.6% (7 out of 11)
4. Shaquille O’Neal: 61.1% (11 out of 18)
5. Stephen Curry: 60.0% (6 out of 10)
6. Kobe Bryant: 56.5% (13 out of 23)
7. Tim Duncan: 46.7% (7 out of 15)
8. Hakeem Olajuwon: 46.2% (6 out of 13)
9. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 45.5% (5 out of 11)
10. Kevin Garnett: 45.5% (5 out of 11)
11. LeBron James: 35.7% (5 out of 14)
12. Wilt Chamberlain: 33.3% (4 out of 12)
13. Larry Bird: 25.0% (2 out of 8)

[homecourtloss]

I'm not saying as impactful but

I do sort of make a case he was
-> very impactful
and
-> probably juices curry's impact
here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107743950#p107743950
(bottom half of post)

I definitely think it's difficult to tease out the impact of Dray and Steph and that's one of the big challenges with evaluating Steph. But intuitively it feels like most of the credit should go to Steph on offense and (based on discussion in the last few posts in the thread) it seems that the various on/off numbers bear out that Steph is more valuable. I'm also not sure that you can rely too much on the fact that Steph's meteoric rise happened at the same time Dray became a starter, because there were several other changes at the same time - Steph was getting better as he entered his prime, and it's also obviously coincident with a big coaching change and the implementation of a new offensive system (which was basically built around Steph's unique strengths).

However - I'm also curious if there's really an argument that Dray was on the same impact tier as Shaq and Curry, because it's quite counterintuitive (and because it seems like that would have big implications for thinking about KG).

I think the right way to conceptualize Draymond is as someone who is similar to Manu Ginobili. A really good player that fit really well with his superstar teammate, such that his impact on his team’s net rating didn’t go down when that superstar was on the court—which results in his overall impact stats looking great.

If you look at Draymond in RS+PS in the last decade (excluding 2019-2020) and calculate his effect on the Warriors’ net rating when Steph is off versus his effect on the Warriors’ net rating when Steph is on, they’re virtually the same. When Steph is off, the Warriors have a +6.68 better net rating with Draymond on. When Steph is on, the Warriors have a +6.38 better net rating with Draymond on. So Draymond’s effect on the team’s net rating is essentially unchanged regardless of if Steph is on or not (even despite the fact that it’s harder to increase net rating when Steph is on, since it’s tougher to increase an already-high net rating). This is similar to Manu Ginobili. From 2002-2003 to 2009-2010, when Duncan was off, the Spurs had a +7.56 better net rating with Ginobili on. And when Duncan was on, the Spurs had a +7.47 better net rating with Ginobili on. Another example is that, at least in the data we have on this (from 2000-2001 onwards), Kobe actually had slightly *more* impact with Shaq on the floor than he did with Shaq off the floor, in their years together. It’s these kinds of symbiotic relationships—where you can have great players on the court and they can extract their full impact even while on the court together—that create historically great teams. And I think it reflects very well on the best player of those teams—who has to play in a way that allows for another great players’ impact to flourish—as well as those secondary players themselves.

In contrast, we can look to pairings that vultured impact from one another. For example, in their years together in Cleveland, Kyrie Irving had a +9.02 effect on the Cavaliers’ net rating in minutes that LeBron was off, but he had just a +0.38 effect on the Cavaliers’ net rating in minutes that LeBron was on. Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court. This kind of vulturing of impact is obviously way more suboptimal. It may juice the superstar’s RAPM—because the secondary star’s lack of impact when the superstar is on the floor makes RAPM regard the secondary star as less good than other guys’ secondary stars, and therefore results in giving the superstar more of the credit—but it’s not actually reflective of a good thing. It’s reflective of something really suboptimal. And I think we should be celebrating great players who are able to have their Draymond or Manu, rather than try to perversely punish something that is a good thing! Of course, I’ll note that no one talked about punishing Duncan in rankings on the back of Ginobili’s really great impact numbers—it has only seemed to come up with Steph/Draymond.

