RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #11 (Stephen Curry)

[HeartBreakKid]

I think ZeppelinPage's post has really sold me on West's defense. I was always high on it before but did not really fully take into account just how elite he probably was.

I think West is about as good of a two way player a player his size can be. He likely is not far off the goat PG in terms of PGs, and by my calculation he is the best scoring PG as well.

West is tremendous when it comes to both volume and efficiency. Along with Big O these guys were putting up good efficiency even by modern standards. West also had 3 point range (plenty of footage of him hitting hard long range jumpers, and also we know he is a 90% FT shooter so that's a pretty strong sign).

He had the most 40 point games in the post season if we are talking about heroics for a couple decades. Then after Jordan came it took another couple of decades of James to bump him down. These type of heroic records are often a big thing brought up with Kobe (like how many high scoring games he had in the RS), but West had 7 more 40+ games.

Really tremendous efficiency as well as deep playoff runs (weak conference, but it does say a lot about the sample size that he is a legit performer).

Took a while for him to probably become a legit floor general but he became one none the less. I have a hard time thinking Curry is better than him, as dramatic as Curry's 3 point warping his, I am fairly certain West has a more resilient and physical game while also being able to do a pretty good imitation of a long range bomber. The defense that West brings to the table would likely make me put him over Magic, never mind Curry.

My vote is for Jerry West
Alternate vote is for Larry Bird (not sold on him, but again, waiting for people to discuss him in depth before I make an updated decision)

Nomination is for Oscar Robertson

[One_and_Done]

Durant’s strong MVP span for me is 2012 (maybe?), 13-14, 16-19 for me. Post achilles, I’m not as high due to load management in 2021 and a dip in production since then.

Robinson’s for me would be 1990-91, 93 (maybe?), 94-96, 98-99 (maybe). 92 is on the fringes, as I deduct for his time missed.

So as high as 7 for Durant and 8 for Robinson.

Post achilles Durant was still 95% as good as pre-Achilles KD probably. Certainly his stats still suggest as much, and blow Kobe out of the water.

How did that efficient scoring and face value Offensive rating look against Boston or Denver? Though nobody mentioned him, what In those stats suggest blowing Kobe out of the water?

That's where the 95% comes in. KD is older, he can't be playing so many minutes against elite teams with good defenders and expect to maintain that production as consistently every year. He managed to in 21, but 22 and 23 remind you that KD is 33-34 and post achilles injury. Not nearly as bad as some if the dog series Kobe has had though, without anything like the excuses.

[iggymcfrack]

Post achilles Durant was still 95% as good as pre-Achilles KD probably. Certainly his stats still suggest as much, and blow Kobe out of the water.

How did that efficient scoring and face value Offensive rating look against Boston or Denver? Though nobody mentioned him, what In those stats suggest blowing Kobe out of the water?

That's where the 95% comes in. KD is older, he can't be playing so many minutes against elite teams with good defenders and expect to maintain that production as consistently every year. He managed to in 21, but 22 and 23 remind you that KD is 33-34 and post achilles injury. Not nearly as bad as some if the dog series Kobe has had though, without anything like the excuses.

Kobe’s had some absolutely terrible **** series, but none of them were as bad as KD against Boston unless maybe you go back to his teenage years where he was coming off the bench. That was an all-time terrible series for a superstar.

[rk2023]

How did that efficient scoring and face value Offensive rating look against Boston or Denver? Though nobody mentioned him, what In those stats suggest blowing Kobe out of the water?

That's where the 95% comes in. KD is older, he can't be playing so many minutes against elite teams with good defenders and expect to maintain that production as consistently every year. He managed to in 21, but 22 and 23 remind you that KD is 33-34 and post achilles injury. Not nearly as bad as some if the dog series Kobe has had though, without anything like the excuses.

Kobe’s had some absolutely terrible **** series, but none of them were as bad as KD against Boston unless maybe you go back to his teenage years where he was coming off the bench. That was an all-time terrible series for a superstar.

Plus, I would absolutely love to see Durant play the 04 Pistons or 08 Celtics

[One_and_Done]

Really? KD in 22 was 33, post achilles, without enough help, and being guarded by long, elite defensive wings. Yet he still put up 26-6-6 on 526 TS%.

Kobe had none of those excuses when he posted 22-3-4 on 456 TS% in the 04 finals, when on the highest stage he literally shot his team out of the series. A classic example of how if Kobe couldn't win his way, he'd rather lose. How about his 2011 spanking by the Mavs. He put up 22-3-2 on 519 TS%. I can keep going. The 08 Boston series saw him post worse stats too. The claim Kobe never had a series that bad is simply wrong. He had plenty that were worse.

[ceiling raiser]

Any good posts on Larry Bird vs David Robinson? I could be convinced of Bird at #11 in theory, but my issue is, we have a guy with similar longevity, who is superior from a modernism POV, who isn't even receiving votes to be added to the pool of nominations. What is the case that Bird is clearly better than Robinson?

[trelos6]

Spoiler:

How I see the next big group of candidates.

Each category is inclusive, so 1MVP season is also counted as a weak MVP, all nba and all star season.

Very curious how you get 13 all-NBA and 14 all-star seasons for Durant compared to only 10 all-NBA and 10 all-star seasons for Robinson. The way I see it, Robinson has 10 slam dunk seasons: ‘90, ‘91, ‘93-‘95, and ‘97-‘01. KD has ‘10-‘14, ‘16-‘18, and ‘21 for 9 slam dunk seasons.

Robinson has the injury in ‘92 where he plays 68 games and misses the playoffs, but was very good in the regular season. KD wasn’t very good in ‘08 or ‘09 and missed the playoffs, had a playoff injury in ‘19, played 55 games in ‘22 before playing so bad in the playoffs that the Nets probably would have been better off if he didn’t play, and then played 47 games last year before having another **** playoffs.

Even if you’re generous to KD’s 18/19 and 22/23 and classify them one level higher than Robinson’s ‘92 season, I would still say Robinson’s 11th best season is better than Durant’s 12th best season. But you somehow put KD’s 13th best season 2 levels ahead of Robinson’s 11th.

I have KD as All-NBA level from 2010 season. Weak MVP IN 2012. MVP level from 2013. So 6 MVP years pre injury. 9 all nba level years pre injury.

3 more all NBA seasons after. Brings him to 12. (MVP level in 2021, great playoffs). I must have a typo in the chart. Thanks for spotting.

12 all NBA, 13 All-star

In terms of weighted accomplishments, he comes out as a tie with D Rob. But I value D Rob higher. D-Rob was borderline all-time in a few seasons.

[Narigo]

Vote: Larry Bird
Alternate: Kobe Bryant
Nominate: Oscar Robertson

A tossup for me between Bird and Kobe. Kobe is better scorer imo mostly because Bird has problems getting to the free throw line which hurt his efficiency. Although Bird was a better off-ball player and outside shooter, and passer. Kobe was much better slasher. Bird was better help defender, Kobe was a better man defender. Bird was better at their best. But Kobe has better prime longevity. It's a tough call for me... I might prefer bird slightly over Kobe mostly cause I think bird has better intangibles

[lessthanjake]

Really? KD in 22 was 33, post achilles, without enough help, and being guarded by long, elite defensive wings. Yet he still put up 26-6-6 on 526 TS%.

Kobe had none of those excuses when he posted 22-3-4 on 456 TS% in the 04 finals, when on the highest stage he literally shot his team out of the series. A classic example of how if Kobe couldn't win his way, he'd rather lose. How about his 2011 spanking by the Mavs. He put up 22-3-2 on 519 TS%. I can keep going. The 08 Boston series saw him post worse stats too. The claim Kobe never had a series that bad is simply wrong. He had plenty that were worse.

I’m not as down on Durant as a lot of others, but I think “still put up . . . 0.526 TS%” is a bit of an odd statement. That’s a bad TS% in this era! Even accounting for era/opponent, Kobe’s TS% in the 2004 Finals was a bit worse, but the gap between them isn’t nearly as big as the raw numbers look. It’s basically the difference between a -4 rTS% for Durant and a -6 rTS% for Kobe.

