RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #9 (Kevin Garnett)

[Bklynborn682]

I’m far from the most knowledgeable person regarding RAPM statistics so perhaps someone could help me. Does missing games have an effect (major or minor) on a players RAPM?

[lessthanjake]

You know what tests as the most "accurate" all-in-one?

DARKO!

Admittedly DARKO maintains that Duncan is the true king, but Garnett still fares a lot better than Steph ever has. You know who also fares better?

As the most accurate data has deemed it so, let me pronounce a bottom line: KG looks better than Steph by impact. As does CP3, the inarguable impact king(among guards) of the last 10-years. All hail Paul the point god?

“The main difference between DPM and the other player impact metrics is that DPM solely looks “forward” by giving the results in a Bayesian model which projects all elements of the box score. Backwards-looking in GOAT debates are not meaningful with DPM.”

“However, despite these advances, there has been a relative dearth of focus on forward-looking projections as opposed to backwards-looking explanations… DARKO (Daily Adjusted and Regressed Kalman Optimized projections) is an attempt to fill that gap.”

https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/

https://www.nbastuffer.com/analytics101/darko-daily-plus-minus/

I get that DARKO is a metric that is measuring something similar, but it’s genuinely not intended for the use you’re putting it towards, and other measures we’re talking about are.

Well, no, not necessarily. After, all accuracy writ large does not preclude bias distorting a specific comparison. That is why it's worthwhile to distinguish between box and non-box, even with more "accurate" metrics. When we do so with LEBRON and RAPTOR, we see that the box-prior boosts Steph relative to his impact. Shaq's point is fair.

All you’re saying is basically “Stuff that demonstrably makes a model more accurate makes Steph look better so I reject it.” And you’re not just rejecting it with one measure based on a specific reason that you think it would be overrating Steph, but rather are rejecting all measures with no specific basis for it at all. It’s literally just saying that a model could have flaws and since it could have flaws and Steph looks good then there must be flaws that make Steph look good.

That said, as we can see above, even the hybrids do not paint Steph as a clear-winner here though I think we really need to get something clear about this switcheroo from "look at the gaps and # of 1st place finishes" to "look at the average placement!"

There’s no “switcheroo.” I have repeatedly told you that I mentioned the stuff you’re talking about as a sidenote regarding comparing across different time intervals, and you claimed that was untrue based on an assertion that I said things I didn’t say and based on a misinterpretation of what I’d been arguing that I’d very clearly corrected way back in the #4 thread. I demonstrated that quite clearly in my last post and you ignored it.

Just to make this even more clear though, I will quote the thing I initially said that you are now repeatedly misinterpreting:

Spoiler:

I don’t really think we can precisely compare the exact totals for different five-year RAPM intervals just as we can’t compare the exact totals for different one-year RAPM measures (i.e. because different scaling, corrections, etc. are done for each interval). As in, if Player A has a 4.0 RAPM in 1997-2001 and Player B has a 5.0 RAPM in 2005-2009, there’s not a direct comparison between the two numbers because they were calculated differently. We can compare generally by how they placed within the league during those time intervals, and perhaps draw an inference by how far ahead of their peers two players were, but I do think there’s a tendency for people to want to compare RAPM values across intervals when it aids an argument they’re making and to say it’s an invalid method when it helps someone else’s argument. Let’s just agree that it’s not a strictly valid method that we can draw a strong conclusion from, and therefore that comparison within the same interval is better, but that comparing values across years can perhaps allow us to draw inferences when numbers or league placements are radically different (i.e. we could be quite sure that 2.0 RAPM and 60th in the NBA in 1997-2001 isn’t as good as 9.0 RAPM and 1st in the NBA in 2005-2009).

viewtopic.php?p=107698722#p107698722

As we can see, the post of mine that you’re referring to actually literally introduces the idea of comparing how players placed within the league during different time intervals as a way of comparing players. So it’s just genuinely extremely odd that you’re asserting that me talking about comparing players’ league placement is a “switcheroo” from that.

It is not magically a "clean" comparison across time-frames in a way other approaches you've rejected are. Frankly this "average method" seems out of place. Ranking and standard deviations is fair game, and over long spans those variations tend to smooth out (although literally speaking a +7 from 2000-04 is not *necessarily* better than a +6.5 from 2014-18). And while it is not perfect, a player posting the highest marks in a set again and again is itself pretty decent indicator.

But with the average approach, a random bad outlier can sink your average without that actually translating to what your impact would be over that time.

Yes, I agree that the flaw of averaging is that random bad outliers can sink the average disproportionately. But I’ve been careful to note when that factor was at play in a way that made other players look unduly less good compared to Steph—for instance, I noted that Garnett’s average league placement for the 2000’s in JE’s RAPM was brought down a lot by a single year and then cited what his best 5-year span was (and it was still not as good as Steph’s average placement in that measure). Meanwhile, you haven’t compiled these numbers, so you don’t actually realize that Steph himself has his average league placements substantially brought down by outliers in some measures and still comes out on top. For instance, I’ve listed that his average league placement in NBAshotcharts RAPM is 8.11. But it would instead be 4.50 without the 2022-2023 season. I’ve listed his average league placement in RPM as 4.56, but it would be 1.50 without the 2022-2023 season. I listed Steph’s average league placement in LEBRON as being 5.0, but it would be 3.6 without last season. If anything, having a random bad outlier has hurt Steph more than others, and yet he’s still come out on top. You’re welcome to look through these measures and try to find somewhere where a really bad outlier for someone else is the reason their average is not as good as Steph’s over the last decade. But, having compiled these numbers, I’ll tell you that you’re not going to find it, and that eliminating outliers will, if anything, actually just make Steph look better. (Of course, this is all ignoring for now the fact that bad outliers do actually matter and can’t just be completely ignored, since they generally reflect a legitimately less effective season).

This all becomes especially dubious if in general, as opposed to a conveniently selected time-frame, player a is maintaining a better average than player b despite a longer career with more possessions and more "non-prime years".

All these filters really just work to obscure a very plain truth: Kevin Garnett is a bigger outlier in JE's data than Steph is

In JE’s data, Garnett is not a bigger outlier in average league placement in their prime than Steph is. He is better in overall *career-wide* RAPM, and he has some higher actual RAPM values—which we all agree we can’t really compare in a concrete and meaningful way. But in terms of how they placed in their prime on average compared to their peers, Garnett does not look better than Steph. And that’s just in one measure—as I’ve shown, other measures look even better for Steph in comparison with Garnett.