The bolded is a strange way of looking at things. Improving +9.02 from basically garbage time, replacement level players (-11.37), to playing with NBA starters and rotational players to get to -
2.35 is not “immense impact.” I’ll talk later about how Dray pairs well with Curry in ways that Kyrie cannot pair with James, not because James is harder to pair with, but rather the fact that Draymond Green is a different tier of player than Kyrie, and adds impact in ways Kyrie cannot.

Cavs without LeBron+Kyrie were -11.37 in 2,235 minutes.1,507 of these minutes also didn’t include Love. These were primarily garbage time minutes. Cavs WITH Kyrie and WITHOUT LeBron were still -2.35 in 2,108 minutes. Going from -11.37 to -2.35 may be a +9.02 increase as you mention, but it’s essentially improving what would be an all time bad team (-11.37) played by primarily replacement level players, to a poor team (-2.35) that misses the playoffs even while playing with other NBA starters/rotational players; this -2.35 is Kyrie WITH other players on court such as Love, JR, etc.

Kyrie+Love and WITHOUT James played almost 1,200 minutes and were still a -2.28 without James. Going from a -11.37 team full of mostly garbage time players to a -2.35 while playing with NBA starters and rotational players, is a much much different animal then going from a -2.35 team to a +7, for example, type team but I think you know that.

Kyrie+Love on court, James off court: -2.28
Kyrie+Love+James on court : +11.61
Whoa.

What if we have Kyrie on court and take out Love, James, JR, and Tristan? Cavs are now -15.23. That doesn’t look good.
But what if we add LeBron? LeBron+Kyrie court, no Love, JR, Tristan: +16.88. Wow. Looks like the LeBron + Kyrie duo showed some serious impact.

What’s “immensely impactful” is going from a team that’s -6.74 in over 4,000 minutes without LeBron, to +10.26 with LeBron on court. This is what happened between 2015-2017. It’s more difficult to improve +10.01 with LeBron and other starters/rotational players on and with Kyrie off, than the -11.37 to -2.35 (+9.02) in your example.

James without Kyrie is already at +10.01 whereas as Curry without Dray is at +7.19 from 2015–2023 sans 2020. James has less room to improve AND Draymond’s portable generational defense pairs well with Curry’s generational offense. Kyrie is a poor defender and there’s going to be diminishing returns on offense when paired together even though they did improve the offense. This is simply the case of Draymond green being a different tier of player than Kyrie as Dray can add impact, primarily from a skill set that Curry doesn’t have, whereas Kyrie cannot.

As for Dray and Steph, both show immense impact with Curry leading the way, both showing that they can have winning impact, whereas Kyrie has not been able to show that without Lebron in his Cleveland years. Given this, it’s no surprise that they pair so well together, and create generational impact, impact has been in different areas, which one put together a complement each other really well, even if those areas do have a connection with each other.

2015 and 2016

Dray on, no Steph: +10.1 in 1,163 minutes (109.9 ORtg, 99.8 DRtg)
Steph on, noDray: +5.68 in 955 minutes (111.8 ORtg, 106.1 DRtg)
Steph+Dray: +16.5 in 5.799 minutes (116.9 ORtg, 100.4 DRtg)
No Steph or Dray: -8.1

With Draymond Green and no Steph Curry, the Warriors have a much better defense with a slightly worse offense. With Steph Curry and no Draymond Green, the Warriors have a slightly better offense, but much worse defense. When they are together, they have a much better offense and the same defense as when Draymond is on court. Here you have two exceptional players with vastly different strengths, synergizing really well together.

2015-2023 (no 2020)

Dray on, no Steph: +3.43 (108.8 ORtg, 105.4 DRtg)
Steph on, noDray: +7.19 (117.1 ORtg, 109.9 DRtg)
Steph+Dray: 13.40 (118.8 ORtg, 105.4)
No Dray+Steph on court : -4.48

With Draymond Green and no Steph Curry, the Warriors have a better defense with a worse offense. With Steph Curry and no Draymond Green, the Warriors have a much better offense, but worse defense together. When they are together, they have a much better offense than with Dray alone but the same with just Steph BUT a much better defense. Again, Here you have two exceptional players with vastly different strengths, synergizing really well together.