[Dr Positivity]

Any good posts on Larry Bird vs David Robinson? I could be convinced of Bird at #11 in theory, but my issue is, we have a guy with similar longevity, who is superior from a modernism POV, who isn't even receiving votes to be added to the pool of nominations. What is the case that Bird is clearly better than Robinson?

Robinson's regular season stats are amazing but I never loved the skillset analysis of his offensive game as much as his PPG/efficiency. He is neither an elite post up player or midrange shooter, acceptable at both but a player like Hakeem is better at both. His face up game is mostly driven by being more athletic and bigger than opponents. When looking at how Robinson's scoring dropped in playoffs it makes sense to me that he got gameplanned and not really being lock down from a finesse skill perspective caught up to him. I think Giannis scoring stats are a good modern comp to me in that I think they lie a bit, I can't believe how high his scoring numbers are per minute (35 pts per 36 on .60 TS% last season) for a guy who has some holes in his skill level and relies heavily on physical dominance. I would have more players above Giannis as a scoring talent than his stats would indicate for sure. When Robinson is putting up 30ppg numbers in regular season I feel the same way that it just seems high for what his game actually is.

Now with that said Robinson doesn't have to be a perfect offensive player to get consideration, I don't consider Duncan, Hakeem or KG to be perfect ones, and unlike Giannis he actually is legit ATG D. I also think post injury Robinson has some underrated years comparable in value to the first few years of Bird. I definitely think Bird is way better on offense, but depending on how you feel about his D it could be close with Robinson.

[LukaTheGOAT]

so for all the people picking steph, i just want to go back to playoff resiliency again. i looked at the last project's Top 33 (just stopped at pippen due to time and less interest in the players below him) plus newer guys like jokic, giannis, embiid, and kawhi and then put in tatum and butler. i would've put in doncic but i only did ages 22-35 and doncic only had one season (though he would have led the list below).

all the data is from ages 22 to 35 and it looks at the BBRef stats PER, WS48, BPM, and TS% and compares each year to the regular season. the resilience at the end is just an average of the normalized increase/decrease for each value. +1 is a top 95% value and -1 is a bottom 6.5% value (couldn't use 5% because the lower values were so low that they were making the average season as slightly "resilient"). for playoff runs shorter than 10 games, the final value was multiplied by "Games/10" so a 5 game, 1 round playoffs would get weighed at 50%. the 2nd table is all 416 playoff runs for these guys. the 1st table is their career average (each playoff run weighed equally to essentially average your resiliency from year to year).

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Rank   Player Name             Career Avg       
1      Kawhi Leonard           0.4561           
2      Hakeem Olajuwon         0.3315           
3      George Mikan            0.3246           
4      Lebron James            0.2747           
5      Bill Russell            0.2548           
6      Walt Frazier            0.2318           
7      Jerry West              0.2142           
8      Michael Jordan          0.2081           
9      Tim Duncan              0.166             
10     Magic Johnson           0.0968           
11     Scottie Pippen          0.0963           
12     Oscar Robertson         0.0865           
13     Kobe Bryant             0.0856           
14     Charles Barkley         0.0779           
15     Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     0.0554           
16     Dirk Nowitzki           0.0534           
17     Jayson Tatum            0.0247           
18     Nikola Jokic            0.0205           
19     Shaquille O'neal        0.0179           
20     Moses Malone            0.0093           
21     Dwyane Wade             -0.0021           
22     Chris Paul              -0.0156           
23     Julius Erving           -0.0231           
24     Jimmy Butler            -0.0341           
25     Wilt Chamberlain        -0.0851           
26     Kevin Garnett           -0.1115           
27     Larry Bird              -0.1327           
28     Kevin Durant            -0.1435           
29     Patrick Ewing           -0.1446           
30     David Robinson          -0.1552           
31     Steve Nash              -0.1582           
32     Stephen Curry           -0.1613           
33     Bob Pettit              -0.1624           
34     John Stockton           -0.182           
35     Giannis Antetokounmpo   -0.1975           
36     James Harden            -0.1982           
37     Karl Malone             -0.2959           
38     Joel Embiid             -0.533           