As I’ve said, though, it is certainly true that Garnett has more impactful seasons outside of his prime. And if someone wants to vote for Garnett over Steph because of that longevity, then, as I’ve previously said, I think that’s fine. I think that there’s a huge countervailing force to that—which is that Steph has had way more team achievement in the NBA than Garnett has. And to me that easily outweighs Garnett’s better longevity. I suppose reasonable minds could differ on that. But we shouldn’t act like the totality of the data suggests prime Garnett was a more impactful player than prime Steph.

-> Finally you are still listing unsourced data. You have now been made aware of this several times by various posters so I do not understand why you are still using it.

…

And while you might like how github has big numbers for Curry, we should have higher standards for data here.

This is just not a point I think has essentially any value whatsoever, in the context that we are in. As far as I’m aware, we do not have access to the actual precise data/methodology for virtually any of these. The GitHub RAPM is not any less legitimate than the JE RAPM just because you know the name of the person who did the JE RAPM. Either way, we are not able to actually scrutinize the methodology—which is what actually matters. Nor have these been subjected to rigorous academic peer review, such that we might trust that the methodology has been rigorously scrutinized by highly knowledgeable/qualified people. Since we are lacking access to the methodologies (and even if we did have access to them, no one is sitting around spending the time to scrutinize them), I don’t see the point in elevating one measure above others because it’s “sourced” in the extremely narrow sense that you know the name of the person who did it (and even that’s especially dubious when the person in question is someone who has made some pretty questionable decisions in his modeling before). The reality is that none of these measures have passed rigorous testing (though ones like RAPTOR—developed by a major organization and providing a fair bit of info on the methodology—are arguably closer to it than others). They are all probably flawed. I’ve said that again and again. And that’s why the best thing to do is probably just to look at the totality of all of them and hope that the flaws cancel out. I definitely don’t think the best thing to do is to basically just look at two sources created by random people (JE and Cheema) and largely ignore the rest.

You've been repeating "all impact metrics are flawed" over and over, but it's starting to feel like an excuse to just pull up whatever might confirm your own biases.

They are very likely all flawed. Again, these largely aren’t things that have gone through rigorous review—and certainly something that JE created by himself hasn’t. And, in my experience (which includes being an editor of the highest-ranked academic journal in my field), even people at the very top of their academic field (which people producing NBA impact metrics typically are not) produce a lot of highly flawed garbage. So I think it’s a very safe assumption that there’s substantial flaws in these metrics. None of us have the information (or willingness/ability) to scrutinize them and identify and correct those flaws. Therefore, I don't see a better option than just accepting that there will be flaws, and looking at the totality of the metrics we have and hoping that the flaws in those roughly cancel out.

What happened to our "unarguable' impact king?

KG's probably better in terms of impact. Those who value that sort of thing should vote accordingly.

I’d urge people reading this to just peruse my prior posts about this, which were obviously far more complete in their analysis of Garnett and Curry than this—which is just a mocking attempt to throw things at the wall about LeBron James (?) and then to conclude something about…Kevin Garnett. I’ve provided a huge amount of info on these questions, and the response being just a mocking tone is highly disappointing.

[trex_8063]

I'm going to chip in my 2c; not necessarily disagreeing very often (frequently I'm somewhere in between opinions ["agreeing with some caveats", perhaps])....

Alright, keep in mind that I wouldn't have Moses nearly as high (closer to #20 spot), but:

4) His game is very era specific

Moses game just doesn't translate to MVP play today either. As I alluded to, his skill set is overrated in most eras, but especially today. A big without any real offensive depth, who doesn't protect the rim, and makes his living grabbing offensive rebounds in the paint. He'd probably be torched in pick and roll too. Sounds like a tough fit

I don't see a case for him over someone like David Robinson who was an elite all-time defender while also being a much more complete player offensively.

These takes are just wrong.

1. Moses would be an MVP candidate in any era at very least before three point revolution (I think he'd be today as well, but let's leave that for a moment). If you mean that Moses impact is era-specific, you basically mean he'd be MVP candidate in 90% of the league history. There is nothing suggesting that he'd not have similar impact in the 1960s, 1990s or 2000s.

I would say I fall somewhere in between, probably leaning slightly closer to 70sFan's take.
I don't think his game can be described as "very era specific". He would [did] dominate in the 80s; he would do so in the 70s as well (at least circa-1975 and later), and his game would translate reasonably well into the 90s [perhaps even early 00s], although I do think a greater number of equal or players [than were present in the early 80s] came along by circa-1990 (e.g. Jordan, Hakeem, most of Magic's best years are '87 and later, Robinson). So his relative dominance would suffer a bit, imo.

At any rate, that's too broad a time period to be called "very era specific".

I'm uncertain about the 1960s (+/- some years of the early 70s), interestingly. Not that his game couldn't, in theory, translate well. My reluctance is that they called offensive fouls SO ridiculously different [tight] in much of that era. I'm not sure his immense understated strength and bullish style of play would be tolerated (and let's face it: that would mitigate his effectiveness).

From what I've seen of games in the 1950s, however, they were NOT so whistle-happy on offensive fouls; at times it even seemed they really "let them play". Between not having his bullish ways neutered so much by the refs, plus the lesser quality of competition in that era, I do think he'd probably be a dominant force there, as well.

As to the modern (3pt revolution) era, I don't know. I hedge toward thinking he'd be less dominant than he was. A large portion of his offensive value (perhaps roughly on par with his scoring ability) comes via offensive rebounding. Modern scheming has hedged away from crashing the glass in favour of getting back on defense. There are exceptions (e.g. Steven Adams), but I'm just not sure Moses would be "deployed" in that same manner that allows him this avenue of impact.

That said, it's possible he'd develop 3pt range. Hard to say. He did have some mid-range touch (out to around 13-15 feet anyway), and he was a legit decent FT-shooter. So there is that potential.

Someone had mentioned Embiid as a comparison, and I can see some similarities: bullish power, ability to put it on the floor, knack for drawing fouls.
However, we've no guarantee he'd develop Embiid's range, he did not have Embiid's playmaking, and he's a lesser FT-shooter.
And then there is his turnover economy (which was poor).

It's possible, but let's just say I'm skeptical (he would, however, be healthy [Embiid, obviously, is never a guarantee]).
I always thought someone like Andre Drummond was a good starting point, but then add higher motor, better skill with putting it on the floor, good FT-shooting (+/- adding 3pt shooting).
idk.....

