RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #10 (Magic Johnson)

[lessthanjake]

PlayVal: Playmaking value, an estimate of a player’s points per 100 impact from playmaking only.

Are you aware of exactly what PlayVal actually is? Like, what goes into the measure, what the formula is made to approximate, etc?

I’m generally pretty low on almost all the Backpicks-created box stats, to be honest. They seem pretty dubious to me, since they’re basically just Ben Taylor fitting a formula to fit his own hand-counted subjective assessments from some film (and likely peeking at the output while he did so, to make sure that output of the formula actually had people on top that he thought should be on top). But I’m not aware of the specifics of what PlayVal actually even is.

[jalengreen]

Another data point for Steph's playmaking is here https://synergysports.com/impacting-other-players-shot-quality/ .
Over the last year Synergy developed a shot quality model and they performed an RAPM-like analysis of who improves teammate shot quality (basically quantifying the impact of playmaking). Steph grades out at and near the top over all the seasons they tested.

Good content. While impressive, I think this also goes against the previously mentioned idea of Steph being the clear #1 shot quality improver of this era.

https://synergysports.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Image-2-xPoints-added-by-year.png

By my count, Harden ranks above Curry in four of six spans. Trae ranks above Curry in four of four spans since entering the league. Three of four for Luka. Three of six for LeBron. All of them have a higher average rank than Curry.

We don't know Magic's numbers for his era, obviously, but this certainly doesn't support the notion that Steph dominates his peers in the playmaking sphere. Just that he's right up there with them (which is pretty good, of course!).

So I think there’s a few things going on here:

1. The data I provided was over larger timespans (including analyzing from earlier years than this starts), rather than two-year snippets. Anything like this measured over shorter timespans is much more subject to statistical noise, so a guy can be the top of the heap overall without always being the highest in shorter timespans (indeed, that’s typically how this sort of data would go). I’ll note that in the data I looked at, Steph probably isn’t the very top of the league in the last couple years, and wasn’t a huge outlier in 2018-2019 either (though he was still great). So this is actually not entirely inconsistent with my analysis IMO, as much as it is just taking smaller snippets of time periods, which are subject to more randomness. And, of course, a couple of those timeframes include the 2019-2020 season that Steph barely played, so they’re even lower sample size for him and aren’t exactly comparable timespans to compare to other guys on.

2. The data I was looking at included playoff data too, not just regular season. And that could potentially have some pretty significant effects (for instance, on a guy like Harden).

3. I think this is based on a different measure of “shot quality.” I used pbpstats data on shot quality, and it doesn’t seem to line up with some of what is recited in the text of that article. That article says that, in the 2021-2022 season, Dwight Powell had a shot quality of 1.40 points per shot with Luka on and 1.33 with Luka off. The pbpstats numbers would have that as 1.25 vs. 1.21. Not sure quite how much these two measures differ (or which one is better), but it surely makes at least some difference.

The pbpstats shot quality metric does not take into account level of contest. i.e. whether a shot is wide open or heavily contested. You can read about it here: https://darrylblackport.com/posts/2018-09-03-pbp-shot-quality-model/ . Darryl admits that it may not be "better" than proprietary metrics - the Synergy metric is one of those proprietary metrics that is able to factor in defensive pressure. You can read about that one here: https://synergysports.com/explaining-synergy-shot-quality/

[lessthanjake]

Good content. While impressive, I think this also goes against the previously mentioned idea of Steph being the clear #1 shot quality improver of this era.

https://synergysports.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Image-2-xPoints-added-by-year.png

By my count, Harden ranks above Curry in four of six spans. Trae ranks above Curry in four of four spans since entering the league. Three of four for Luka. Three of six for LeBron. All of them have a higher average rank than Curry.

We don't know Magic's numbers for his era, obviously, but this certainly doesn't support the notion that Steph dominates his peers in the playmaking sphere. Just that he's right up there with them (which is pretty good, of course!).

So I think there’s a few things going on here:

1. The data I provided was over larger timespans (including analyzing from earlier years than this starts), rather than two-year snippets. Anything like this measured over shorter timespans is much more subject to statistical noise, so a guy can be the top of the heap overall without always being the highest in shorter timespans (indeed, that’s typically how this sort of data would go). I’ll note that in the data I looked at, Steph probably isn’t the very top of the league in the last couple years, and wasn’t a huge outlier in 2018-2019 either (though he was still great). So this is actually not entirely inconsistent with my analysis IMO, as much as it is just taking smaller snippets of time periods, which are subject to more randomness. And, of course, a couple of those timeframes include the 2019-2020 season that Steph barely played, so they’re even lower sample size for him and aren’t exactly comparable timespans to compare to other guys on.