Compare this with 2015-2017 Bron and Kyrie

Kyrie on, no Bron: -2.35 (108.8 ORtg, 111.2)
Bron on, no Kyrie: +10.01 (113.3 ORtg, 103.3 DRtg)
Bron+Kyrie: +10.39 (118.8 ORtg, 108.5)

With Kyrie Irving on, and no LeBron James, Cleveland has a worse offense, and a much worse defense. With LeBron James, on court, and no Kyrie, Irving, Cleveland has a better off fence in a much much better defense with LeBron, James and Kyrie on court, Cleveland has a better off fence but the worst defense done with LeBron alone. There is no problem with with value added onto the office, but Kyrie Irving is a poor defender, and overall does not have the impact of a Draymond Green‘s, especially not in a skill set that LeBron doesn’t possess the Lebron possesses just about every skill set.

Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court. This kind of vulturing of impact is obviously way more suboptimal. It may juice the superstar’s RAPM—because the secondary star’s lack of impact when the superstar is on the floor makes RAPM regard the secondary star as less good than other guys’ secondary stars, and therefore results in giving the superstar more of the credit—but it’s not actually reflective of a good thing. It’s reflective of something really suboptimal. And I think we should be celebrating great players who are able to have their Draymond or Manu, rather than try to perversely punish something that is a good thing! Of course, I’ll note that no one talked about punishing Duncan in rankings on the back of Ginobili’s really great impact numbers—it has only seemed to come up with Steph/Draymond.

No, this is not how are RAPM works, and it’s a strange thing to type up. Had Kyrie Irving been making positive contributions in various lineups with and without Lebron, over a three-year period, we would’ve seen it, but we didn’t because Kyrie Irving does not have the type of impact Draymond Green does. You know where we do see it? With Draymond Green in especially his DRAPM.

[AEnigma]

Oh good we finally arrived at literal OaktownWarriors argumentation. Saves me some time.

The actual best measure is road series against 6.5+ SRS teams. After all, how else are we supposed to measure adversity as opposed to just coasting via superior teams?

Lebron is 4-5 by that measure, with two titles. Jordan is 1-3 with zero titles (hm, almost like he consistently had the better team…), and that 1 was in that famous five-game series against the Cavaliers with a hampered Mark Price who was absent for their narrow Game 1 loss. Buttttttt since all injuries are inherently equal I suppose we can leave it at 1-3. Hakeem is 2-6 with one title. Steph is 1-2 with one title but no Finals MVP, and Durant is 3-3 with that same title plus Finals MVP. Bird is 0-1 and Magic is 0-2 from what I can tell; that is pretty funny. Duncan is 0-3. Russell is 1-1 (one title). Shaq and Kobe are 3-2 from 1997-04 (two titles), although they combine for 0-3 when independent of each other.

Quick count says Wilt is at 0-6 (brutal).

[ijspeelman]

Its arguable that Garnett had a better offensive game than Duncan, but was used in the wrong role. No he could not shoulder the same back to the basket game, but on similar volume and similar efficiency (about 1% on average lower TS%), Garnett played an elite face-up and spacing game. He would have made a perfect guy to play off of another play creator, but instead he was stuck generating a lot of offense for himself due to his roster.

This, I definitely don't agree with. Not just bc Duncan's box stats were a little better - but also bc IMO Duncan's resilient scoring stuff does actually provide a lot more value in the playoffs. Having a player who is able to get points consistently in the playoffs is so valuable to winning playoff games. And that's really what I value about Hakeem's and Duncan's offensive games, and where Garnett is weaker. I do think that the fact that Garnett was less good generating offense himself is a big deal in the playoffs (maybe even in a way that isn't born out by oRTG?). And, IDK, whenever I go back and watch Garnett it always feels like he's settling for long-range jumpers on offense, and I hate that, and I think it genuinely provides a lot less value.

So, as I look at it, Duncan and Hakeem were providing a lot more individual offensive value in the playoffs with consistent bucket-getting *in addition* to elite defense, and that's why I see them in a different category than Wilt or Garnett. And, again, I don't see what the dimension is for Wilt and Garnett that makes up for that.

I'd like to preface this by saying I do not think Garnett's offense is more valuable than Duncan's.