2. Describing Moses as a brute force who does all of his offensive work on offensive glass is painfully wrong. Are you aware that Moses scored less than 25% of his points from putbacks (data comes from 38 1979-83 Moses games tracked)? People should stop thinking about Moses in that way - Malone was a very diverse scorer. He had a reliable midrange game that wasn't limited to catch and shoot attempts. He could put the ball on the floor and beat his man off the dribble. He moved without the balk exceptionally well. He scored many points in transition. He was GOAT tier at drawing fouls. His only weakness on offensive end is that he didn't pass well, but considering that the majority of his impact came from off-ball play I don't consider it a massive problem. It's not like we haven't voted in another scorer with subpar passing skills and worse off-ball game.

That all his scoring came on the offensive glass, as you say is wrong. However, that is where a lot of his value was derived on offense. And he was a brute force. Even if the score wasn't coming on a put-back, I recall a number of score attempts coming via him bullying thru his defender; whether that was working on the block, or face-up from off the block, or whatever.

And I disagree that lack of playmaking was his ONLY offensive weakness. I again cite his turnover economy: Moses was very turnover-prone.

3. Can I ask for the explanation what makes David Robinson a "much more complete player offensively"? I guess he was a better passer, but that alone doesn't make you more complete.

Better passer, again: better turnover habits. Marginally more shooting range, I would say (fwiw). Better in transition (though Moses was also good).
So I guess I'd agree Robinson was more "complete" on offense. I just don't know if that makes him better. Moses's edge on the offensive glass was quite large (not sure how much is a function of era, but it's REALLY large). Moses's bullish manner of scoring proved more playoff resilient, too.
So I'm not sure who I would say was "better" offensively; but I'd otherwise agree Robinson was more "complete", if that makes sense.

[70sFan]

I’m curious if anyone can articulate to me an argument in favor of nominating someone else over Moses Malone. Only one other guy on the table was the best player in the league over significant timespan (Mikan), and Moses Malone had way better longevity than Mikan and faced much stiffer competition for being best in the world (i.e. prime Kareem). And no one else being considered on the table at this point actually won more than Moses. He led one of the greatest teams of all time and also took a team to the finals (past the 1980s Lakers) that would proceed to win 14 games on -11.12 SRS when he left a couple years later.

I think the problem I have with Moses is that his career after 1985 took a strange path. He got traded twice and even though he was still a strong contributor to these teams, he didn't really turn them into contenders on a fly.

I think Moses prime was relatively short despite a long career (only really 1979-85), which hurts his case against the other top 15 players ever. With that being said, I am glad to see someone who finally gives Moses recognition.

There’s some truth to that, but I’d push back a little bit:

Moses was all-NBA second team in the 1986-1987 season. And, based on all-NBA voting in those years, if all-NBA third team had existed back then, he would’ve gotten it in the 1985-1986 and 1987-1988 seasons. He then rightly was an all star selection in the 1988-1989 season (and was the 4th-voted center in all-NBA voting). I think he had another all-star level season in 1989-1990, though Parish was selected to the team over him (even though the fan vote had Moses voted above Parish). He then was a pretty good player in 1990-1991 and 1991-1992 (and I’d say a borderline all-star in the latter season, though I think he was rightly not chosen). So, overall, after that 1979-1985 time period, we’re looking at 1 all-NBA second-team season, 2 all-NBA third-team seasons, 2 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season. If we don’t consider any of that his prime, then it’s at least a really great post-prime!

And of course there’s also the pre-prime stuff. Moses was an all-star in 1977-1978. He was an all-star level player the year before that (he didn’t make the all star game but actually was 6th in MVP voting by the end of the year!), and had also been at the very least a strong all star at age 19 as a rookie in the ABA (he was 4th and 6th in the ABA in win shares and PER) at a time when the ABA was similarly strong as the NBA.

So, ultimately, here’s how I see it: From 1978-1979 to 1984-1985, Moses was an MVP-level player. That’s 7 MVP-level seasons (maybe 6 if we demote 1983-1984 to all-NBA level). On top of that, he had 3 all-NBA second/third-team level seasons, 5 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season (and then a few low-value bench/injury seasons beyond that).

That may be lacking in number of MVP-level seasons compared to some of the people nominated currently, but I’d say it’s a pretty good longevity profile as compared to most anyone not yet nominated (with certain exceptions, like Karl Malone). And it wouldn’t even really *have* to be as good, given that he’s fairly unique at this stage in having a 5-year peak where he was probably the best player in the world (which cannot be said by anyone else besides Mikan—who Moses definitely has longevity over).

Here is my Moses seasons evaluation to be more precise:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

[penbeast0]

Here is my Moses seasons evaluation to be more precise:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

Did you do this for Mikan? I'm sorry, I can't remember. I would assume he'd be powerful in this type of analysis since his league was so weak.

[70sFan]

Slightly higher volume scorer on slightly higher efficiency while getting 2.5x as many assists with nearly identical turnover rate. I think at the very least we can say that Robinson is a clearly better offensive player

So we come back to times when we judge players offensive impact based on "ppg+apg+TS%"?

With that in mind, here are scoring production for both in their best RS performances:

1979-83 Moses: 25.0 adj pp75 on +4.7 rTS%
1992-96 Robinson: 26.4 adj. pp75 on +5.0 rTS%

It looks like Robinson has a small advantage both in volume and efficiency, so at first look it may look that you are right. As we all know though, Robinson's RS production vastly overstate his scoring ability. Now, let's take a look at the same numbers for postseason:

1979-83 Moses: 24.8 adj pp75 on +2.9 rTS%
1992-96 Robinson: 24.9 adj. pp75 on +0.1 rTS%

As you can see, Moses scoring slightly drops from his RS numbers (which is expected, most players have sligthly worse production in postseason), but Robinson's efficiency advantage collapses.

That's not the end of the discussion though. If we look at the team offensive results for both players in considered sample, Moses crushes Robinson:

1979-83: +2.9 in RS, +2.0 in PS
1992-96: +2.2 in RS, +0.1 in PS

It's not like Moses had significantly better team around him in Houston either.

I don't know, I don't see the case for Robinson as an offensive player strictly. I have him higher all time due to his elite defensive impact, but offensively speaking? It's not even close to me.

Can we agree that Robinson is much closer to Russell defensively than Malone is to Robinson and also that Robinson is the best offensive player of the three? If so, I think we can agree that there’s a much better case for Robinson > Russell than there is that Malone > Robinson.

[/quote]
No, we can't agree on that.

[70sFan]

All things considered, it's a very good post so I only want to touch the last part where I disagree slightly

3. Can I ask for the explanation what makes David Robinson a "much more complete player offensively"? I guess he was a better passer, but that alone doesn't make you more complete.

Better passer, again: better turnover habits. Marginally more shooting range, I would say (fwiw). Better in transition (though Moses was also good).
So I guess I'd agree Robinson was more "complete" on offense. I just don't know if that makes him better. Moses's edge on the offensive glass was quite large (not sure how much is a function of era, but it's REALLY large). Moses's bullish manner of scoring proved more playoff resilient, too.
So I'm not sure who I would say was "better" offensively; but I'd otherwise agree Robinson was more "complete", if that makes sense.