2. The data I was looking at included playoff data too, not just regular season. And that could potentially have some pretty significant effects (for instance, on a guy like Harden).

3. I think this is based on a different measure of “shot quality.” I used pbpstats data on shot quality, and it doesn’t seem to line up with some of what is recited in the text of that article. That article says that, in the 2021-2022 season, Dwight Powell had a shot quality of 1.40 points per shot with Luka on and 1.33 with Luka off. The pbpstats numbers would have that as 1.25 vs. 1.21. Not sure quite how much these two measures differ (or which one is better), but it surely makes at least some difference.

The pbpstats shot quality metric does not take into account level of contest. i.e. whether a shot is wide open or heavily contested. You can read about it here: https://darrylblackport.com/posts/2018-09-03-pbp-shot-quality-model/ . Darryl admits that it may not be "better" than proprietary metrics - the Synergy metric is one of those proprietary metrics that is able to factor in defensive pressure. You can read about that one here: https://synergysports.com/explaining-synergy-shot-quality/

Yeah, that’s a point in favor of the synergy model, but it only takes that into account for catch-and-shoot jumpers and is only taken into account in a binary way (i.e. “guarded” vs. “unguarded”), so the data it’s adding is not actually very detailed. Notably, when the pbpstats explanation talks about how a model with defensive pressure would be better, it is basing that on prior data that had information on defender distance (i.e. much more detailed than a binary “guarded” vs. “unguarded”) and the primary area of improvement from that was on measuring shot quality for attempts in the restricted area, which the synergy model isn’t going to have data on defensive pressure for either, since it is only logging it for catch-and-shoot jumpers. So I don’t really think that that’s reason to conclude that the synergy model is necessarily better, especially as the pbpstats one has a bunch of other stuff that it considers that the synergy model doesn’t (more detailed info about whether a play started off an offensive rebound, timeout, FT make, deadball, etc., rather than only considering if it was off a steal or not; what time in the game it is; the exact seconds since the play started rather than just a binary modeling of whether there were 5 seconds or less left or not; etc.).

[70sFan]

Very strong disagree on it making more sense to look at what happens against “good defensive teams” as opposed to actually good teams. A team that is mediocre but has a good defensive rating is still not a difficult playoff opponent, and it’s not those playoff series’s that matter the most. Conversely, a really good team that doesn’t have a great defensive rating is still a difficult playoff opponent, and that series is one of the ones that matter the most. The series’ that matter the most are the ones against actually good opponents, and in those series’, Steph’s offenses have been better.

Then compare their Net Rating instead of ORtg only. Or filter for only good teams among these good defensive teams.

You are arguing that it's easier to have a good ORtg against 2018 Cavs than 1980 Suns basically. Please, explain me how you came up with that idea.

Anyways, as I read the data you listed, Steph still looks better in this (albeit slightly) until you artificially limit consideration to only a few series for both (which happens to take out the worst series for the Lakers, and take out the best ones for the Warriors). So it’s perhaps a moot point, since really Steph looks better here too unless we just narrow and narrow until we can find some way to say Magic looks better.

It can be very frustrating when people try to find agenda in posts like my original one, when all I do is present the data...

No, I didn't "artifically" limit my sample. I didn't take out the worst series for the Lakers, here is the comparison for pre-1988 and post-1988 Lakers:

1980-87 Lakers: 37 108,4 102,4 5,9 2,3 106,1
1988-91 Lakers: 40 110,8 104,4 6,4 2,9 107,9

The difference is very minor between these two samples. Instead of accusing me of manipulating data, it would be nice to see at least the slightest sign of appreciation for providing something that can be valuable to discussion.

It's true that I excluded some of the best series for Steph in my second counting (not in the original one), but that's total of 3 series and one of them is the one against the Spurs without Kawhi (guess what - it is by far the biggest overperformance out of both players samples). If I only exclude this series (for obvious reasons), Steph sample would actually look worse:

Steph (without 2017 WCF): 58 111,0 105,5 5,5 2,4 108,7

I didn't do that though, I decided to use all series regadless of context. I have no agenda here, I don't vote and I only want to provide valuable content. If you are not interested in my input, maybe I shouldn't post in the project at all.