However, I think there is an argument to be made. A lot of what I like about Garnett's game is his ability to be portable and to scale into more or less volume. Even without a back to basket game like Duncan's, he still had a similar efficiency on the same volume on a diet of jump shots and dives to the rim. I like that if he was given a higher level star to play off of it probably makes him even more effective. While Duncan can scale, I think its harder because he does not provide nearly the same spacing.

I also tend to value Garnett's passing better, but that is arguable in its own right.

[MyUniBroDavis]

There’s no way y’all back to steph and draymond and Kyrie and lebron

Nasty

[lessthanjake]

Yeah, I'm pretty skeptical of Draymond = Manu. Personally if I was to conceptualize Draymond I'd first go: "oh cool a manu who plays as many minutes as duncan".

Then I'd go "oh cool a manu who literally plays as many minutes without duncan as duncan plays without him"

I mean, yes, Draymond and Manu aren’t literally the same. Yes, Draymond plays a few more minutes a game. The analogy is about a great player that gets high impact without having that impact decrease when on the floor with a superstar. You’re arguing something that’s not super relevant. If your point is that Draymond gets that impact over a few more minutes a game, then okay, I guess? It’s just beating around the bush of the point though.

Then I'd go "oh cool a manu who has literally won playoff series without duncan"

Yes, but of course the team also had Kevin Durant and they were playing a mediocre team in the first round. What’s your point? You don’t think the Spurs could’ve won first-round series’ without Duncan? The Spurs literally had a better net rating with Duncan off the court (as opposed to with Duncan on the court) during 3 of their 5 title runs! And, in his career, his teams had a better playoff net rating with him off the court than the 2015-2019 Warriors did with Steph off the court. I don’t really know if you’re old enough to have really watched those mid-2000’s Spurs, but I definitely did (I hated them more than any team ever, and constantly watched them hoping to see them lose) and they were scary even with Duncan off the floor.

And then I'd point out that Duncan hadn't won two titles without Manu, hadn't had 2 of his best looking regular seasons without Manu, and hadn't seen his team be unaffected by Manu's absence over 14 games in his signature season.

He won one title without Manu, not two. And in that one title, he instead had a still-great impact beast David Robinson, who was ranked 4th in the league in the relevant Cheema 5-year set in that timeframe. Robinson had a ridiculous +35.0 on-off in those 1998-1999 playoffs, while Duncan had a -3.6 on-off. Duncan always had an absolute impact beast on his team, though in 2003 Robinson was faded and Manu hadn’t quite ascended yet. But even then, Ginobili had an enormous +22.9 on-off in the 2002-2003 playoffs—with the Spurs being +21.78 with Duncan and Manu on, while being -7.69 with Duncan on and Manu off. And of course Steph also won a title in a season Draymond was ranked 99th in NBAShotCharts RAPM. So I don’t see the point.

None of this is to downplay Duncan. The point is actually good for both Duncan and Steph! They both left room for their teammates to be super impactful, which is an important part of having a truly great team. It’s a huge positive!

Personally I think kyrie spear-heading a bad team(-1.9 by lineup-ratings, much worse by wowy) and an even worse team with kevin love(-1.99) and then seeing his teams jump to +10(peaking at +14) and then elevating further to all-time playoff performances(where his lineups and the lineups without him improve) is actually very impressive cieling raising from Lebron.

Having a teammate improve the team by +9 net rating without you and improve the team’s net rating by essentially zero with you is not “very impressive ceiling raising from LeBron.” He also vultured more than half of Wade’s impact in those first three years with the Heat (+8.18 with LeBron off —> +3.97 with LeBron on). To be fair, AD has actually gotten almost as much impact with and without LeBron on the floor (but AD’s impact has been relatively low either way, so it’s not saying *that* much). Kyrie is the worst example. But having Kyrie Irving essentially be a zero value-add is a serious indictment of a player’s ceiling raising. For reference, Kyrie was basically a +6 to the Nets’ net rating regardless of whether Durant was on or off. There’s really no way around this. This sort of cannibalization of impact represents a failure of ceiling raising. And it is a cannibalization of impact that simply has not happened with Draymond alongside Steph, and that should be celebrated!