A few things:

1. Yeah, Moses turnover economy isn't good (to say the least), but it's important to keep in mind that he got significantly better at that in the playoffs. Still not a positive production in that regard, but he went from ~0.45 AST/TOV in RS to ~0.55 AST/TOV in PS.

2. I don't really think Robinson has more functional range. Robinson wasn't really a good long range shooter and many people overrate his shooting ability from highlights. That said, I haven't done a deep tracking work on Robinson yet, so it's only my eye-test observation. I hope I will come with some data in future.

3. I think some things like isolation scoring, off-ball movement etc. should also be considered in this discussion.

I think there are only 2 clear advantages Robinson has over Moses:

- passing and turnover economy,
- inside finishing.

Does that make him a more complete offensive player? I don't know, Robinson's scoring skillset is painful to watch at times, but at least he has a case. It's far from given though and I think Moses proved himself to be a more impactful player on offensive end.

[lessthanjake]

I think the problem I have with Moses is that his career after 1985 took a strange path. He got traded twice and even though he was still a strong contributor to these teams, he didn't really turn them into contenders on a fly.

I think Moses prime was relatively short despite a long career (only really 1979-85), which hurts his case against the other top 15 players ever. With that being said, I am glad to see someone who finally gives Moses recognition.

There’s some truth to that, but I’d push back a little bit:

Moses was all-NBA second team in the 1986-1987 season. And, based on all-NBA voting in those years, if all-NBA third team had existed back then, he would’ve gotten it in the 1985-1986 and 1987-1988 seasons. He then rightly was an all star selection in the 1988-1989 season (and was the 4th-voted center in all-NBA voting). I think he had another all-star level season in 1989-1990, though Parish was selected to the team over him (even though the fan vote had Moses voted above Parish). He then was a pretty good player in 1990-1991 and 1991-1992 (and I’d say a borderline all-star in the latter season, though I think he was rightly not chosen). So, overall, after that 1979-1985 time period, we’re looking at 1 all-NBA second-team season, 2 all-NBA third-team seasons, 2 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season. If we don’t consider any of that his prime, then it’s at least a really great post-prime!

And of course there’s also the pre-prime stuff. Moses was an all-star in 1977-1978. He was an all-star level player the year before that (he didn’t make the all star game but actually was 6th in MVP voting by the end of the year!), and had also been at the very least a strong all star at age 19 as a rookie in the ABA (he was 4th and 6th in the ABA in win shares and PER) at a time when the ABA was similarly strong as the NBA.

So, ultimately, here’s how I see it: From 1978-1979 to 1984-1985, Moses was an MVP-level player. That’s 7 MVP-level seasons (maybe 6 if we demote 1983-1984 to all-NBA level). On top of that, he had 3 all-NBA second/third-team level seasons, 5 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season (and then a few low-value bench/injury seasons beyond that).

That may be lacking in number of MVP-level seasons compared to some of the people nominated currently, but I’d say it’s a pretty good longevity profile as compared to most anyone not yet nominated (with certain exceptions, like Karl Malone). And it wouldn’t even really *have* to be as good, given that he’s fairly unique at this stage in having a 5-year peak where he was probably the best player in the world (which cannot be said by anyone else besides Mikan—who Moses definitely has longevity over).

Here is my Moses seasons evaluation to be more precise:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

I think I’m definitely higher on his peak—where I think it’s genuinely super impressive that he was better than a prime Kareem over a 5-year span. Maybe there’s a bit of rating-inflation at play here, but to me “Weak MVP” isn’t a category I’d apply to someone I think was the best player in the NBA at the time.

I think we mostly agree on a lot of the rest of his career, albeit with some slight differences. The other differences are mostly minor (and actually go both ways), but one thing I’m curious to get more explanation on is the “Sub all star” rating for 1975. It was an ABA season, so it can be a bit harder to rate. But he averaged 19 PPG and 15 RPG on over 60% TS%, and was 4th in the ABA in win shares and 6th in the ABA in PER. It went up to 23 PPG and 18 RPG on 66% TS% in the playoffs (against a 65-win team). And this was late ABA—where the ABA was probably about as strong as the NBA. Of course, the ABA era artificially decreased the talent in both leagues, so he wouldn’t have been 4th or 6th in those metrics in a combined league. But it’s hard for me to look at those numbers and conclude he wasn’t an all-star-level player that year. He had a bit of regression the next year on a different team and getting fewer minutes before the ABA blew up, but I think 1975 is an all-star season. If anything, I wonder if he was all-NBA level that season.

Anyways, I agree that top 10 is not reachable for Moses. I do have him in the back end of the top 15, though. And, at this point, between people who have already been inducted and nominated, we already have 14 players! So a new nominee naturally only needs to be a back-end-of-the-top-15 kind of guy, not a top-10 guy.

[70sFan]

Here is my Moses seasons evaluation to be more precise:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

Did you do this for Mikan? I'm sorry, I can't remember. I would assume he'd be powerful in this type of analysis since his league was so weak.

Only for NBA years:

GOAT-level: 1 (1950)
All-time: 3 (1951, 1953, 1954)
MVP: 1 (1952)
Weak MVP: 0
All-nba: 0
All-star: 0
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 1 (1956)

I am far from Mikan expert though, so take it with a grain of salt. This evaluation takes him to the 33rd spot. If you include his pre-NBA seasons and give him additional 3 GOAT-level seasons, he'd end up 10th on my list, which is staggering considering his short career.

[70sFan]

There’s some truth to that, but I’d push back a little bit:

Moses was all-NBA second team in the 1986-1987 season. And, based on all-NBA voting in those years, if all-NBA third team had existed back then, he would’ve gotten it in the 1985-1986 and 1987-1988 seasons. He then rightly was an all star selection in the 1988-1989 season (and was the 4th-voted center in all-NBA voting). I think he had another all-star level season in 1989-1990, though Parish was selected to the team over him (even though the fan vote had Moses voted above Parish). He then was a pretty good player in 1990-1991 and 1991-1992 (and I’d say a borderline all-star in the latter season, though I think he was rightly not chosen). So, overall, after that 1979-1985 time period, we’re looking at 1 all-NBA second-team season, 2 all-NBA third-team seasons, 2 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season. If we don’t consider any of that his prime, then it’s at least a really great post-prime!