[lessthanjake]

Very strong disagree on it making more sense to look at what happens against “good defensive teams” as opposed to actually good teams. A team that is mediocre but has a good defensive rating is still not a difficult playoff opponent, and it’s not those playoff series’s that matter the most. Conversely, a really good team that doesn’t have a great defensive rating is still a difficult playoff opponent, and that series is one of the ones that matter the most. The series’ that matter the most are the ones against actually good opponents, and in those series’, Steph’s offenses have been better.

Then compare their Net Rating instead of ORtg only. Or filter for only good teams among these good defensive teams.

You are arguing that it's easier to have a good ORtg against 2018 Cavs than 1980 Suns basically. Please, explain me how you came up with that idea.

I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m getting at. I’m not trying to isolate out what happened offensively in the series’ where these teams faced the best defenses. I’m trying to isolate out what these teams did offensively in the series’ where they faced actually good teams, since those are the playoff series that actually matter the most. If one of these teams faced a mediocre team that happened to nevertheless have a good RS defense, that doesn’t make that opponent a good team for which that series should be something we care about that much. Similarly, if one of these teams faced a good team that had a bad RS defense, that is still a series we should care about, since the bottom line is it's against a good team and those are the series' that are most important. To the extent your objection is that that would inflate a player/team if they played against a good team with a bad defense, I'd note that I've provided data that measures offensive performance relative to opponents' defensive rating, so that should be controlled for in the data. It takes a much better offensive rating to have a good rORTG against the 2018 Cavs than it would against a great defensive team.

Anyways, as I read the data you listed, Steph still looks better in this (albeit slightly) until you artificially limit consideration to only a few series for both (which happens to take out the worst series for the Lakers, and take out the best ones for the Warriors). So it’s perhaps a moot point, since really Steph looks better here too unless we just narrow and narrow until we can find some way to say Magic looks better.

It can be very frustrating when people try to find agenda in posts like my original one, when all I do is present the data...

No, I didn't "artifically" limit my sample. I didn't take out the worst series for the Lakers, here is the comparison for pre-1988 and post-1988 Lakers:

1980-87 Lakers: 37 108,4 102,4 5,9 2,3 106,1
1988-91 Lakers: 40 110,8 104,4 6,4 2,9 107,9

The difference is very minor between these two samples. Instead of accusing me of manipulating data, it would be nice to see at least the slightest sign of appreciation for providing something that can be valuable to discussion.

I didn't "accuse you of manipulating data." You were very upfront in what you provided. You provided overall data, in which Steph looked better (albeit by a small margin). You then provided a much more narrow set of data that objectively took out lesser data for Magic and took out the best data for Steph, and in that narrowed set of data, Magic came out ahead. Pointing out that that's what the information you provided was is not accusing you of manipulation. I'm just pointing out that your data only had Magic ahead in a substantially narrowed sample (while Steph was ahead in the overall data you also provided). And personally, I don't find data from that substantially narrowed sample particularly meaningful.

I'm not entirely sure why you are taking what I said as an accusation. Perhaps the word "artificial"? I do think that the second set of data you provided imposed artificial limitations on what was being considered in a way that doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm not accusing you of hiding the ball or something (nor could I, since you did not do so). Maybe me saying “narrow and narrow until we can find some way to say Magic looks better”? Perhaps that was a bit accusatory sounding now that I look at it again, but I actually didn’t mean it to be. Let’s just pretend the “we can find some way to say” part wasn’t there, since I think maybe that suggested a tone I did not intend to be having.

It's true that I excluded some of the best series for Steph in my second counting (not in the original one), but that's total of 3 series and one of them is the one against the Spurs without Kawhi (guess what - it is by far the biggest overperformance out of both players samples). If I only exclude this series (for obvious reasons), Steph sample would actually look worse:

Steph (without 2017 WCF): 58 111,0 105,5 5,5 2,4 108,7

I didn't do that though, I decided to use all series regadless of context. I have no agenda here, I don't vote and I only want to provide valuable content. If you are not interested in my input, maybe I shouldn't post in the project at all.

Please note that, in the 2016-2017 season, the Spurs had an *incredible* -10.4 rDRTG in minutes where Kawhi was off the court (which was actually substantially better than their rDRTG in minutes Kawhi was on the court). While losing Kawhi was certainly a blow, I don’t think there’s a particularly good argument that missing Kawhi really made them notably worse defensively. Nor is there really a great argument that they weren’t still a good team without Kawhi—they had a +6.9 net rating with Kawhi off the court that year (and it was actually +7.98 if we take out low leverage situations, according to pbpstats).