Code: Select all

Rank   Player Name             Season    Age   PER     TS%     WS/48    BPM     Resilience
1      George Mikan            1953-54   29    4.6     7.7     0.133            1.3491   
2      Tim Duncan              2005-06   29    7.3     10.2    0.065    3.6     1.2829   
3      Jerry West              1960-61   22    5.3     8.5     0.09             1.2777   
4      Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1969-70   22    6.9     5.6     0.099            1.2741   
5      Hakeem Olajuwon         1996-97   34    4.9     7       0.075    5.7     1.2296   
6      Hakeem Olajuwon         1986-87   24    4.7     10.5    0.062    4       1.1957   
7      Dirk Nowitzki           2008-09   30    5.3     7.1     0.067    3.5     1.0901   
8      Jimmy Butler            2021-22   32    6.3     1.2     0.063    5.5     1.0544   
9      Lebron James            2008-09   24    5.7     2.7     0.081    4.3     1.0482   
10     Kawhi Leonard           2016-17   25    3.9     6.2     0.05     4.8     1.0369   
11     Lebron James            2019-20   35    4.7     7       0.065    2.3     0.9788   
12     Hakeem Olajuwon         1987-88   25    15.6    8.6     0.203    10.1    0.9464   
13     Kawhi Leonard           2020-21   29    4.6     5.7     0.039    3.4     0.9338   
14     Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1976-77   29    4.6     3.8     0.049    2.8     0.8582   
15     Scottie Pippen          1989-90   24    2.4     4.1     0.062    3.6     0.8555   
16     Julius Erving           1975-76   25    3.3     4.1     0.059    3       0.8493   
17     Bill Russell            1964-65   30    1.4     6.8     0.052            0.8415   
18     Bill Russell            1965-66   31    2.9     6.6     0.026            0.8314   
19     Dirk Nowitzki           2009-10   31    5.4     6.5     0.097    6.5     0.8056   
20     George Mikan            1948-49   24            4.3                      0.8001   
21     Charles Barkley         1993-94   30    5       1.2     0.023    3.6     0.7728   
22     Lebron James            2017-18   33    3.6     -0.2    0.048    4       0.7544   
23     Michael Jordan          1994-95   31    2.7     6.4     -0.017   3.8     0.7539   
24     Lebron James            2016-17   32    3.1     3       0.054    2.2     0.7401   
25     Stephen Curry           2016-17   28    2.5     3.5     0.043    2.8     0.7399   
26     Bill Russell            1961-62   27    3.2     3       0.04             0.7373   
27     Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1973-74   26    3.9     1.9     0.047    2.4     0.7334   
28     Larry Bird              1983-84   27    2.1     5.5     0.021    2.7     0.7257   
29     Kobe Bryant             2009-10   31    2.8     2.2     0.03     2.9     0.6826   
30     Dwyane Wade             2015-16   34    2       1.5     0.043    3       0.6639   
31     Bill Russell            1962-63   28    2.3     4.4     0.012            0.65     
32     Nikola Jokic            2018-19   23    3.3     0.7     0.037    2.5     0.6474   
33     Julius Erving           1976-77   26    2       2.4     0.027    2.9     0.6462   
34     Oscar Robertson         1972-73   34    3.8     6.1     0.088            0.6455   
35     Larry Bird              1980-81   24    1.9     0.4     0.038    3.4     0.6353   
36     Kobe Bryant             2008-09   30    2.4     0.3     0.032    3.2     0.6259   
37     Tim Duncan              1998-99   22    1.9     3.2     0.03     2.1     0.6253   
38     Julius Erving           1978-79   28    2       3       0.038    2.8     0.6194   
39     Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1983-84   36    2.7     -1.6    0.043    3.3     0.6106   
40     Kawhi Leonard           2018-19   27    2.1     1.3     0.025    2.9     0.6088   
41     Chris Paul              2010-11   25    5.2     9.2     0.01     3.4     0.6012   
42     Michael Jordan          1997-98   34    2.9     1.2     0.027    2.1     0.5951   
43     Walt Frazier            1973-74   28    2.6     2.9     0.021    1.6     0.5912   
44     Bill Russell            1960-61   26    3.9     0.3     0.02             0.5896   
45     Jerry West              1968-69   30    2.9     -1.5    0.058            0.5818   
46     James Harden            2020-21   31    -0.6    5.5     0.055    1.9     0.5791   
47     Tim Duncan              2002-03   26    1.5     1.3     0.031    2.6     0.5787   
48     Kevin Durant            2018-19   30    2.6     3       0.002    2.1     0.5772   
49     Stephen Curry           2021-22   33    3       0.5     0.03     1.9     0.5712   
50     Bill Russell            1959-60   25    1.9     0.8     0.038            0.5561   
51     Jerry West              1967-68   29    1.9     0.6     0.037            0.5438   
52     Hakeem Olajuwon         1985-86   23    1.4     0.6     0.045    1.9     0.5427   
53     Lebron James            2015-16   31    2.5     -0.3    0.032    2       0.534     
54     Kobe Bryant             2000-01   22    0.5     0.3     0.064    1.7     0.5294   
55     Magic Johnson           1985-86   26    1.6     -1.1    0.041    2.6     0.529     
56     Dirk Nowitzki           2003-04   25    5       0       0.097    5.7     0.5288   
57     Tim Duncan              2001-02   25    4.8     -2.6    -0.01    3.8     0.5083   
58     Scottie Pippen          1988-89   23    -0.5    2       0.024    2.7     0.502     
59     Bob Pettit              1962-63   30    1.1     1.8     0.022            0.4983   
60     Charles Barkley         1985-86   22    1.4     1.2     0.013    2.1     0.4927   
61     Kobe Bryant             2011-12   33    2.5     -0.2    0.011    2.1     0.4894   
62     Jerry West              1962-63   24    1.2     2.5     0.008            0.487     
63     Moses Malone            1982-83   27    0.6     0.9     0.012    2.7     0.4829   
64     Luka Doncic             2021-22   22    3.5     0.6     0.005    1.1     0.4812   
65     Walt Frazier            1974-75   29    7.4     13.5    0.09     5.3     0.471     
66     Lebron James            2013-14   29    1.7     1.9     0.005    1.5     0.4704   
67     Jimmy Butler            2018-19   29    0.9     -0.7    0.022    2.5     0.456     
68     Walt Frazier            1970-71   25    0.7     1.6     0.019            0.4555   
69     Shaquille O'neal        1995-96   23    1       0.5     -0.015   3.1     0.4429   
70     Shaquille O'neal        1997-98   25    2.2     1.7     -0.024   2       0.4427   
71     Hakeem Olajuwon         1993-94   31    2.4     0.3     -0.002   1.7     0.4426   
72     Chris Paul              2015-16   30    7       0       0.069    6.1     0.4396   
73     Dwyane Wade             2009-10   28    1.4     8.8     0.005    4.3     0.4325   
74     Kevin Durant            2011-12   23    1.3     2.2     0.001    1.1     0.427     
75     Michael Jordan          1990-91   27    0.4     -0.5    0.012    2.6     0.4211   
76     Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1979-80   32    2.6     -2.8    0.026    1.7     0.4206   
77     Tim Duncan              2013-14   37    -0.2    3.3     0.04     -0.2    0.4156   
78     Kawhi Leonard           2015-16   24    2.6     -1.9    -0.006   2.4     0.4123   
79     Magic Johnson           1981-82   22    -0.4    2.4     0.024    1       0.4117   
80     John Stockton           1986-87   24    -0.8    14.5    0.026    0.8     0.3948   
81     Kevin Durant            2016-17   28    -0.1    3.2     0.002    1       0.3947   
82     Larry Bird              1985-86   29    -1.7    3.5     0.019    1.2     0.3907   
83     Scottie Pippen          1990-91   25    1.4     0.3     0.018    0.7     0.3866   
84     Moses Malone            1988-89   33    2.9     2.6     0.03     3.8     0.3788   
85     Wilt Chamberlain        1964-65   28    -1.5    3.9     0.003            0.373     
86     Tim Duncan              2011-12   35    0.4     -0.2    0.01     1.7     0.3687   
87     Dwyane Wade             2004-05   23    1.2     0       0.003    1.3     0.3672   
88     Walt Frazier            1972-73   27    0       2.5     -0.007           0.3647   
89     Chris Paul              2007-08   22    2.4     -1.1    0.005    0.9     0.3632   
90     Kevin Durant            2010-11   22    0.5     -0.7    0.028    1       0.3585   
91     Michael Jordan          1989-90   26    0.5     -1.4    -0.001   2.5     0.3555   
92     Jerry West              1961-62   23    -0.7    2       0.008            0.353     
93     Scottie Pippen          1999-00   34    1.1     -1.1    0.003    1.7     0.3515   
94     Dwyane Wade             2005-06   24    -0.7    1.6     0.001    1.6     0.3505   
95     Charles Barkley         1998-99   35    5.9     3.3     0.023    3.4     0.3479   
96     Tim Duncan              2000-01   24    1.6     -0.5    -0.027   2.2     0.3478   
97     Shaquille O'neal        1996-97   24    1.9     -0.4    0.018    0.7     0.3468   
98     Kevin Garnett           2000-01   24    1       3.8     0.079    4.1     0.3437   
99     Jimmy Butler            2019-20   30    0.2     3.1     -0.012   0.5     0.3367   
100    Karl Malone             1993-94   30    1.7     -1.9    0.016    0.9     0.3341   
101    Steve Nash              2009-10   35    0.8     1.9     -0.003   0.3     0.3337   
102    Magic Johnson           1987-88   28    -0.2    1.9     -0.001   0.9     0.3329   
103    Walt Frazier            1971-72   26    -0.1    1       0.004            0.3301   