And of course there’s also the pre-prime stuff. Moses was an all-star in 1977-1978. He was an all-star level player the year before that (he didn’t make the all star game but actually was 6th in MVP voting by the end of the year!), and had also been at the very least a strong all star at age 19 as a rookie in the ABA (he was 4th and 6th in the ABA in win shares and PER) at a time when the ABA was similarly strong as the NBA.

So, ultimately, here’s how I see it: From 1978-1979 to 1984-1985, Moses was an MVP-level player. That’s 7 MVP-level seasons (maybe 6 if we demote 1983-1984 to all-NBA level). On top of that, he had 3 all-NBA second/third-team level seasons, 5 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season (and then a few low-value bench/injury seasons beyond that).

That may be lacking in number of MVP-level seasons compared to some of the people nominated currently, but I’d say it’s a pretty good longevity profile as compared to most anyone not yet nominated (with certain exceptions, like Karl Malone). And it wouldn’t even really *have* to be as good, given that he’s fairly unique at this stage in having a 5-year peak where he was probably the best player in the world (which cannot be said by anyone else besides Mikan—who Moses definitely has longevity over).

Here is my Moses seasons evaluation to be more precise:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

I think I’m definitely higher on his peak—where I think it’s genuinely super impressive that he was better than a prime Kareem over a 5-year span. Maybe there’s a bit of rating-inflation at play here, but to me “Weak MVP” isn’t a category I’d apply to someone I think was the best player in the NBA at the time.

I think we mostly agree on a lot of the rest of his career, albeit with some slight differences. The other differences are mostly minor (and actually go both ways), but one thing I’m curious to get more explanation on is the “Sub all star” rating for 1975. It was an ABA season, so it can be a bit harder to rate. But he averaged 19 PPG and 15 RPG on over 60% TS%, and was 4th in the ABA in win shares and 6th in the ABA in PER. And this was late ABA—where the ABA was probably about as strong as the NBA. Of course, the ABA era artificially decreased the talent in both leagues, so he wouldn’t have been 4th or 6th in those metrics in a combined league. But it’s hard for me to look at those numbers and conclude he wasn’t an all-star-level player that year. He had a bit of regression the next year on a different team and getting fewer minutes before the ABA blew up, but I think 1975 is an all-star season. If anything, I wonder if he was all-NBA level that season.

Anyways, I agree that top 10 is not reachable for Moses. I do have him in the back end of the top 15, though. And, at this point, between people who have already been inducted and nominated, we already have 14 players! So a new nominee naturally only needs to be a back-end-of-the-top-15 kind of guy, not a top-10 guy.

Just to be clear - I ranked Moses peak at MVP level, not weak MVP level. I understand that you may be higher on 1979-81 stretch, but to me Moses improved visibly on defensive end in 1981/82 season, which put him on another level.

About 1975 - it's not a problem with ABA production that I have here (I think I can adjust for that reasonably well mentally). The problem is that by all accounts, Moses was a horrible defender when he came into the league - which is expected from a teenager with no college experience. I guess you can still put him at all-star level, but defense is a huge thing to me. It's also the reason why I don't have 1979 Moses on MVP tier - because he didn't look good defensively in games I have watched from that season.

Back end of top 15 is a reasonable stance for Moses. I don't have anything against your nomination, just having a fun discussion about Moses (which doesn't happen too often on this board).

[trex_8063]

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

fwiw, I was a touch lower on him in my own quick-n-dirty CORP.

I too gave him credit for 2 MVP-level years (same years) [recall I said I was allowing myself half-measures between categories when I couldn't decide], but then only 1-2 Weak MVP seasons, plus just 2-3 other All-NBA years. The other 11 seasons I awarded credit to are rated at All-Star or less (with 6-7 being rated Sub All-Star or lower).
So that's 17 seasons that rated for me, vs 18 for you. I did not give him credit for anything in '76: played just 27 mpg, metrics are basically average, and he missed half the season. But it's a close thing; if he'd played another 12-15 games, I'd probably have given him credit for a Role Player year.

That places him 29th in my own.
I could see budging him up by a half-measure for one season I rated as only All-Star ['87], though that wouldn't change his rank.

[penbeast0]

Only for NBA years:

GOAT-level: 1 (1950)
All-time: 3 (1951, 1953, 1954)
MVP: 1 (1952)
Weak MVP: 0
All-nba: 0
All-star: 0
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 1 (1956)

I am far from Mikan expert though, so take it with a grain of salt. This evaluation takes him to the 33rd spot. If you include his pre-NBA seasons and give him additional 3 GOAT-level seasons, he'd end up 10th on my list, which is staggering considering his short career.

Additionally, the 2023 Project will focus on the play between the years '45-46 and '22-23.

Top 10 is what I would expect actually, despite the short career. He was that dominant. It all about the league strength adjustment for him.

[70sFan]

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

fwiw, I was a touch lower on him in my own quick-n-dirty CORP.

I too gave him credit for 2 MVP-level years (same years) [recall I said I was allowing myself half-measures between categories when I couldn't decide], but then only 1-2 Weak MVP seasons, plus just 2-3 other All-NBA years. The other 11 seasons I awarded credit to are rated at All-Star or less (with 6-7 being rated Sub All-Star or lower).
So that's 17 seasons that rated for me, vs 18 for you. I did not give him credit for anything in '76: played just 27 mpg, metrics are basically average, and he missed half the season. But it's a close thing; if he'd played another 12-15 games, I'd probably have given him credit for a Role Player year.

That places him 29th in my own.
I could see budging him up by a half-measure for one season I rated as only All-Star ['87], though that wouldn't change his rank.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are lower on Moses 1987-89 period than I am. To me, he was still an all-nba level plaer during that period, but most people don't view it as anything more than a mediocre all-star level years.

[DraymondGold]

You know what tests as the most "accurate" all-in-one?

DARKO!

Admittedly DARKO maintains that Duncan is the true king, but Garnett still fares a lot better than Steph ever has. You know who also fares better?

As the most accurate data has deemed it so, let me pronounce a bottom line: KG looks better than Steph by impact. As does CP3, the inarguable impact king(among guards) of the last 10-years. All hail Paul the point god?

“The main difference between DPM and the other player impact metrics is that DPM solely looks “forward” by giving the results in a Bayesian model which projects all elements of the box score. Backwards-looking in GOAT debates are not meaningful with DPM.”

“However, despite these advances, there has been a relative dearth of focus on forward-looking projections as opposed to backwards-looking explanations… DARKO (Daily Adjusted and Regressed Kalman Optimized projections) is an attempt to fill that gap.”

https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/

https://www.nbastuffer.com/analytics101/darko-daily-plus-minus/

I get that DARKO is a metric that is measuring something similar, but it’s genuinely not intended for the use you’re putting it towards, and other measures we’re talking about are.