[70sFan]

I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m getting at. I’m not trying to isolate out what happened offensively in the series’ where these teams faced the best defenses. I’m trying to isolate out what these teams did offensively in the series’ where they faced actually good teams, since those are the playoff series that actually matter the most. If one of these teams faced a mediocre team that happened to nevertheless have a good RS defense, that doesn’t make that opponent a good team for which that series should be something we care about that much. Similarly, if one of these teams faced a good team that had a bad RS defense, that is still a series we should care about, since the bottom line is it's against a good team and those are the series' that are most important. To the extent your objection is that that would inflate a player if they played against a good team with a bad defense, I'd note that I've provided data that measures offensive performance relative to opponents' defensive rating, so that should be controlled for in the data. It takes a much better offensive rating to have a good rORTG against the 2018 Cavs than it would against a great defensive team.

We can agree to disagree on that part.

I'm not really sure why you are taking what I said as an accusation. Perhaps the word "artificial"? I do think that the second set of data you provided imposed artificial limitations on what was being considered in a way that doesn't make much sense to me,

Does looking at years when players didn't share the load with another all-time great offensive player make no sense? Is it an artifical limitation? I don't know, to me it's just another layer of contextualizing the data we have.

but I'm not accusing you of hiding the ball or something (nor could I, since you did not do so). Maybe me saying “narrow and narrow until we can find some way to say Magic looks better”? Perhaps that was a bit accusatory sounding now that I look at it again, but I actually didn’t mean it to be. Let’s just pretend the “we can find some way to say” part wasn’t there, since I think maybe that suggested a tone I did not intend to be having.

Yes, I think it's this part that made me frustrated a bit. Good that you explained your thought process on that one, we are fine.

Please note that, in the 2016-2017 season, the Spurs had an *incredible* -10.4 rDRTG in minutes where Kawhi was off the court (which was actually substantially better than their rDRTG in minutes Kawhi was on the court). While losing Kawhi was certainly a blow, I don’t think there’s a particularly good argument that missing Kawhi really made them notably worse defensively (nor is there really a great argument that they weren’t still a good team without Kawhi—they had a +6.9 net rating with Kawhi off the court that year).

That's fair and this is the reason why I didn't exclude that series from the initial sample... but again, by your method of looking at that you shouldn't include this series, because Spurs without Kawhi certainly were not good playoff team. We have seen them next season being still a strong defense, but not a strong team overall - and you argued that such series shouldn't be considered to evaluate offensive players performance.

[lessthanjake]

Does looking at years when players didn't share the load with another all-time great offensive player make no sense? Is it an artifical limitation? I don't know, to me it's just another layer of contextualizing the data we have.

Well, in this case it makes little sense to me because a big part of the picture of these two players offensively is that Steph’s playoff offense against good teams when he had another all-time great offensive player on his team was superior to Magic’s playoff offense against good teams when he had another all-time great offensive player on his team. That’s a huge part of both these players’ careers (particularly Magic, who played with Kareem most of his career)! And once we take away those years, we’re ignoring huge parts of their careers and also only considering a low sample size of data (just a handful of series for each).

And, in any event, if we’re going to be talking about who was on their teams and trying to correct for that, I think we’d have to acknowledge that, on average, the Lakers were surely overall more talented offensively during Magic’s prime than the Warriors were in Steph’s prime. Besides Durant, the Warriors always had a defensively slanted roster (and frankly just not an offensively talented roster at all in recent years), while the Lakers had a historically large amount of offensive talent. Not just because they had Kareem (and for way longer than Steph had Durant), but because of the rest of the roster too. Under those circumstances, for Steph’s Warriors to do better overall in playoff rORTG against good teams than Magic’s Lakers did is a massive achievement and says quite a lot IMO! So I think I was actually being pretty charitable to just provide raw team data and not delve into teammates.

Please note that, in the 2016-2017 season, the Spurs had an *incredible* -10.4 rDRTG in minutes where Kawhi was off the court (which was actually substantially better than their rDRTG in minutes Kawhi was on the court). While losing Kawhi was certainly a blow, I don’t think there’s a particularly good argument that missing Kawhi really made them notably worse defensively (nor is there really a great argument that they weren’t still a good team without Kawhi—they had a +6.9 net rating with Kawhi off the court that year).

That's fair and this is the reason why I didn't exclude that series from the initial sample... but again, by your method of looking at that you shouldn't include this series, because Spurs without Kawhi certainly were not good playoff team. We have seen them next season being still a strong defense, but not a strong team overall - and you argued that such series shouldn't be considered to evaluate offensive players performance.