104    Dwyane Wade             2010-11   29    0.7     -1.1    -0.002   1.8     0.3273   
105    Oscar Robertson         1970-71   32    1.5     -3      0.027            0.3258   
106    Kevin Durant            2020-21   32    0.5     -3.6    0.008    2.8     0.3245   
107    Kawhi Leonard           2019-20   28    0.9     0.4     0.002    0.5     0.3138   
108    Dirk Nowitzki           2010-11   32    1.8     -0.3    -0.003   0.4     0.3109   
109    Oscar Robertson         1973-74   35    0.9     0.1     -0.007   0.9     0.306     
110    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1978-79   31    1       2.4     0.003    0.4     0.3049   
111    Chris Paul              2014-15   29    -0.3    3.1     -0.022   0.7     0.3015   
112    Chris Paul              2012-13   27    2.8     3.9     -0.02    0.9     0.2897   
113    Kobe Bryant             2007-08   29    0.8     0.1     -0.03    1.6     0.2866   
114    Charles Barkley         1994-95   31    1.4     0.8     -0.008   -0.1    0.2852   
115    Giannis Antetokounmpo   2017-18   23    -0.7    2.2     0.032    0.9     0.2843   
116    Wilt Chamberlain        1963-64   27    -0.3    0.6     -0.002           0.2798   
117    Karl Malone             1991-92   28    -0.4    1.9     -0.017   0.8     0.2763   
118    Shaquille O'neal        2003-04   31    0.4     -1.3    0.01     0.7     0.2685   
119    Shaquille O'neal        2002-03   30    1.1     -3.2    -0.01    1.9     0.2606   
120    John Stockton           1990-91   28    -1.6    4       -0.009   0.4     0.2597   
121    Jerry West              1965-66   27    0.1     0.8     -0.019           0.2537   
122    Patrick Ewing           1992-93   30    0.8     -1.1    -0.015   1.1     0.2536   
123    Moses Malone            1979-80   24    0.8     1.7     -0.024   1.5     0.2443   
124    Kawhi Leonard           2022-23   31    6       4.7     0.033    7.7     0.244     
125    Magic Johnson           1986-87   27    -0.8    0.5     0.002    0.5     0.2421   
126    Hakeem Olajuwon         1992-93   30    -0.6    -0.9    -0.013   1.6     0.2354   
127    Michael Jordan          1992-93   29    0.4     -1.1    0        0.4     0.2302   
128    David Robinson          1990-91   25    -1.3    14.5    -0.03    0       0.2288   
129    Dirk Nowitzki           2005-06   27    -1.3    0.7     -0.012   1.1     0.2286   
130    Jayson Tatum            2020-21   22    2.8     0.1     -0.023   2.6     0.2283   
131    Dwyane Wade             2003-04   22    0.1     -0.3    0.001    0.1     0.2271   
132    Magic Johnson           1983-84   24    0.2     -2.7    0.007    1       0.2243   
133    Dirk Nowitzki           2007-08   29    1.7     0.3     -0.027   3       0.2149   
134    Bob Pettit              1959-60   27    -0.4    0.5     -0.019           0.2109   
135    George Mikan            1951-52   27    1       1.8     -0.062           0.2029   
136    Tim Duncan              2008-09   32    2.9     0.5     -0.02    1.3     0.1997   
137    Wilt Chamberlain        1959-60   23    -1.1    0.5     -0.004           0.1993   
138    Chris Paul              2016-17   31    1.6     -2.2    -0.018   1.7     0.1979   
139    Michael Jordan          1985-86   22    2.6     5.1     0.001    2.2     0.1953   
140    John Stockton           1985-86   23    0.2     7.8     0.008    -0.6    0.19     
141    Jimmy Butler            2014-15   25    -0.5    -2.1    -0.011   1.2     0.1796   
142    Steve Nash              2004-05   30    1.4     -0.2    -0.039   0       0.1781   
143    Kawhi Leonard           2013-14   22    -0.7    0.4     -0.002   -0.4    0.1756   
144    Kevin Garnett           1998-99   22    1.7     -0.5    -0.011   2.8     0.1727   
145    Nikola Jokic            2019-20   24    -0.1    0.9     -0.03    0       0.1718   
146    Charles Barkley         1995-96   32    2.7     -2.3    0.006    2.3     0.1712   
147    James Harden            2019-20   30    -1.6    1       -0.001   -0.2    0.1712   
148    David Robinson          2000-01   35    0.8     -2.1    -0.039   1.3     0.1709   
149    Julius Erving           1973-74   23    -1.7    0.8     0.014    -0.7    0.1671   
150    John Stockton           1996-97   34    0.6     -2.9    -0.025   1.2     0.1653   
151    Tim Duncan              2006-07   30    1.3     -2.3    -0.016   -0.1    0.1568   
152    Walt Frazier            1968-69   23    1.1     -3.5    -0.009           0.156     
153    John Stockton           1988-89   26    3       -2.3    -0.006   3.7     0.1498   
154    Hakeem Olajuwon         1990-91   28    -1.1    8       0.001    0.8     0.1486   
155    Oscar Robertson         1961-62   23    -0.6    3.2     -0.004           0.1483   
156    George Mikan            1949-50   25            -0.6                     0.147     
157    Kevin Durant            2017-18   29    -0.9    -3.4    0.022    0.3     0.1467   
158    Hakeem Olajuwon         1994-95   32    0.7     -0.3    -0.038   0       0.1465   
159    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1982-83   35    -0.8    -1.1    -0.033   1.1     0.1364   
160    Jerry West              1963-64   25    0.9     0.2     -0.022           0.1319   
161    Dirk Nowitzki           2001-02   23    0.7     -2.2    -0.029   0.9     0.1309   
162    David Robinson          1998-99   33    -1.6    -0.1    -0.018   0.4     0.1287   
163    Joel Embiid             2019-20   25    0.8     1       -0.027   1.5     0.1272   
164    Julius Erving           1977-78   27    -0.5    -2.2    -0.008   0.2     0.1204   
165    Dirk Nowitzki           2000-01   22    -0.5    -2.8    -0.018   0.9     0.1191   
166    Patrick Ewing           1996-97   34    -0.3    -0.1    -0.035   0.1     0.1108   
167    Chris Paul              2020-21   35    -0.7    -1.5    -0.023   0.4     0.1089   
168    Bill Russell            1967-68   33    -0.3    -0.3    -0.042           0.102     
169    Oscar Robertson         1962-63   24    0.1     -1.4    -0.035           0.1008   
170    Shaquille O'neal        2007-08   35    1.8     -10.3   0.024    2.8     0.1       
171    Kevin Garnett           2011-12   35    0.1     -0.9    -0.029   -0.4    0.0978   
172    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1984-85   37    -0.8    -2.6    -0.01    0.3     0.095     
173    Scottie Pippen          1991-92   26    -1.4    -1.1    -0.024   0.5     0.095     
174    George Mikan            1955-56   31    0.4     -1.3    0.016            0.0896   
175    Shaquille O'neal        2000-01   28    -1.5    -1      0.015    -1.2    0.0867   
176    Michael Jordan          1988-89   25    -1.2    -1.2    -0.022   0.2     0.0866   
177    Jimmy Butler            2012-13   23    -0.8    0.1     -0.053   0.5     0.0866   
178    Hakeem Olajuwon         1988-89   26    -1.1    -0.3    -0.015   1.4     0.0862   
179    Jerry West              1972-73   34    -0.5    -2.1    -0.022           0.0792   
180    Lebron James            2006-07   22    -0.6    -3.6    -0.006   0       0.0618   
181    Charles Barkley         1988-89   25    -2.7    3.8     -0.037   0.9     0.0578   
182    Patrick Ewing           1995-96   33    -2.8    0.6     -0.039   0.8     0.0561   
183    Giannis Antetokounmpo   2019-20   25    -0.6    -0.3    -0.041   -0.3    0.056     
184    Julius Erving           1972-73   22    -2.8    2.4     -0.034           0.0512   
185    Dirk Nowitzki           2011-12   33    0.8     -0.4    -0.036   -0.5    0.0484   
186    Lebron James            2011-12   27    -0.4    -2.9    -0.014   -0.4    0.0479   
187    Giannis Antetokounmpo   2020-21   26    -1.6    -3.4    -0.02    0.9     0.0453   
188    Jayson Tatum            2022-23   24    -1.1    -2.2    -0.017   -0.2    0.0452   
189    Scottie Pippen          1997-98   32    -0.9    -3.3    -0.027   0.6     0.0424   
190    Oscar Robertson         1966-67   28    -2.6    3.4     -0.051           0.04     
191    Michael Jordan          1991-92   28    -0.5    -0.8    -0.058   0.2     0.0378   
192    Michael Jordan          1995-96   32    -2.7    -1.8    -0.011   0.2     0.0288   
193    Wilt Chamberlain        1960-61   24    -1.1    -2.7    -0.001           0.0269   
194    John Stockton           1987-88   25    -0.7    -2.7    -0.037   0.3     0.0263   
195    Magic Johnson           1984-85   25    -0.9    -3.8    -0.01    -0.1    0.0252   
196    Moses Malone            1978-79   23    5       -10.3   -0.034   1.7     0.0243   
197    Karl Malone             1999-00   36    -1.3    0.2     -0.055   -0.2    0.0181   
198    David Robinson          1999-00   34    1       -10.5   -0.018   2.6     0.0147   
199    Steve Nash              1997-98   23    0.9     -4.5    -0.056   1       0.0129   
200    Patrick Ewing           1994-95   32    -3      0.4     -0.006   -1.2    0.0128   
201    David Robinson          1989-90   24    -1.9    -1.6    -0.022   -0.3    0.0106   
202    Bob Pettit              1956-57   24    -3.2    1       -0.038           0.0028   
203    Kevin Garnett           2001-02   25    1.7     -2.2    -0.073   -0.5    0.0015   
204    Hakeem Olajuwon         1984-85   22    -1.4    -7.4    -0.008   1.7     0.0014   
205    Jerry West              1966-67   28    -4.6    0       -0.2             0         
206    Patrick Ewing           1987-88   25    -1.2    -3.2    -0.034   0.2     -0.0044   
207    Shaquille O'neal        2001-02   29    -1.4    -2.1    -0.026   -0.5    -0.007   
208    Stephen Curry           2012-13   24    -0.8    -3.1    -0.019   -0.7    -0.0085   