Not looking to get in the middle of this, but I think it might be worth emphasizing the nbastuffer link above.

As jake suggested, DARKO is designed as a *predictive* stat (it uses past data to make predictions about how good a player *will be*),
while many other stats are *descriptive* stats (designed to look at the past and describe how good a player *was*).

Given so, you can test stats at how good they are at prediction. You can look at how having a good value in DARKO one season correlates with having lots of wins in the next season. This is a measure of how good of a *predictive* stat these metrics are.

DARKO has the best root mean squared error (RMSE). But EPM (which is commonly considered the best *descriptive* stat) has a better mean average error (MAE) and a better r squared (a higher r squared is better here).

And I think EPM favors Curry over Garnett, no?

It's also worth noting Steph is playing less minutes and possessions from 15-18. Incidentally Steph looks worse in data with minute-weightings(some of je's stuff) or that show possession loads(cheema):

One thing I'd note about peak Curry here. He sat out more fourth quarters than basically anyone in NBA history.

There's an implicit assumption in saying we should prioritize per season value rather than value per 100 possessions, for stats like RAPM/PIPM/etc.
1) First is the founding criteria that measuring "season value", not per game value or per minute value or per possession value, is what really matters when ranking players, what determines goodness, etc. This isn't an unreasonable criteria, but worth noting other people may have different criteria and that doesn't make them unreasonable people.

2) More importantly, there's an implicit assumption here that per 100 stats (the standard format of most impact metrics) are missing the season volume, which *biases the per 100 stats*. Put more directly, it's assuming that a player with a higher per-100 stat but a lower per-season stat only got the higher per-100 stat because they were resting or didn't have to play as many possessions. It assumes that if they were forced to play more possessions, their per-100 value would go down and their per-season value wouldn't change very much.

This second one is usually also not an unreasonable assumption. Me personally, I don't believe it's linear: if you increase the number of possessions a star plays, I would think their per-100-possession rate would go down, but not enough to make up for the extra possessions, and their per-season value would go up (if only slightly). But it's usually not a big deal.

Usually. But Steph might be the exception.

Most player's minutes don't go down in the fourth quarter. In blowout games they rest more in the fourth quarter, in close games they play more in the fourth quarter. But the 15–18 Warriors blew out more opponents than just about anyone in NBA history.

Let's check some recent stars (NBA.com/stats, splits, regular season, in game splits; numbers averaged per season):
Player: 1st quarter minutes, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, 4th quarter.
Garnett 01–04: 11.65, 8.03, 11.03, 9.15
Kobe 06–09: 11.5, 8.23, 11.2, 8.75
LeBron 09–13: 11.84, 6.9, 11.78, 8.3
Paul 12–15: 10.85, 7.48, 10.83, 8.25
Jokic 20–23: 10.13, 7.05,10.2, 7.15
Curry 15–18: 11.2, 6.3, 11.08, 6.23
Giannis 19–22: 8.03, 8.13, 8.65, 8.13
Paul 12–15: 10.85, 7.48, 10.83, 8.25

It looks like players always play the most in the 1st and 3rd quarter. So let's compare how much player's minutes go up or down in the 2nd Quarter vs the 4th quarter///
LeBron: +1.4 minutes in 4th quarter vs 2nd
Garnett: +1.12
Paul: +0.77
Kobe: +0.52
Jokic: +0.1
Giannis: +0
Curry: -0.07

So Curry's biggest difference in minutes comes from a discrepancy in the 4th quarter. Every star's minutes either remain or go up. Except Curry -- he's the only star whose minutes go down in the 4th. But it's not only his minutes in the fourth quarters he played that go down....

He actually played a fewer number of fourth quarters too! Curry sat out a historic amount of 4th Quarters in his peak years.
He completely sat out *20 4th quarters* in 2015, 19 in 2016, 25 in 2017, and 18 in 2018.
Compare that to Garnett, who sat out 4 in 2001, 6 in 2002, 2 in 2003, 3 in 2004.

This is not a situation where playing more in this this quarter he's resting would make Curry so much more tired in the next quarter that his per-100-possession value would drop enough that his per-season value wouldn't improve. There is no quarter after the 4th quarter! This is a situation where Curry's team was so dominant, when *Curry* was so dominant, that he was able to rest in 4th quarters more than any other star in the modern era.

And FWIW, I would guess games when Curry sat out in the 4th quarter would correlate with Curry's better games... so we'd expect playing more when he's having a better game could even give him more minutes when he's hot, improving his per-100 value (or at least limiting how much his per-100 value gets worse from increased fatigue from increased volume of minutes).

I'd argue here's one of the rare situations where a player was so good that their per-season value actually undersells them... because they were good enough to not have to push their minutes that much.

...

One final note. Ohayo, for someone who values WOWY so highly, I'm a bit confused why you're so low on Curry. You've said in the past that:

The main advantage of WOWY is that you can see what truly happens when a player is removed from a team.

. You've said WOWY was essential to why you rate e.g. LeBron over Jordan, why you rate Kareem and Hakeem so highly, etc.

And Curry *trounces* Garnett in WOWY. He arguably looks like the GOAT prime.

In the single-season data, prime Curry has a big enough advantage in WOWY to have a better career WOWY than Garnett, despite Garnett's larger number of games played.

In the multi-season large-sample data, prime Curry also has a large enough advantage to give him more career WOWY.

I mean if we look at their large-sample multi-year data, ranked by how valuable the samples are:
*Alternate Value: 2019–20 Warriors: Total change: +12.97 [Alternate years: Alternate Value using 2019 instead of 2021, subtracting 2021 Durant’s 1.97 WOWY. Klay’s 17–19 WOWY / 22 WOWY are both too noisy to use and at same time as other injuries.]
-2018 Warriors: 9.71 with, -0.16 without. Total change: +9.87 [Injury year] (51 games)
*Alternate Value: 2007–08 Celtics: Total change: +9.30 [Teammate Adjustment: Alternate Value subtracting 07 Ray Allen’s 3.7 WOWY]
-2020–21 Warriors: 0.4 with, -8.52 without. Total change: +8.92 [Injury year]
-2022–23 Warriors: 5.38 with, -1.0 without. Total: 6.38 [Injury year]
-2015–16 Timberwolves: -2.21 with, -7.57 without. Total change: +5.36 [Traded, joining Timberwolves]
-2012 Warriors: -0.54 with, -5.28 without. Total change: +4.74 [Injury year]
-2008–09 Celtics: 9.88 with, 5.33 without. Total change: +4.55 [Injury year]
-2013–14 Celtics: -0.62 with, -4.97 without. Total change: +4.35 [Traded, leaving Celtics]
*Alternate Value: 2009–10 Celtics: Total change: +3.98 [Alternate years: Alternate value using 2010 instead of 2008]
-2007–08 Timberwolves: -3.16 with, -6.26 without. Total change: +3.1 [Traded, leaving Timberwolves]
-1995–96 Timberwolves: -5.14 with, -8.22 without. Total change: +3.08 [Rookie year]
-2016 Timberwolves: -2.61 with, -4.34 without. Total change: +1.73 [Injury year]
-2009–10 Warriors: -3.28 with, -3.8 without. Total change: +0.52 [Rookie year]
-2015–16 Nets: -3.02 with, -2.73 without. Total change: -0.29 [Traded, leaving Nets]
-2016–17 Timberwolves: -2.61 with, -0.64 without. Total change: -1.97 [Retirement]
-2013–14 Nets: -1.57 with, 1.25 without. Total change: -2.82 [Traded, joining Nets]