But, as I noted above, I don’t actually think there’s a good argument that the 2016-2017 Spurs weren’t a “good” team even without Kawhi. They had a +6.9 net rating with Kawhi off the court (and it was +7.98 if you filter out low-leverage garbage time). My SRS cutoff for being a good team was just 4+ SRS. Given the Spurs’s net rating that season without Kawhi, I think the most reasonable conclusion is that that Spurs team was still good enough to qualify for the “good” team cutoff I used. They certainly played like a 4+ SRS team when Kawhi was off the floor!

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Magic Johnson
Vote 2 - Larry Bird

Not many players started their career off with a bang the way magic did. He led the lakers to 60 wins and a famous finals clinching performance against the sixers with 42 pts, 15 rebounds, and 7 assists. This came against a sixers team who ranked 1st in DRTG that season. To have that kind of impact out the gate as a rookie is rare to say the least.

His marked consistency throughout his career from a statistical as well as team standpoint (lakers made the finals 9 times from 80-91) was remarkable. For a guy who didn't develop a 3PT shot until late in his career and did play guard regardless of size, posting a TS% of 60+ for the majority of his career was more than impressive.

No doubt he had plenty of talent around him over the years, but he was the key to navigating that team to their success throughout the 80s (cue the "tragic johnson" stories...) He had a truly unique impact on the court due to decision making that was only rivaled by a select few in the history of the league.

I'd also argue that he was a top 3 basketball mind of all time, and if you want to be conservative he was very clearly top 5. His on the fly decision making was incredible, and he followed that up with consistent play overall. If magic didn't live up to expectations, his truly unique skill set wouldn't have been as impressive. The fact that his level of play paralleled that skill set puts him in very short company.

[eminence]

Anybody got a nomination vote count so far?

[70sFan]

Well, in this case it makes little sense to me because a big part of the picture of these two players offensively is that Steph’s playoff offense against good teams when he had another all-time great offensive player on his team was superior to Magic’s playoff offense against good teams when he had another all-time great offensive player on his team. That’s a huge part of both these players’ careers (particularly Magic, who played with Kareem most of his career)! And once we take away those years, we’re ignoring huge parts of their careers and also only considering a low sample size of data (just a handful of series for each).

To be precise, Steph playoff offense in 2017 was superior to Magic playoff offense. Curry never replicated anything even close to 2017 performance and these series have a huge influence on overall averages.

The numbers we have suggest that Curry and Magic achieved similar results in postseason throughout their careers and Curry's team peaked the highest. Nothing more or less.

And, in any event, if we’re going to be talking about who was on their teams and trying to correct for that, I think we’d have to acknowledge that, on average, the Lakers were surely overall more talented offensively during Magic’s prime than the Warriors were in Steph’s prime. Besides Durant, the Warriors always had a defensively slanted roster (and frankly just not an offensively talented roster at all in recent years), while the Lakers had a historically large amount of offensive talent. Not just because they had Kareem (and for way longer than Steph had Durant), but because of the rest of the roster too. Under those circumstances, for Steph’s Warriors to do better overall in playoff rORTG against good teams than Magic’s Lakers did is a massive achievement and says quite a lot IMO! So I think I was actually being pretty charitable to just provide raw team data and not delve into teammates.

I don't think I'd agree that Curry has weaker offensive help around him than Magic on average. I think it's far from given, but I am not interested to create another very long discussion about very subjective feelings about the subject.

But, as I noted above, I don’t actually think there’s a good argument that the 2016-2017 Spurs weren’t a “good” team even without Kawhi. They had a +6.9 net rating with Kawhi off the court (and it was +7.98 if you filter out low-leverage garbage time). My SRS cutoff for being a good team was just 4+ SRS. Given the Spurs’s net rating that season without Kawhi, I think the most reasonable conclusion is that that Spurs team was still good enough to qualify for the “good” team cutoff I used. They certainly played like a 4+ SRS team when Kawhi was off the floor!

The majority of minutes played without Kawhi were against bench units, so you can't just extrapolate +6 or +7 off number. We have seen them without Kawhi in 2017/18 season and they were certainly solid - but they finished with +2.9 SRS which puts them below your +4 boundary value.

Anyway, I don't think data I provided gives any edge to either player. People are way too fixated into the exact values. The difference between +6.2 and +6.4 rORtg is significantly smaller than the noise. These numbers only show that both players usually led their teams up to expected overperformance against top tier defensive teams in the league.

[One_and_Done]

Anybody got a nomination vote count so far?

Vote is 8 Magic, 6 Curry.

Nominations are 5 West, then one each for Moses, Oscar, Dirk, KD, D.Rob and K.Malone. i'm basically waiting to switch my nom to the first modernist player to get traction, so if people want to stop splitting the vote I might have someone I can be excited to vote for at #13.