209    Patrick Ewing           1989-90   27    -0.4    -2      -0.05    -0.3    -0.0088   
210    Michael Jordan          1996-97   33    -0.7    -4.3    -0.048   1       -0.0109   
211    Charles Barkley         1990-91   27    -2.1    -0.5    -0.041   -0.4    -0.0136   
212    Michael Jordan          1986-87   23    -1.7    -3.3    -0.082   1.9     -0.0157   
213    Scottie Pippen          1998-99   33    1.9     -8.2    -0.035   0.2     -0.0173   
214    Wilt Chamberlain        1971-72   35    -0.7    -4.8    -0.014           -0.025   
215    John Stockton           1992-93   30    -2.7    -2.4    -0.032   0.1     -0.0259   
216    Kevin Garnett           2009-10   33    -1.8    -3.9    -0.023   0.3     -0.0261   
217    Jimmy Butler            2013-14   24    -2.1    -1.5    -0.035   -0.8    -0.0301   
218    Shaquille O'neal        1994-95   22    -2.5    0.7     -0.05    -0.6    -0.0307   
219    Moses Malone            1987-88   32    -2.9    -1.4    -0.038   -0.3    -0.0341   
220    Moses Malone            1986-87   31    -4.5    0.6     -0.073   0.4     -0.0355   
221    Chris Paul              2019-20   34    -2.4    -0.6    -0.052   -0.3    -0.039   
222    Jerry West              1964-65   26    1.7     -3.8    -0.072           -0.0392   
223    Oscar Robertson         1963-64   25    -2.9    -0.8    -0.033           -0.0423   
224    Lebron James            2009-10   25    -2.5    0.3     -0.057   -0.3    -0.043   
225    Larry Bird              1989-90   33    -1.2    -0.7    -0.051   -1.6    -0.043   
226    Nikola Jokic            2022-23   27    -0.3    -7      -0.003   -0.2    -0.0432   
227    Scottie Pippen          1995-96   30    -1.6    -7.8    -0.014   1.5     -0.0476   
228    Chris Paul              2013-14   28    -2.3    0.3     -0.075   0.2     -0.049   
229    James Harden            2014-15   25    -1.9    1.5     -0.063   -1.2    -0.0493   
230    Stephen Curry           2018-19   30    -1.8    -2.1    -0.014   -1.4    -0.0509   
231    Moses Malone            1981-82   26    -2.5    -8.7    -0.035   1.4     -0.0534   
232    Kobe Bryant             2006-07   28    -2      -1.9    -0.078   0.2     -0.0584   
233    Julius Erving           1981-82   31    -3.4    -1.2    -0.044   0.3     -0.061   
234    Bill Russell            1968-69   34    0.1     -1.9    -0.077           -0.0662   
235    Chris Paul              2018-19   33    -2.1    -0.3    -0.04    -1.4    -0.0713   
236    John Stockton           1997-98   35    -1.8    -5.9    -0.027   0.8     -0.0713   
237    Julius Erving           1984-85   34    -3.1    -2.9    -0.027   0.1     -0.0732   
238    Walt Frazier            1967-68   22    -1.8    -3.2    -0.062           -0.0736   
239    Kawhi Leonard           2014-15   23    -2.1    0.4     -0.061   -1.5    -0.0761   
240    Wilt Chamberlain        1961-62   25    -2.4    -2.8    -0.026           -0.0776   
241    Shaquille O'neal        1999-00   27    -0.1    -2.2    -0.059   -1.2    -0.0827   
242    Larry Bird              1979-80   23    -2.2    -2.7    -0.046   -0.2    -0.0855   
243    Karl Malone             1988-89   25    -2.3    -1.8    -0.093   -1.8    -0.0878   
244    Oscar Robertson         1965-66   27    -0.9    -3.3    -0.074           -0.0885   
245    Julius Erving           1979-80   29    -2.9    -1.5    -0.035   -0.7    -0.0892   
246    Bill Russell            1958-59   24    -1.9    -3.9    -0.024           -0.0901   
247    James Harden            2015-16   26    -3.5    -4.3    -0.098   2.2     -0.0938   
248    Charles Barkley         1992-93   29    -1      -4.4    -0.027   -0.9    -0.094   
249    Steve Nash              2001-02   27    -2      -1.7    -0.057   -0.8    -0.0955   
250    David Robinson          1992-93   27    -2.6    -4      -0.025   -0.3    -0.108   
251    Kevin Garnett           2002-03   26    -1.4    -1.4    -0.084   -1.4    -0.1145   
252    Dwyane Wade             2016-17   35    -3      -3.6    -0.027   -1.5    -0.1163   
253    Karl Malone             1994-95   31    -0.5    -4      -0.096   -0.9    -0.1185   
254    Lebron James            2014-15   30    -0.6    -9      -0.026   0.8     -0.119   
255    Scottie Pippen          1993-94   28    -0.4    -2.3    -0.045   -2.1    -0.1203   
256    Bill Russell            1963-64   29    -0.4    -5.5    -0.039           -0.1246   
257    Charles Barkley         1997-98   34    -5.4    -0.6    -0.063   -1.8    -0.1248   
258    Nikola Jokic            2021-22   26    0.3     -1.8    -0.094   -3      -0.1283   
259    Bill Russell            1957-58   23    -1.2    -4.5    -0.044           -0.1301   
260    Bill Russell            1956-57   22    -2.2    -5.2    -0.014           -0.1311   
261    Moses Malone            1983-84   28    -4.8    -1.5    -0.065   -0.9    -0.1317   
262    James Harden            2011-12   22    -0.2    -5.5    -0.046   -0.8    -0.1381   
263    George Mikan            1950-51   26            -3.2                     -0.1397   
264    Hakeem Olajuwon         1997-98   35    -2      -8.2    -0.082   1.1     -0.1399   
265    Kevin Garnett           1999-00   23    -3.1    -10.4   -0.07    1.1     -0.1483   
266    Shaquille O'neal        2006-07   34    -1.8    -3.8    -0.111   -1.7    -0.1509   
267    Scottie Pippen          1992-93   27    -2.3    -0.6    -0.049   -2      -0.1516   
268    Joel Embiid             2020-21   26    -4.1    -0.5    -0.069   0       -0.1523   
269    Moses Malone            1980-81   25    -2.7    -4.8    -0.028   -0.4    -0.1532   
270    Kobe Bryant             2001-02   23    -2.7    -3.3    -0.051   -0.3    -0.1563   
271    Steve Nash              2005-06   31    -2      -1.7    -0.059   -1.3    -0.1563   
272    Magic Johnson           1989-90   30    -1.6    -2.4    -0.048   -2.1    -0.166   
273    Patrick Ewing           1991-92   29    -2.9    -6.1    -0.031   0.3     -0.1686   
274    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1980-81   33    -3.1    -9.9    -0.071   -2.2    -0.1699   
275    Scottie Pippen          1994-95   29    -3.7    -1      -0.038   -1.6    -0.1729   
276    Wilt Chamberlain        1965-66   29    -2.3    -4.7    -0.082           -0.1746   
277    George Mikan            1952-53   28    -2.3    -2.6    -0.059           -0.1766   
278    Bob Pettit              1958-59   26    -5.3    -1.5    -0.058           -0.1805   
279    Michael Jordan          1987-88   24    -3.3    -0.5    -0.074   -0.8    -0.1808   
280    Dirk Nowitzki           2002-03   24    -2.4    1.2     -0.077   -2.2    -0.1811   
281    Joel Embiid             2018-19   24    -4.3    -3.4    -0.045   0.2     -0.183   
282    Giannis Antetokounmpo   2016-17   22    -4.2    -3.6    -0.072   -0.7    -0.1874   
283    Tim Duncan              2004-05   28    -2.1    -1.4    -0.054   -2.1    -0.1887   
284    Wilt Chamberlain        1968-69   32    -3.6    -4.6    -0.015           -0.1903   
285    James Harden            2021-22   32    -4.1    0.1     -0.04    -2.1    -0.1908   
286    David Robinson          1995-96   30    -0.3    -2      -0.076   -2.2    -0.1924   
287    Magic Johnson           1982-83   23    -2.4    -4.8    -0.051   -0.3    -0.1931   
288    Chris Paul              2017-18   32    -1.6    -3.9    -0.072   -0.5    -0.1947   
289    Jerry West              1969-70   31    -3.5    -2.2    -0.05            -0.1984   
290    Scottie Pippen          1996-97   31    -3.2    -2.8    -0.058   -0.6    -0.1989   
291    Jayson Tatum            2021-22   23    -4.2    -1.6    -0.059   -0.5    -0.1993   
292    James Harden            2012-13   23    -2.1    -5.2    -0.106   -0.3    -0.2012   
293    Hakeem Olajuwon         1989-90   27    -3.6    -6.3    -0.092   -1.9    -0.2015   
294    Tim Duncan              2003-04   27    -3      2.6     -0.066   -3.3    -0.2024   
295    Magic Johnson           1990-91   31    -2.4    -2.5    -0.058   -1.4    -0.2044   
296    Dwyane Wade             2008-09   27    -4.1    -0.9    -0.037   -3.3    -0.2049   
297    Larry Bird              1991-92   35    -4.6    -3.3    -0.09    -3.3    -0.2127   
298    Karl Malone             1987-88   24    -2.3    -3.1    -0.058   -1.4    -0.22     
299    Lebron James            2010-11   26    -3.6    -3.1    -0.046   -1      -0.221   
300    Charles Barkley         1986-87   23    -4.9    -1.1    -0.06    -4.1    -0.2225   
301    Kobe Bryant             2003-04   25    -2.7    -4.5    -0.065   -0.3    -0.2325   
302    Magic Johnson           1988-89   29    -3.5    -1.6    -0.067   -1.2    -0.2336   
303    Bob Pettit              1960-61   28    -2.9    -1.7    -0.078           -0.2374   
304    Oscar Robertson         1964-65   26    -5.9    -3.3    -0.112           -0.2409   
305    Tim Duncan              2012-13   36    -3.1    -3.1    -0.03    -2.4    -0.2465   
306    Moses Malone            1984-85   29    -4.5    -6.8    -0.033   0.6     -0.2487   
307    Stephen Curry           2014-15   26    -3.5    -3.1    -0.06    -1.1    -0.2591   
308    Karl Malone             1986-87   23    -4.6    -5.4    -0.064   -3.1    -0.2609   
309    Julius Erving           1985-86   35    -3.3    -2.9    -0.046   -2      -0.2646   
310    Wilt Chamberlain        1967-68   31    -2      -4.6    -0.064           -0.265   
311    Scottie Pippen          2000-01   35    -5.5    -5.2    -0.178   -4      -0.272   
312    Patrick Ewing           1993-94   31    -2.3    -5.6    -0.061   -0.8    -0.2729   
313    Charles Barkley         1996-97   33    -2.5    -2.4    -0.06    -2.4    -0.2742   