And no I do not think that is how rapm works. If Lebron was getting off kyrie he wouldn't also be seeing equally impressive results without him(or love). Especially given he staggered minutes with both.

RAPM works by controlling for the teammates that are on the floor with you. If the measure thinks your teammates are not impactful, it’ll ascribe more of the impact on the scoreline to you. And if your teammates’ impact is being vultured a lot by your presence such that their presence is often not seeming to have an effect on the scoreline, then when the model controls for that teammates’ presence, it’s going to not think the teammate is all that good/impactful. And therefore, controlling for the teammate’s presence will end up giving you more credit for what happened on the court. In a sense, that’d be accurate too. If the team is doing the same with LeBron on and Kyrie off as it is with LeBron on and Kyrie on, then the model would seem right to ascribe Kyrie with little impact and therefore give LeBron credit for positive outcomes. But, as I said, it’s not reflective of a good thing. It’s reflective of a player being unable to get as much impact as they might be able to if playing with someone else, leading to the superstar player they’re playing with getting credit in the model for a huge portion of the good outcomes as if that other player isn’t very good.

Nor do I think "we should celebrate players for what their teammates do" is all that compelling. Duncan has been hit for supposed colinearity benefits. The problem is the case there is a lot weaker. Additonally Duncan has demonstrated he does not need Manu to be super valuable and what we've seen without would suggest at least one of his teams wasn't capable of even going .500 without him

That is more that can be said for Steph or a very similar player who was voted above him. This equivalency doesn't work. Draymond is not Manu. He's better and(importantly), Steph is tied to him in a way Duncan is not tied to Ginobli.

At a fundamental level, I think it’s just absurd to not appreciate that it is a seriously great thing for players to be able to extract their full impact with each other. It’s just a very basic tenet of team sports, so I’m baffled that you’d reject that.

As for some of the specific substance of what you’ve said, again Duncan always had Manu and/or Robinson—both impact monsters. It’s true they weren’t their best in 2002-2003 and the Spurs still won the title, but Draymond was 99th in NBAShotCharts RAPM in 2021-2022 and the Warriors won the title. And to the extent you’d point to Draymond’s impact looking better in those 2021-2022 playoffs than it did in the regular season, please just note that the Spurs were -7.69 in the 2002-2003 playoffs with Duncan on and Manu off and were +21.78 in those playoffs with Duncan on and Manu on. Manu’s impact in those playoffs was enormous. And, of course, as I’ve mentioned, in the title they did actually win without Manu, David Robinson had a +35.0 playoff on-off and Duncan had a -3.6 on-off. So you may say “Duncan is not tied to Ginobili” but he certainly is tied to having super high-impact teammates in general. Which is not a bad thing!

And I don’t know what you mean about Duncan’s teams not being capable of going .500 without him. Even in the Durant years, the Warriors were like .500 with a negative SRS without Steph (goes to a slightly positive SRS if you include missed playoff games). The Warriors have a 65-104 record without Steph since 2013-2014. Even excluding 2019-2020, it has been 51-58 without Steph. Meanwhile, the Spurs went 71–47 without Duncan in his career (not to mention winning 61 games the season after he retired). The Spurs without Duncan were obviously better than the Warriors without Steph have been.

Of course, it’s also the case that when Steph was out for a season, Draymond couldn’t really do anything and had virtually zero impact on the worst team in the league.

I would also add that by all accounts it was Duncan who led the team off-the court. From what we can tell for the Warriors that's Draymond. On and off the court, these are two very different scenarios.

I’d hesitate to suggest you know much of anything about what is going on in players’ heads or in teams’ locker rooms or who is having a positive effect on a team. More stable and understated leaders like Duncan and Steph have proven very successful in the NBA. And Draymond Green has seemingly been the cause of a lot of issues for the Warriors—including basically destroying their last season, as well as being a major cause of creating a toxic environment in the later Durant years. The idea that Draymond has had a more positive impact on the team off the court than Steph is…dubious, to say the least.