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you value WOWY so much to rank LeBron, Kareem, Hakeem, Russell so highly... but then don't consider it at all for Curry. It seems a bit contradictory...

[lessthanjake]

Here is my Moses seasons evaluation to be more precise:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

I think I’m definitely higher on his peak—where I think it’s genuinely super impressive that he was better than a prime Kareem over a 5-year span. Maybe there’s a bit of rating-inflation at play here, but to me “Weak MVP” isn’t a category I’d apply to someone I think was the best player in the NBA at the time.

I think we mostly agree on a lot of the rest of his career, albeit with some slight differences. The other differences are mostly minor (and actually go both ways), but one thing I’m curious to get more explanation on is the “Sub all star” rating for 1975. It was an ABA season, so it can be a bit harder to rate. But he averaged 19 PPG and 15 RPG on over 60% TS%, and was 4th in the ABA in win shares and 6th in the ABA in PER. And this was late ABA—where the ABA was probably about as strong as the NBA. Of course, the ABA era artificially decreased the talent in both leagues, so he wouldn’t have been 4th or 6th in those metrics in a combined league. But it’s hard for me to look at those numbers and conclude he wasn’t an all-star-level player that year. He had a bit of regression the next year on a different team and getting fewer minutes before the ABA blew up, but I think 1975 is an all-star season. If anything, I wonder if he was all-NBA level that season.

Anyways, I agree that top 10 is not reachable for Moses. I do have him in the back end of the top 15, though. And, at this point, between people who have already been inducted and nominated, we already have 14 players! So a new nominee naturally only needs to be a back-end-of-the-top-15 kind of guy, not a top-10 guy.

Just to be clear - I ranked Moses peak at MVP level, not weak MVP level. I understand that you may be higher on 1979-81 stretch, but to me Moses improved visibly on defensive end in 1981/82 season, which put him on another level.

About 1975 - it's not a problem with ABA production that I have here (I think I can adjust for that reasonably well mentally). The problem is that by all accounts, Moses was a horrible defender when he came into the league - which is expected from a teenager with no college experience. I guess you can still put him at all-star level, but defense is a huge thing to me. It's also the reason why I don't have 1979 Moses on MVP tier - because he didn't look good defensively in games I have watched from that season.

Back end of top 15 is a reasonable stance for Moses. I don't have anything against your nomination, just having a fun discussion about Moses (which doesn't happen too often on this board).

Perhaps your stance is that he didn’t deserve this, but I will note that Moses was all-defensive second team in 1978-1979. And that was over guys like Elvin Hayes, Dave Cowens, Artis Gilmore, etc. He probably wouldn’t have gotten it if Walton hadn’t been injured, but he had a pretty good defensive reputation by then, even without having block totals that jump off the page.

Just anecdotally, I’ll also note that I think Moses was a pretty good post defender. I’ve noticed in some of the very early 1980s matchups between the Rockets and the Lakers that Kareem seems to have a much tougher time scoring on Moses than on most people. In particular, it feels to me like there’s a night and day difference between how easy it was for Kareem to score on Moses compared to Billy Paultz. And I looked at the stats in the games they played against each other from 1978-1979 to 1982-1983, and Kareem had a 57.6% TS% in those games—which is good but well below the 61.9% Kareem averaged in that timeframe. Given my anecdotal impression, I suspect that that TS% drop was driven more by possessions with Moses guarding him than other people, since it feels like Kareem just scored at will on others in a lot of their games against each other. Of course, that data is for that entire five-year period, and you’ve noted you see Moses as having gotten better at defending the last couple years of the time period, but it’s perhaps worth noting that the Rockets defeated the Lakers in the playoffs in 1981 in part because Kareem was held to just 51.7% TS% (in a season where he’d averaged 61.6% for the year). It’s a low sample size and I’m just talking about one matchup as an example, but I do think that Moses played Kareem well defensively and that feels meaningful to me regarding his defense.

It’s also perhaps worth noting that as early as 1977-1978, the Rockets gave up 107 points a game in the games Moses played, and 110 points a game in the 23 games he missed that season. Of course, that’s not per-possession data, but it does lend some support to the idea that Moses was a positive-impact defender at the time.

[Doctor MJ]

Do we have any WOWY figures for Mikan?

Just curious how dominant he was era-adjusted to some of the guys coming up. I have a hard time rating him in general due to the lack of data and film.

So, this question made me want to find APBR's NBL CSV files, but I'm not finding them. The link to their historical database is dead.

To share some anecdotal stuff that people can take for what they will:

Before the Lakers got Mikan, they got Jim Pollard who was considered THE big get for the NBL. That alone made them a favorite, and they started off the year well with Pollard at the start - I want to say they were 3-1. Then they acquired Mikan, re-oriented the system around Mikan, and the team got worse for a few games and there was a lot of drama as Mikan put up MVP stats on a team that could literally do better without him.

Herm Schaeffer was the veteran point guard on the team, and seems to have been more comfortable telling Mikan off than the coach (John Kundla) communicating the message that playing Mikan's way wasn't making use of the talent on the roster, with Pollard being the key guy. Kundla began implementing more complicated schemes that included what we would now call pick & roll. They end up stabilizing around an unbeatable combination for the era, though I think it's clear that Pollard never really got to play the way he was used to playing previously. Pollard remains a player whose reputation and description doesn't lineup with the statistical dominance we'd expect.

One thing that people talked about with Jim "Kangaroo Kid" Pollard was his extreme athleticism even at only 6'4" allowed him to kill all outside shooting prior to goaltending rules. He wasn't the same level of interior shotblocker to much taller guys because it took him time to rise to that height. He's often talked about as the best "all-around" player around during those Laker years...though during the World War II years he and his Stanford mentor Hank Luisetti went head to head and Luisetti came away still seen as the superior player - Luisetti apparently was unable to be stopped by Pollard's shotblocking because of his capacity for altering his shot mid-air.