314    Larry Bird              1982-83   26    -3.8    -8.3    -0.091   -0.1    -0.2773   
315    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1981-82   34    -3.3    -5.8    -0.048   -0.6    -0.2774   
316    Bob Pettit              1964-65   32    -7.3    -4.8    -0.096           -0.2785   
317    Kobe Bryant             2010-11   32    -3.3    -1.2    -0.079   -1.8    -0.2806   
318    Bob Pettit              1957-58   25    -3.7    -2      -0.075           -0.2875   
319    Shaquille O'neal        1998-99   26    -1.8    -6.9    -0.079   -1.1    -0.2878   
320    Shaquille O'neal        2005-06   33    -4.5    -1.5    -0.061   -1.7    -0.2907   
321    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1977-78   30    -7.3    -6.3    -0.127   -5.6    -0.2978   
322    Tim Duncan              2007-08   31    -2.5    -5.8    -0.078   -0.3    -0.3006   
323    Kevin Garnett           2007-08   31    -2.3    -4.6    -0.066   -1.6    -0.3034   
324    Wilt Chamberlain        1966-67   30    -1.2    -9.1    -0.032           -0.3075   
325    Steve Nash              2007-08   33    -4.3    -10.3   -0.078   -1.8    -0.3127   
326    Dwyane Wade             2013-14   32    -3.5    -2.8    -0.063   -2      -0.3141   
327    Steve Nash              2006-07   32    -1.9    -7.7    -0.06    -0.7    -0.3163   
328    Karl Malone             1990-91   27    -3.4    -6      -0.071   -0.7    -0.3189   
329    Hakeem Olajuwon         1995-96   33    -5.5    -1.4    -0.087   -1.8    -0.324   
330    Jimmy Butler            2017-18   28    -6.8    -3.3    -0.1     -3.2    -0.3242   
331    Lebron James            2007-08   23    -4.8    -4.3    -0.055   -0.8    -0.3245   
332    Oscar Robertson         1971-72   33    -2.5    -7.8    -0.033           -0.3298   
333    Kevin Durant            2012-13   24    -2.3    -7.3    -0.081   0       -0.3304   
334    Joel Embiid             2017-18   23    -4.8    -5.4    -0.059   -1.5    -0.3328   
335    Stephen Curry           2013-14   25    -5.3    -1.1    -0.094   -3      -0.3364   
336    Karl Malone             1997-98   34    -3.7    -6.3    -0.075   -0.2    -0.3561   
337    Lebron James            2012-13   28    -3.5    -5.5    -0.062   -1.3    -0.357   
338    Patrick Ewing           1988-89   26    -3      -7.1    -0.043   -2.3    -0.3624   
339    Karl Malone             1995-96   32    -2.4    -7.7    -0.062   -1      -0.3626   
340    Julius Erving           1983-84   33    -7.7    -3.1    -0.109   -3.8    -0.3714   
341    Moses Malone            1990-91   35    -4.1    -16.9   -0.052   -1.4    -0.3719   
342    Wilt Chamberlain        1969-70   33    -4.5    -2.6    -0.081           -0.3819   
343    Steve Nash              2003-04   29    -5      -13     -0.07    -2.5    -0.385   
344    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1970-71   23    -3.7    -5.8    -0.055           -0.3874   
345    Stephen Curry           2022-23   34    -3.7    -6.8    -0.061   -1      -0.3875   
346    Dwyane Wade             2011-12   30    -4.3    -3.3    -0.062   -2.6    -0.4016   
347    Steve Nash              2002-03   28    -4.5    -1.1    -0.093   -2.4    -0.4045   
348    James Harden            2016-17   27    -4.4    -3      -0.088   -1.7    -0.406   
349    Tim Duncan              2010-11   34    -6.4    -3.7    -0.118   -3.3    -0.4182   
350    James Harden            2022-23   33    -3.1    -6.9    -0.077   -1.3    -0.4247   
351    James Harden            2013-14   24    -5.2    -9.9    -0.11    -1.4    -0.4254   
352    Larry Bird              1990-91   34    -3.9    -4      -0.062   -3      -0.4327   
353    Steve Nash              2000-01   26    -4.5    -5      -0.087   -1.1    -0.4364   
354    Kobe Bryant             2002-03   24    -4      -1.9    -0.079   -3.4    -0.4365   
355    John Stockton           1991-92   29    -3.4    -4.2    -0.093   -2.1    -0.4402   
356    Walt Frazier            1969-70   24    -4.6    -4.4    -0.073           -0.4402   
357    Karl Malone             2000-01   37    -5      -8.8    -0.169   -2.7    -0.4494   
358    Giannis Antetokounmpo   2022-23   28    -10.2   -8      -0.23    -6.5    -0.4503   
359    Bill Russell            1966-67   32    -3.3    -6.4    -0.088           -0.4538   
360    Charles Barkley         1989-90   26    -2.1    -7.2    -0.093   -1.8    -0.4637   
361    Patrick Ewing           1990-91   28    -13.4   -8.9    -0.204   -5.6    -0.4643   
362    Larry Bird              1981-82   25    -4.7    -8.3    -0.051   -1.2    -0.4685   
363    Jimmy Butler            2016-17   27    -5.7    -5.8    -0.12    -4      -0.4714   
364    Wilt Chamberlain        1970-71   34    -1.2    -7.9    -0.097           -0.4782   
365    Bob Pettit              1955-56   23    -5.9    -2      -0.128           -0.4798   
366    John Stockton           1994-95   32    -3.8    -10.5   -0.146   -4.7    -0.485   
367    John Stockton           1993-94   31    -2.6    -8.5    -0.07    -2.3    -0.5014   
368    Julius Erving           1974-75   24    -6.1    -5.8    -0.154   -5.9    -0.506   
369    Kobe Bryant             2005-06   27    -8.1    2.8     -0.137   -5.2    -0.5077   
370    Karl Malone             1989-90   26    -7.5    -12.1   -0.138   -2.9    -0.5258   
371    John Stockton           1999-00   37    -4      -4.3    -0.09    -3.1    -0.5258   
372    David Robinson          1997-98   32    -3.7    -8.5    -0.086   -2.2    -0.5265   
373    Larry Bird              1986-87   30    -4.6    -3.5    -0.091   -3.1    -0.5283   
374    James Harden            2018-19   29    -5.4    -4.9    -0.065   -2.9    -0.5303   
375    Giannis Antetokounmpo   2018-19   24    -4.4    -7.4    -0.073   -2      -0.5329   
376    Kevin Garnett           2010-11   34    -3.3    -9.6    -0.081   -2.3    -0.5377   
377    Nikola Jokic            2020-21   25    -1.7    -5.6    -0.12    -3.1    -0.5451   
378    David Robinson          1993-94   28    -8.7    -10.6   -0.191   -5.7    -0.5479   
379    Dwyane Wade             2012-13   31    -5.3    -7.3    -0.084   -1.3    -0.5533   
380    John Stockton           1989-90   27    -5.9    -12.5   -0.132   -5.4    -0.5689   
381    Jimmy Butler            2022-23   33    -3.6    -8.2    -0.088   -2.2    -0.5758   
382    Stephen Curry           2017-18   29    -5.9    -8.5    -0.085   -0.6    -0.5779   
383    Larry Bird              1984-85   28    -5.6    -4.9    -0.083   -2.8    -0.5793   
384    Julius Erving           1980-81   30    -4.5    -4.5    -0.114   -2.7    -0.5912   
385    Giannis Antetokounmpo   2021-22   27    -5.3    -8.1    -0.103   -0.8    -0.5973   
386    Kevin Garnett           2003-04   27    -4.4    -3.4    -0.109   -3.7    -0.6008   
387    Kevin Durant            2022-23   34    -4.8    -7.8    -0.08    -2.5    -0.6138   
388    Karl Malone             1992-93   29    -9.6    -8.4    -0.153   -6.1    -0.6316   
389    Tim Duncan              2009-10   33    -5      -3.3    -0.124   -3.3    -0.6373   
390    John Stockton           1998-99   36    -3.8    -8.4    -0.101   -2.5    -0.6439   
391    John Stockton           1995-96   33    -4.9    -9.8    -0.058   -2.9    -0.6534   
392    Dirk Nowitzki           2006-07   28    -6.7    -9.6    -0.15    -5.2    -0.6661   
393    James Harden            2017-18   28    -4.9    -7.1    -0.126   -1.8    -0.6693   
394    Karl Malone             1998-99   35    -4.4    -8.5    -0.117   -2.2    -0.696   
395    Bob Pettit              1963-64   31    -5.3    -5.2    -0.129           -0.71     
396    Larry Bird              1987-88   31    -7.6    -7      -0.092   -2.1    -0.7164   
397    David Robinson          1994-95   29    -6.5    -6.6    -0.097   -3.1    -0.731   
398    Patrick Ewing           1997-98   35    -12.6   -14.5   -0.201   -8.2    -0.7426   
399    Kevin Durant            2021-22   33    -12     -10.8   -0.224   -10.1   -0.7548   
400    Dwyane Wade             2006-07   25    -13.7   -10.4   -0.279   -8.8    -0.8033   
401    Julius Erving           1982-83   32    -7.1    -7      -0.104   -3.6    -0.8207   
402    Shaquille O'neal        2004-05   32    -8.9    -2.9    -0.122   -4.2    -0.8482   
403    Dirk Nowitzki           2004-05   26    -6      -7.3    -0.144   -3.6    -0.8855   
404    Jerry West              1971-72   33    -4.3    -10.1   -0.138           -0.8998   
405    Kevin Durant            2013-14   25    -7.2    -6.5    -0.15    -3.8    -0.94     
406    Karl Malone             1996-97   33    -6.7    -9.9    -0.141   -4.3    -1.0398   
407    Dirk Nowitzki           2013-14   35    -9.7    -12.3   -0.188   -6.3    -1.0506   
408    Jimmy Butler            2020-21   31    -16.8   -21.3   -0.319   -9.1    -1.0524   
409    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1972-73   25    -10.8   -13.3   -0.242           -1.0699   
410    Chris Paul              2011-12   26    -7      -5.6    -0.175   -5.5    -1.0739   
411    Chris Paul              2008-09   23    -13.9   -9.4    -0.327   -9.5    -1.0762   
412    Stephen Curry           2015-16   27    -9.2    -6.6    -0.166   -4.9    -1.143   
413    Kevin Durant            2015-16   27    -7.9    -9.2    -0.14    -5.9    -1.1686   
414    Joel Embiid             2021-22   27    -12.1   -2.6    -0.135   -9.1    -1.3246   
415    Joel Embiid             2022-23   28    -11.1   -9.4    -0.169   -7.3    -1.3324   
416    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar     1971-72   24    -7.5    -14.1   -0.193           -1.4556   