[DQuinn1575]

Consensus means near uniform agreement. Winning only 1 MVP, and a token one at that, shows he was nothing like the consensus best player at the time, not even in the media.

more people perceived kobe as the best in the world than bird. MVP voting is a regular season thing

and they were about as obviously wrong about kobe being the best as they were about bird so

This part isn't true - Bird was the consensus best player in the world from 84 to 86, and there wasnt that much argument.
I dont think you can point to anyone else that was consensus best player for a few years who didnt have an mvp.
We are still arguing if Kobe had enough support to be called consensus best player.

[lessthanjake]

The bolded is a strange way of looking at things. Improving +9.02 from basically garbage time, replacement level players (-11.37), to playing with NBA starters and rotational players to get to -
2.35 is not “immense impact.” I’ll talk later about how Dray pairs well with Curry in ways that Kyrie cannot pair with James, not because James is harder to pair with, but rather the fact that Draymond Green is a different tier of player than Kyrie, and adds impact in ways Kyrie cannot.

Cavs without LeBron+Kyrie were -11.37 in 2,235 minutes.1,507 of these minutes also didn’t include Love. These were primarily garbage time minutes. Cavs WITH Kyrie and WITHOUT LeBron were still -2.35 in 2,108 minutes. Going from -11.37 to -2.35 may be a +9.02 increase as you mention, but it’s essentially improving what would be an all time bad team (-11.37) played by primarily replacement level players, to a poor team (-2.35) that misses the playoffs even while playing with other NBA starters/rotational players; this -2.35 is Kyrie WITH other players on court such as Love, JR, etc.

It turns out we actually have a way to filter out garbage time, since pbpstats allows us to filter out “low” leverage minutes. And it turns out that it has nothing to do with this. When we filter out “low” leverage minutes, Kyrie still has a +7.94 effect on net rating without LeBron, and now he actually has a -0.37 effect on net rating with LeBron. So filtering out garbage time actually makes this look just as bad (and, in a way, even worse, since Kyrie’s effect with LeBron on flips to negative)!

And we also know that Kyrie had about a +6 impact on net rating both with and without Durant in Brooklyn.

What’s “immensely impactful” is going from a team that’s -6.74 in over 4,000 minutes without LeBron, to +10.26 with LeBron on court. This is what happened between 2015-2017. It’s more difficult to improve +10.01 with LeBron and other starters/rotational players on and with Kyrie off, than the -11.37 to -2.35 (+9.02) in your example.

Yes, the point isn’t that LeBron’s presence didn’t have impact. Obviously, he had high on-off in most years. But the point is that others did not have much of an additional effect if LeBron was on (which is because LeBron plays in a way that doesn’t give room for others to extract anywhere near their full impact—LeBron gets his impact but it doesn’t leave room for others). And you can say it’s difficult to improve on +10, but improving on +10 is what made the Durant Warriors so great! They were a +11 with just Steph and no Durant, and improved to historic levels with Durant added on top of that.

And even if you talk about Draymond numbers, they may only have been +7 with Steph on and Draymond off, and it is easier to improve from +7 than it is from +10, but the Warriors improved all the way up to +13 with Steph and Draymond on, so obviously the Warriors didn’t hit a +10 wall like the Cavaliers typically did with LeBron and Kyrie (and like LeBron’s most talented teams typically did in general with him and other stars he played with)!

This is simply the case of Draymond green being a different tier of player than Kyrie as Dray can add impact, primarily from a skill set that Curry doesn’t have, whereas Kyrie cannot.

Pretty much anyone can add impact alongside Curry. That’s the point! It doesn’t matter if you’re great on the ball, off the ball, at defense, at passing, etc. He’s easy to fit with and to extract your full impact with. LeBron is much harder to fit with. And a lot of other players are somewhere in between. It’s a real strength of Curry’s.

And, to be clear, Draymond is not someone who could just fit with anyone. If he played alongside a ball-dominant player, he wouldn’t be able to utilize his passing nearly as much and would then overall be a giant offensive liability. And if he played alongside someone who couldn’t create as much space, Draymond would have to be played at the 5 for floor-spacing reasons, which would be very difficult to make work against teams with a lot of size. And, ultimately we saw him have virtually no impact in a year he played without Curry, even on a bad team.