[lessthanjake]

Well, in this case it makes little sense to me because a big part of the picture of these two players offensively is that Steph’s playoff offense against good teams when he had another all-time great offensive player on his team was superior to Magic’s playoff offense against good teams when he had another all-time great offensive player on his team. That’s a huge part of both these players’ careers (particularly Magic, who played with Kareem most of his career)! And once we take away those years, we’re ignoring huge parts of their careers and also only considering a low sample size of data (just a handful of series for each).

To be precise, Steph playoff offense in 2017 was superior to Magic playoff offense. Curry never replicated anything even close to 2017 performance and these series have a huge influence on overall averages.

The numbers we have suggest that Curry and Magic achieved similar results in postseason throughout their careers and Curry's team peaked the highest. Nothing more or less.

That’s perhaps fair (though I’d note we should remember that 2017 did actually happen, so should definitely not be ignored), except I’d also point out that Magic’s teams were much more likely to actually have a negative rDRTG compared to their opponents’ defensive rating. Which is notable, since the origin of this discussion (i.e. the reason I looked into this data) actually came about when someone said that it was easier to prevent Steph from making his teams’ offense good in the postseason.

But, as I noted above, I don’t actually think there’s a good argument that the 2016-2017 Spurs weren’t a “good” team even without Kawhi. They had a +6.9 net rating with Kawhi off the court (and it was +7.98 if you filter out low-leverage garbage time). My SRS cutoff for being a good team was just 4+ SRS. Given the Spurs’s net rating that season without Kawhi, I think the most reasonable conclusion is that that Spurs team was still good enough to qualify for the “good” team cutoff I used. They certainly played like a 4+ SRS team when Kawhi was off the floor!

The majority of minutes played without Kawhi were against bench units, so you can't just extrapolate +6 or +7 off number. We have seen them without Kawhi in 2017/18 season and they were certainly solid - but they finished with +2.9 SRS which puts them below your +4 boundary value.

The 2017-2018 Spurs and 2016-2017 Spurs were different in more ways than just Kawhi being out though. For instance, the 2016-2017 team was a team with some very old players that had gotten even older in 2017-2018. And they were a +3 SRS team even in 2017-2018, so I don’t think it’s remotely implausible that the Spurs were a 4+ SRS team without Kawhi the year before, especially when we know that they actually played like a +6.8 team (and more like +8 in non-garbage time) in minutes Kawhi didn’t play. And that’s further backed by the fact that they had a +7.2 net rating with Kawhi off the court in 2015-2016 (and it was +10.27 if you filter out garbage time), so we know the “off” number in 2016-2017 wasn’t a fluke. The most notable difference between that 2015-2016 team and the 2016-2017 team was loss of Duncan, but the 2015-2016 team was also +6.2 without Kawhi and Duncan (and +10.79 if you filter out garbage time). The Spurs were *really* good without Kawhi! Also, you mentioned that the minutes without Kawhi “were against bench units,” but they actually did even better that year in the full games Kawhi missed than they did in their overall Kawhi “off” minutes. And if you combined Kawhi’s missed games in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 (which gives a larger sample of missed games for these years where they had a great net rating with Kawhi off), we find that the Spurs had an average margin of victory of +8.4 in games Kawhi missed in those years. Which is both really high and also actually *higher* than their overall net rating in those years without Kawhi—strongly suggesting that them being against bench units without Kawhi was not driving the high numbers. The bottom line is that I think there’s *very good* reason to believe that the 2016-2017 Spurs were still a 4+ SRS team without Kawhi, and so I do not think it would be fair to take them out of the analysis.

[iggymcfrack]

Wanted to make sure to get a voting post in even if it might not be quite as in-depth as I had planned.

Vote: Steph Curry
I still have him as the GOAT PG. Offense-only, it's really hard to tell between him and Magic. Magic led better regular season offenses, and they led pretty similar offenses in the playoffs, but Steph did it in a tougher era and probably with slightly worse teammates on average. The post Durant years have probably all had worse league adjusted talent on offense than what Magic played with and the peak offenses even before Durant came on board were better than the peak Lakers' offenses all-around.

Ultimately, the differentiator is their defense. With years of data and observation, I feel that Curry is at absolute worst a league average defender, and probably a little above average. Meanwhile, Magic is almost universally regarded as a poor defender with the range being from a little below average to downright being a liability. This is extremely notable since usually legendary offensive players who win titles get a little bit of the benefit of the doubt with their defensive reputation with Kobe being a prime example as he was winning all-defense awards in years where he was actually one of the worst defensive guards in the entire NBA.