ignoring the gargantuan outlier that is joel embiid, and also karl malone, steph finds himself lumped in way down at the bottom. i feel like he's way more james harden than people want to admit. and to the thrust of some of my earlier points, here is how it looks at his 2015-2019 peak in the 4 seasons where there was actually some threat (warriors down in series/playing competitive series):

Code: Select all

2014-15   -0.2591
2015-16   -1.143
2017-18   -0.5779
2018-19   -0.0509

that's an average of -0.508. in other words, when it wasn't the easiest, most pressure-free playoff run ever, at his peak he basically showed the same anti-resilience as massive anti-resilience outlier joel embiid. and he somehow got 2 titles and a another finals where game 7 was tied with a minute to go. so much of his ring total seems to be based on having one of the largest margins of error ever and managing to win rings even when significantly underperforming his regular season play, either because the other team got injured at just the right time (2015 cleveland/2018 rockets) or he had the most talented roster ever at his side (2016 1 minute away from winning/2018). it's such a luxury so many others didn't get.


from 2014-2023, except for 2022:
regular season: he never dipped below a PER of 24, with 3 seasons above 28 (and a 31.5).
post season: dipped below a PER of 23 (5x) more than he was above 24 (3x), with no seasons above 28 and only 1 above 25 (27.1). the one of course in 2017.

regular season: 7 seasons of 0.200 WS48 (ok, one was 0.199) or above with 3 of at least 0.267 WS48
post season: only 3 seasons that even eclipsed 0.185 WS48 and one of those was right at 0.203 WS48 (to his credit, it was 2022). only 1 up there in the 0.267 range, and it was 2017 of course.

he does a little better in BPM but still, seasons of 8.7, 9.9, and 11.9 in the regular season, and then 8.8 and 9.7 in the playoffs, with the 9.7 of course being 2017.


this is steph compared to known playoff maestro james harden. see a difference in these numbers? i really don't (average rank is the average of the rank of the individual stats). even down to them being best over their whole careers and worst at their peaks.





to me, it's hard to see him over kobe. kobe already has the longevity. he has playoff resilience. he has more absolute titles, and let's not act like playing with shaq was way easier than being on the durant warriors.

where steph's average series victory is as a +4.2 SRS favorite and his average series loss is only as a -0.1 SRS underdog, kobe's average series victory is as a paltry +1.4 SRS favorite and his average series loss as a -2.6 SRS underdog.

this isn't strictly just a shaq thing. if you don't include anything with shaq, the numbers are still only +1.9 and -3.0 for kobe. from the 2009 finals to the 2010 finals, the lakers played 5 series as an average of a 0.6 SRS favorite and won them all. that's pretty impressive.

resultantly, kobe has the actual vs expected titles advantage, and is actually pretty amazing in that regard.

kobe has 5 titles with an amazing 1.4 expected titles. his +3.6 delta is behind only people from the 60's celtics and his +254% is behind only hakeem. steph isn't terrible, but +1.4 and +51% isn't as shiny of an accomplishment. and he has a little bit of an advantage from not racking up a lot of playoff appearances on good/not great teams, where you tend to collect at least a fraction of an expected championship but with no real chance of winning one. steph just either made the playoffs with a team that could go to the finals or just missed the playoffs.

throw together the longevity on top of the playoff resiliency, both team and individual and it seems like kobe should be above steph. what i'm less clear on, and what i've been dreading, is what to do with bird. i can't very well be the playoff resiliency guy and the "actual vs expected" guy and pimp for bird, who is about even with steph in resiliency and worse in "actual vs expected" and certainly doesn't have amazing longevity. 4 years of "meh" playoffs to start his career up to 1983 and then 1987 is basically his last dominant playoffs? it's hard to ignore him showing up as a rookie and the celtics just immediately becoming a +7 SRS, 60 win team and then staying there for about a decade. it's also hard to ignore 1991, well past his prime, where the celtics are 46-14 with him (63 win pace) and 10-12 without him (37 win pace), for a nice +26 WOWY at the age of 34. that's a lot of WOWY as a rookie and out to 12 years into his career. with 8 straight top 2 MVP finishes in there. but man, playoff underperformance after playoff underperformance.

i don't know if i've posted it here, but between the ages of 23-35, larry bird had 5 playoff series with a TS% below 46. all of them were at home and he lost 4 of them, and 4 of them were during his 1981-1988 prime and he lost 3 of them, with only the 1981 finals against a sub 0.500 team being the win.

playoff series below 46 TS% between the ages of 23-35
larry bird - 5
Jordan, Lebron, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, Magic, Wilt, Kobe, Durant, Curry, Harden, Kawhi, Dirk, Malone, Barkley combined - 5

and wilt's 1 series arguably shouldn't count given the era he was playing in.