[falcolombardi]

Quick post again, not much time to post in depth so apologies for that

#9 kevin garnett
Nearly unmatched impact signals over a extremely good longevity, with an archetype amd skillset that in theory would be even better in the modern game.

Some questions about playoff drop off exist, but the drop off comes from so high that his impact in playoffs still looks monstrous, able to lead a title team even a bit past his peak (08) and some incresible floor raising (04)

Alternate- magic johnson. In all honesty he would be my pick if not for his career being unfairly cut short, i think he would break the league offensively in the modern era akin to peak offense lebron with his skillset while likely being at least a neutral defender.

The aids suspension was no his fault but those are still seasons he didnt play affecting him

[Doctor MJ]

Do we have any WOWY figures for Mikan?

Just curious how dominant he was era-adjusted to some of the guys coming up. I have a hard time rating him in general due to the lack of data and film.

I was looking at his rookie season with the Gears in the NBL, so I remember those while I'm on mobile.

Adjusted to 82 game schedule:
41 win pace in '46 without Mikan
39 win pace in '47 in games Mikan didn't play (I want to say he was finishing up some university things, 9-10 without him)
56 win pace in '47 with Mikan (17-8 with him)

Drop from '54 to '55 and his first retirement not very extreme, something like 6 or 7 win pace drop.

I believe he only missed 6 games while with the Lakers (4 in '48 and 2 in '52), so no real mid career WOWY numbers to speak of.

Great stuff, do you remember where you found the data?

[eminence]

Do we have any WOWY figures for Mikan?

Just curious how dominant he was era-adjusted to some of the guys coming up. I have a hard time rating him in general due to the lack of data and film.

I was looking at his rookie season with the Gears in the NBL, so I remember those while I'm on mobile.

Adjusted to 82 game schedule:
41 win pace in '46 without Mikan
39 win pace in '47 in games Mikan didn't play (I want to say he was finishing up some university things, 9-10 without him)
56 win pace in '47 with Mikan (17-8 with him)

Drop from '54 to '55 and his first retirement not very extreme, something like 6 or 7 win pace drop.

I believe he only missed 6 games while with the Lakers (4 in '48 and 2 in '52), so no real mid career WOWY numbers to speak of.

Great stuff, do you remember where you found the data?

nbastats.net

Under the "Player Game Logs" heading there's a George Mikan download, worked for me as of a few days ago.

[homecourtloss]

I think the problem I have with Moses is that his career after 1985 took a strange path. He got traded twice and even though he was still a strong contributor to these teams, he didn't really turn them into contenders on a fly.

I think Moses prime was relatively short despite a long career (only really 1979-85), which hurts his case against the other top 15 players ever. With that being said, I am glad to see someone who finally gives Moses recognition.

There’s some truth to that, but I’d push back a little bit:

Moses was all-NBA second team in the 1986-1987 season. And, based on all-NBA voting in those years, if all-NBA third team had existed back then, he would’ve gotten it in the 1985-1986 and 1987-1988 seasons. He then rightly was an all star selection in the 1988-1989 season (and was the 4th-voted center in all-NBA voting). I think he had another all-star level season in 1989-1990, though Parish was selected to the team over him (even though the fan vote had Moses voted above Parish). He then was a pretty good player in 1990-1991 and 1991-1992 (and I’d say a borderline all-star in the latter season, though I think he was rightly not chosen). So, overall, after that 1979-1985 time period, we’re looking at 1 all-NBA second-team season, 2 all-NBA third-team seasons, 2 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season. If we don’t consider any of that his prime, then it’s at least a really great post-prime!

And of course there’s also the pre-prime stuff. Moses was an all-star in 1977-1978. He was an all-star level player the year before that (he didn’t make the all star game but actually was 6th in MVP voting by the end of the year!), and had also been at the very least a strong all star at age 19 as a rookie in the ABA (he was 4th and 6th in the ABA in win shares and PER) at a time when the ABA was similarly strong as the NBA.

So, ultimately, here’s how I see it: From 1978-1979 to 1984-1985, Moses was an MVP-level player. That’s 7 MVP-level seasons (maybe 6 if we demote 1983-1984 to all-NBA level). On top of that, he had 3 all-NBA second/third-team level seasons, 5 all-star level seasons, 1 borderline all-star level season, and 1 solid-contributor season (and then a few low-value bench/injury seasons beyond that).

That may be lacking in number of MVP-level seasons compared to some of the people nominated currently, but I’d say it’s a pretty good longevity profile as compared to most anyone not yet nominated (with certain exceptions, like Karl Malone). And it wouldn’t even really *have* to be as good, given that he’s fairly unique at this stage in having a 5-year peak where he was probably the best player in the world (which cannot be said by anyone else besides Mikan—who Moses definitely has longevity over).

Here is my Moses seasons evaluation to be more precise:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 2 (1982, 1983)
Weak MVP: 4 (1979-81 + 1985)
All-nba: 4 (1984, 1987-89)
All-star: 4 (1977, 1978, 1986, 1990)
Sub all-star: 3 (1975, 1991-1992)
Role player: 1 (1976)

That gives him 22nd spot in my CORP evaluation. Now, if you are higher on his peak and more bullish on his accolades, I can see him being higher - even inside top 15. I don't think top 10 is reachable for him though.

We’ve had some good discussion about Moses in the past and his uniqueness especially after you posted some videos breaking down his game. We know that he did give Kareem fits with that non-stop motor (gave everyone fits. Do you agree with the sentiment that Prime Moses dominated Prime Kareem as posited below? You have a physical peak Moses between ages 23-27 whereas Kareem is between ages 31-35, so it seems unfair to say “Prime Kareem” and have it equivalent and compared to “Prime Moses.”

Prime Moses dominated prime Kareem

Another piece of info regarding Moses Malone:

In those 5 years where he was the best player in the world (1978-1979 to 1982-1983), he faced Kareem on 23 occasions. Despite having a far weaker team most of the years, Moses’s team won 12 of those 23 games—crucially including winning both playoff series between the two.

Moses Malone dominated the individual matchup too. Here’s some stats from those 23 games:

Moses Malone stats vs. Kareem: 1978-1979 to 1982-1983

PPG: 29.9
RPG: 17.5
APG: 1.8
TS%: 60.4%

Kareem stats vs. Moses Malone: 1978-1979 to 1982-1983

PPG: 23.5
RPG: 9.4
APG: 3.8
TS%: 57.6%