Alternate: Magic Johnson

Nomination: David Robinson
Absolute beast on both ends. Ranks 6th all-time in PER with 2 of the players ahead of him (Joker and AD) being guys who haven't hit their decline phase yet. 5th all-time in BPM and 2nd all-time in WS/48. Absolutely legendary defender who joined a below average defense as a rookie that would rank last in the league the year he was injured and led them to ranks of 3rd, 1st, 1st, 10th, 9th, 5th, and 3rd in the interim. Had 5 relatively prime years in the databall era (age 31-35) and over that period, he had an on/off of +6.1 in the regular season and +27.4 in the playoffs over that period. I think he was a better player than Bill Russell and I'll die on that hill.

[Gibson22]

Wanted to make sure to get a voting post in even if it might not be quite as in-depth as I had planned.

Vote: Steph Curry
I still have him as the GOAT PG. Offense-only, it's really hard to tell between him and Magic. Magic led better regular season offenses, and they led pretty similar offenses in the playoffs, but Steph did it in a tougher era and probably with slightly worse teammates on average. The post Durant years have probably all had worse league adjusted talent on offense than what Magic played with and the peak offenses even before Durant came on board were better than the peak Lakers' offenses all-around.

Ultimately, the differentiator is their defense. With years of data and observation, I feel that Curry is at absolute worst a league average defender, and probably a little above average. Meanwhile, Magic is almost universally regarded as a poor defender with the range being from a little below average to downright being a liability. This is extremely notable since usually legendary offensive players who win titles get a little bit of the benefit of the doubt with their defensive reputation with Kobe being a prime example as he was winning all-defense awards in years where he was actually one of the worst defensive guards in the entire NBA.

Alternate: Magic Johnson

Nomination: David Robinson
Absolute beast on both ends. Ranks 6th all-time in PER with 2 of the players ahead of him (Joker and AD) being guys who haven't hit their decline phase yet. 5th all-time in BPM and 2nd all-time in WS/48. Absolutely legendary defender who joined a below average defense as a rookie that would rank last in the league the year he was injured and led them to ranks of 3rd, 1st, 1st, 10th, 9th, 5th, and 3rd in the interim. Had 5 relatively prime years in the databall era (age 31-35) and over that period, he had an on/off of +6.1 in the regular season and +27.4 in the playoffs over that period. I think he was a better player than Bill Russell and I'll die on that hill.

Mhh, I think that basing your decision for curry over magic on defense is a bit meh, defining curry as "at absolute worst a league average defender" is a bit too much, he's someone who has had years where he was below average and season where he was average or slightly above average (starting pg defender), but also because he's mostly always been in a great defensive system with great defenders aroudn him, I mean he's still always kind of a liability. And magic was a bad defender but for 6'8, like, bad for a big wing, not for a pg. Like, I think that magic's defense at 6'8" was still better than a respectable average size defender, not of an elite one but I'd say, significantly better than curry's. It's the usual thing, people tend to judge compared to what a player could do. not compared to like an average player.

[penbeast0]

When Magic had to guard guards, he had a lot of trouble; he just wasn't quick enough to hang with the point guards or quick combo guards. That's why they used Scott, Nixon, and Cooper on them, even McGee if necessary. He was below average as a wing defender compared to other starting wing defenders in the league; above average in reading opposing sets to cut off passing lanes.

[lessthanjake]

Wanted to make sure to get a voting post in even if it might not be quite as in-depth as I had planned.

Vote: Steph Curry
I still have him as the GOAT PG. Offense-only, it's really hard to tell between him and Magic. Magic led better regular season offenses, and they led pretty similar offenses in the playoffs, but Steph did it in a tougher era and probably with slightly worse teammates on average. The post Durant years have probably all had worse league adjusted talent on offense than what Magic played with and the peak offenses even before Durant came on board were better than the peak Lakers' offenses all-around.

Ultimately, the differentiator is their defense. With years of data and observation, I feel that Curry is at absolute worst a league average defender, and probably a little above average. Meanwhile, Magic is almost universally regarded as a poor defender with the range being from a little below average to downright being a liability. This is extremely notable since usually legendary offensive players who win titles get a little bit of the benefit of the doubt with their defensive reputation with Kobe being a prime example as he was winning all-defense awards in years where he was actually one of the worst defensive guards in the entire NBA.