No, this is not how are RAPM works, and it’s a strange thing to type up. Had Kyrie Irving been making positive contributions in various lineups with and without Lebron, over a three-year period, we would’ve seen it, but we didn’t because Kyrie Irving does not have the type of impact Draymond Green does. You know where we do see it? With Draymond Green in especially his DRAPM.

It is how RAPM works. If Kyrie spends the vast majority of his minutes with LeBron, and in his minutes with LeBron he is not adding essentially any impact compared to when LeBron is on and Kyrie is off, then, even if he has high impact in the non-LeBron minutes, RAPM models will overall chalk Kyrie down as not being a particularly positive-impact player and therefore will give him little credit for impact in the Lebron on Kyrie on minutes. And in a sense that’s not wrong, when the team does as well in LeBron on Kyrie off minutes as it does in LeBron on Kyrie on minutes. But it obscures that Kyrie is capable of having much more impact and did have more impact in the LeBron off minutes (and also did have more impact in minutes both with and without Durant on the Nets). By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect on what RAPM thinks about LeBron’s impact. RAPM can’t really figure out that someone’s impact is being cannibalized.

[f4p]

hakeem at #6. who would of thunk it. now for the inevitable backlash in 3 years when he goes to #10.

Voting
1. Magic Johnson
2. Shaquille O'neal

Nominate
Larry Bird

if i was the only one who could vote (a man can dream), i would've voted magic #5. but since that clearly wasn't the direction the project was going, i voted for hakeem, and hakeem ended up exactly where i would have had him anyway at #6.

with magic, i am one of the ones who doesn't really hold his longevity against him. he retired for a completely unique reason in nba history. he wasn't injured, his skills didn't deteriorate. he was still excellent. his numbers as an overweight 36 year old after 4 years off tell me he would have almost certainly been excellent well into his mid-30's.

he started off as a 20 year old rookie. and far from a slow start, with an nba finals clinching game in front of him, with Cap not playing, he put up a 42/15/7 masterpiece to lead his team to victory. does that overstate how great he was early in his career?
sure. but it showed his ceiling in any given game was already tremendously high. it seemed to show a flair for the moment and the big stage right from the very start. and at 31 he was still taking a team to the finals without kareem. the year after winning 63 games without kareem. he basically non-stop led top tier, and often #1, offenses for basically his whole career. even after kareem retired.

5 titles in 9 years, the driving force for most of them. showed the tiniest indication of a dip in 1991 (to be expected at 31), but give or take in line with his peak years and almost certain to have 14+ years of very good to all-time play if not for the retirement. the best player of his decade.

- by my normalized box calculation, basically the same in the playoffs as the regular season so no dip.
- 28-4 as an SRS favorite
- 4-4 as an SRS underdog but 6 of those are <2 SRS underdog so not much to write home about
- like tim duncan, average loss is as a favorite so a little reason to hold him back there
- should not have lost to the rockets in 1986 and really not in 1981 even if he was injured. if lebron had it easy making 8 straight finals in the east, the lakers had it even easier and couldn't match that.
- on the other hand, 5 actual titles vs 2.5 expected titles, one of the higher deltas out there.

did he have a ton of talent to help him? most definitely. one of the great "per year" franchise situations ever. drafted with kareem on the team. an entire other #1 overall pick in james worthy (who lived up to his #1 pick status) added just 3 years later. an embarrassment of riches. which is why there had better have been a lot of winning. and there was. 50 wins every season. 9 finals appearances. already showing greatness at age 20 and still going very strong and making the finals at age 31.


Shaq - just so dominant from the very beginning. if magic was good at age 20, shaq probably has the best age 20 season in nba history. putting up an astounding 23 ppg, 14 rpg, 3.5 bpg. he's putting up all-time center numbers as a 20 year old. he follows that up with the best age 21 season ever (other contenders?), coming within a whisper of his peak MVP numbers