Alternate: Magic Johnson

Nomination: David Robinson
Absolute beast on both ends. Ranks 6th all-time in PER with 2 of the players ahead of him (Joker and AD) being guys who haven't hit their decline phase yet. 5th all-time in BPM and 2nd all-time in WS/48. Absolutely legendary defender who joined a below average defense as a rookie that would rank last in the league the year he was injured and led them to ranks of 3rd, 1st, 1st, 10th, 9th, 5th, and 3rd in the interim. Had 5 relatively prime years in the databall era (age 31-35) and over that period, he had an on/off of +6.1 in the regular season and +27.4 in the playoffs over that period. I think he was a better player than Bill Russell and I'll die on that hill.

Mhh, I think that basing your decision for curry over magic on defense is a bit meh, defining curry as "at absolute worst a league average defender" is a bit too much, he's someone who has had years where he was below average and season where he was average or slightly above average (starting pg defender), but also because he's mostly always been in a great defensive system with great defenders aroudn him, I mean he's still always kind of a liability. And magic was a bad defender but for 6'8, like, bad for a big wing, not for a pg. Like, I think that magic's defense at 6'8" was still better than a respectable average size defender, not of an elite one but I'd say, significantly better than curry's. It's the usual thing, people tend to judge compared to what a player could do. not compared to like an average player.

What’s the evidence that Curry was a below average defender? Some factual information on this: When teams tried to hunt him in the playoffs, it generally worked quite badly for them offensively. Relatedly, out of all Warriors players that got significant minutes in those four finals against the Cavaliers, the Cavaliers’ FG% was the lowest when Steph Curry was the closest defender. The Warriors have had really great defenses in general, including in the playoffs—which is actually quite difficult to do in the NBA these days if you have a bad defender, because teams will just exploit that person every time down court (offenses these days are kind of only as good as their lowest common denominator). Complex measures like EPM and RAPTOR tend to have Steph as, on average, a slightly above average defender. Indeed, EPM lists percentiles, and in the last decade (excluding 2019-2020), Steph averaged being just below the 70th percentile as a defender, and only one season was below the 50th percentile (2020-2021). He even had a season above the 90th percentile (2021-2022)! In the last decade (excluding 2019-2020) in regular season + playoffs, the Warriors defense gets better with Steph on the floor, even if you control for whether Draymond is on (if Draymond is off, the defensive rating is 3.7 better if Steph is on, and if Draymond is on, then it is 0.9 better if Steph is on too).

I don’t think anyone would say Steph is an incredible defender, but I think the evidence suggests that he’s an above-average one, and I think it’d be hard to really make a good case that he’s below average.

[eminence]

Anybody got a nomination vote count so far?

Vote is 8 Magic, 6 Curry.

Nominations are 5 West, then one each for Moses, Oscar, Dirk, KD, D.Rob and K.Malone. i'm basically waiting to switch my nom to the first modernist player to get traction, so if people want to stop splitting the vote I might have someone I can be excited to vote for at #13.

Probably won't be helping you out this round (leaning Oscar currently), but what's your cut-off for 'modern'? Dirk would likely be my top one, but I haven't thought about Karl a whole lot yet, he might qualify depending on your definition.

I'd probably go with CP3 over Durant/Harden.

[One_and_Done]

I voted Kareem top 3, so it's not like I'm against older players if they were good enough. I'm not sure there's a candidate I'd even want to vote for if it's options like Mikan, Oscar, Kobe, West, etc.

I'm similarly high on Dirk, Karl? Dr J and D.Rob, so if one of them gets traction I'll switch. Right now it's looking like D.Rob since he's got 2 votes.

[penbeast0]

I would say there have been sea changes in NBA history. The biggest ones I would think are the introduction of the 24 second clock, one right around 1960 where the league because more athletic, more run/jump oriented, and much more efficient, and the one in the mid 2010s where the league moved to pace and space and started building every offense around spamming 3s. I would say it's at least arguable whether there was less playstyle change from 1965 to 2005 than there has been in the last 10 years.

So modern would be either roughly the last 10 years, or roughly the last 65 years since Russell and Wilt revolutionized the league.

[OhayoKD]

I would say there have been sea changes in NBA history. The biggest ones I would think are the introduction of the 24 second clock, one right around 1960 where the league because more athletic, more run/jump oriented, and much more efficient, and the one in the mid 2010s where the league moved to pace and space and started building every offense around spamming 3s. I would say it's at least arguable whether there was less playstyle change from 1965 to 2005 than there has been in the last 10 years.

So modern would be either roughly the last 10 years, or roughly the last 65 years since Russell and Wilt revolutionized the league.

The former is convenient for Giannis glazing and therefore preferable