1994: 29.3 ppg, 13.2 rpg, 2.9 bpg
2000: 29.7 ppg, 13.6 rpg, 3.0 bpg

orlando didn't even play that much faster than the 2000 lakers (95.2 vs 93.3). people tend to talk about shaq falling off at such a young age, with age 30 being his last truly great regular season and age 31 being his last very good playoffs. but he was so amazing at such an early age. patrick ewing never matched shaq's age 21 numbers in points or rebound. david robinson never matched the rebounds and would have basically tied in scoring without his fairly gimmicky 71 point game at the end of 1994. hakeem never matched the scoring and eclipsed the rebounding by less than 1 per game (3 times) at his rebounding peak. i sometimes think he started out so great and fell off so quick because someone that huge just isn't meant to hold up but also someone that huge and athletic is almost impervious to needing to level up as a young player. the young mobile version of shaq was still so much stronger than everyone else that it didn't matter if his skills and understanding hadn't caught up. and the long and short of it is, even with supposedly not great longevity, he still ended up with more 20/10 seasons than anyone in nba history, ahead of hakeem and kareem. he almost couldn't help putting up a 20/10 season.

from 95-03, shaq averaged 28.3 ppg and 12.8 rpg in the playoffs, despite the bulk of that time being spent in the slowest-paced, lowest-scoring era of nba history. i believe someone posted that by game score, he had bad playoff games even less often than jordan or hakeem. and of course he peaked at back to back 30/15 playoff runs, including one that produced the most dominant playoff team ever. after watching some of the 2002 plays that were discussed in other threads, i went and watched some 2001. it's night and day how well he is moving. he is just a force of nature in the 2001 clips.

now of course, there are negatives. conditioning, attitude, feuding with teammates and organizations. swept an incredible 6 times in the playoffs when it's not that hard to rise up and win 1 game. his case is definitely one of the messier ones. very high highs but also maybe more question marks. defense was a concern throughout his career, though he was almost impossible to post-up for any but the best centers, and even someone like 1995 hakeem had a mediocre TS% against shaq. mid-level centers posting up on shaq was basically just a wasted possession. and he still kept people away from the rim. but his defense certainly kept him from having much post-prime impact.

like magic, quite good at actual vs expected championships with 4 vs 1.7. slightly lower absolute delta but more percentage delta (though both are behind kobe in both measurements, should i nominate kobe instead of bird? will i end up voting kobe over bird?). massive peak. incredible play at a young age.

[Dooley]

The question that keeps coming up in my head with Steph, Shaq and Magic is:

What did Shaq and Magic do that Steph hasn't done?

[One_and_Done]

The question that keeps coming up in my head with Steph, Shaq and Magic is:

What did Shaq and Magic do that Steph hasn't done?

Have a 14 year prime? Be valuable on both ends? Curry is in my top 10, but let's not act like he has a comparable case to Shaq. That's going a little too far I think.

[lessthanjake]

Oh good we finally arrived at literal OaktownWarriors argumentation. Saves me some time.

The actual best measure is road series against 6.5+ SRS teams. After all, how else are we supposed to measure adversity as opposed to just coasting via superior teams?

Lebron is 4-5 by that measure, with two titles. Jordan is 1-3 with zero titles (hm, almost like he consistently had the better team…), and that 1 was in that famous five-game series against the Cavaliers with a hampered Mark Price who was absent for their narrow Game 1 loss. Buttttttt since all injuries are inherently equal I suppose we can leave it at 1-3. Hakeem is 2-6 with one title. Steph is 1-2 with one title but no Finals MVP, and Durant is 3-3 with that same title plus Finals MVP. Bird is 0-1 and Magic is 0-2 from what I can tell; that is pretty funny. Duncan is 0-3. Russell is 1-1 (one title). Shaq and Kobe are 3-2 from 1997-04 (two titles), although they combine for 0-3 when independent of each other.

Quick count says Wilt is at 0-6 (brutal).

How is the “actual best measure” one that is so narrow that the sample size for pretty much everyone is virtually zero? And why would only “road series” matter when the point of doing well in the regular season is to avoid road series’, and these players have had huge effects on how well their teams do in the regular season?

(Also, even using this absurd measure, your data is wrong. For instance, the only “road series” against a 6.5+ SRS team that LeBron’s teams have won were in 2011 against Chicago, 2016 against the Warriors, and 2018 against the Raptors. He did not have 4 wins in such series. Haven’t checked to see if the others are false too, since I checked the first one and it was wrong.)