Thanks for collecting the Box stats f4p!

There's an issue with the playoff resilience argument though: these stats don't really get at what the pro-Steph supporters are actually arguing. It's talking past their point a bit.

Which Stats do we use?
Most of the crowd supporting Steph are incorporating some combination of actual impact stats. Not PER or WS48, but plus minus, or RAPM, or EPM, or WOWY, or WOWYR. And these stats are much more favorable to Curry in the playoffs.

Why do we (the pro-Steph crowd) prefer these stats? Well there's a few reasons, that you well know.
-They measure actual value in a role. They don't overrate scoring or underrate playmaking, they're not blind to defensive value or offensive leadership or off-ball value. They measure actual value.
-They do a better job in tests of stats. They correlate with wins in a game better, they correlate with good team performance better (i.e. they do a better job at 'describing' value in a game), they are better predictors of future games and future team performance (they are better at predicting value in future games)

Why does this matter for Steph?
The pro-Steph crowd has argued it's specifically important to use these stats when evaluating Steph, because so much of Steph's value specifically comes from stuff that gets missed in the basic box stats. GOAT level Off ball motion, GOAT level stretching the floor, GOAT level gravity, all-time guard screening, GOAT-level volume at drawing double teams, being the driver of a GOAT level offensive system, being a strong offensive communicator, fitting well alongside other talented stars, playing sound positional defense, strong defensive communication
... every single one of these things are missed by PER and WS48. Entirely. Yet these are some of the key things that puts Steph in contention for this vote

Which do the more accurate stats portray Steph in the playoffs?
Well, a lot more positively than you are. BPM is the most accurate box stat out of the ones you mentioned... it performs best on tests of how well it predicts team success and player value in the moment and in the future. And by your own admission, Steph gets betterin BPM.

This trend continues if we look to other stats. In AuPM (i.e. RAPM but stabler in short samples), pre-2022, Steph does not decline in the playoffs. And in fact is more valuable than Kobe. If we add 2022 and 2023, Steph actually improves in the playoffs on average.

Why does Steph show decline in certain playoffs? And what years do we focus on for our sample?
Steph was majorly injured in 2016. Steph was (slightly) injured in 2018. We've been over this. When looking at his 4-year peak (while throwing out 2017 for... reasons...), you'll note that Steph shows his biggest decline in 2016 in your own stat (when he had a major playoff injury). People who have been arguing for Steph's resiliency have argued that you need to separate playoff decline due to injury (2016) compared to healthy years, that the majority of the perceived decline is exclusively from taking injured samples with his healthy samples, and that he basically maintains value (a higher value than Kobe) or even gets better in a variety of impact stats when looking at healthy years.

Meanwhile, you throw out 2017 because it was "the easiest, most pressure-free playoff run ever,"... while ignoring the fact that it was only so easy and pressure free when Steph as playing. Also conveniently throwing out his single best playoff run ever. I bet playoff Hakeem would look worse without 1994, or playoff Shaq would look worse without 2001, or playoff Wilt would look worse without 1967.

It's interesting that you also don't include 2022 or 2023 in your later year by year focus, when Steph seemed to get better quite clearly in the playoffs. It also happened to be when he was healthy for the playoffs... but I'm sure that's just a coincidence

Meanwhile, your team arguments (looking at championship delta) seem to also miss all the arguments pro-Steph people have been making (that Steph's teams near his peak were pretty universally better than Kobe's teams... by basically every team stat we have).

I don't know man. The box stats are certainly interesting stuff, and the championship deltas are at least interesting. But basically none of this actually addresses the actual points that the pro-Steph crowd is arguing, nor does it address the concerns other people have raised with using this criteria (championships vs expected championships have a lot of potential noise and biases that we've discussed already). It's okay to have different criteria than others! But I'm not sure this actually addresses any of the arguments in favor of Steph.

Good post Draymond, however I slightly disagree with Steph maintaining his impact per AuPM at least if you look at his MVP level years. If you look at Steph's AuPM/G from 14-22.

14
RS-5.3

PS-4.8

15
RS-6.5

PS-5.7

16
RS-7.5

PS-3.4

17
RS-6.6

PS-7.5

18
RS-5.2

PS-4.8

19
RS-5.6

PS-5.4

22
RS-4.4

PS-4.3

Steph also had his AupM/G decrease in 2023 from the RS to the PS, however, the Backpicks 23 Playoff Site is currently being funky, so I can't get a correct number. However, I did take note of this number when it happened, as it was a continued trend of Steph's impact falling.

In this time span, we have 1 PS, when Steph rose in impact from the RS to the PS, and then every other year of his prime, his impact decreased per AuPM/G. This does not suggest to me that Steph's impact holds. AuPM was made to hopefully be a decent approximate for RAPM. The amount of the decline from Steph might be show up as greater in pure box-score numbers however than something like AuPM/G.

[iggymcfrack]

Really? KD in 22 was 33, post achilles, without enough help, and being guarded by long, elite defensive wings. Yet he still put up 26-6-6 on 526 TS%.

Kobe had none of those excuses when he posted 22-3-4 on 456 TS% in the 04 finals, when on the highest stage he literally shot his team out of the series. A classic example of how if Kobe couldn't win his way, he'd rather lose. How about his 2011 spanking by the Mavs. He put up 22-3-2 on 519 TS%. I can keep going. The 08 Boston series saw him post worse stats too. The claim Kobe never had a series that bad is simply wrong. He had plenty that were worse.

There’s more to basketball than TS%. KD averaged over 5 turnovers per game against Boston and had an on/off of -52.9. The second worst on/off for any of their top 7 rotation guys was Bruce Brown at -10.0. KD broke the Nets’ offense and his turnovers were the best offense for Boston as well.

[ceiling raiser]

I think ZeppelinPage's post has really sold me on West's defense. I was always high on it before but did not really fully take into account just how elite he probably was.

I think West is about as good of a two way player a player his size can be. He likely is not far off the goat PG in terms of PGs, and by my calculation he is the best scoring PG as well.

West is tremendous when it comes to both volume and efficiency. Along with Big O these guys were putting up good efficiency even by modern standards. West also had 3 point range (plenty of footage of him hitting hard long range jumpers, and also we know he is a 90% FT shooter so that's a pretty strong sign).

He had the most 40 point games in the post season if we are talking about heroics for a couple decades. Then after Jordan came it took another couple of decades of James to bump him down. These type of heroic records are often a big thing brought up with Kobe (like how many high scoring games he had in the RS), but West had 7 more 40+ games.

Really tremendous efficiency as well as deep playoff runs (weak conference, but it does say a lot about the sample size that he is a legit performer).

Took a while for him to probably become a legit floor general but he became one none the less. I have a hard time thinking Curry is better than him, as dramatic as Curry's 3 point warping his, I am fairly certain West has a more resilient and physical game while also being able to do a pretty good imitation of a long range bomber. The defense that West brings to the table would likely make me put him over Magic, never mind Curry.

My vote is for Jerry West
Alternate vote is for Larry Bird (not sold on him, but again, waiting for people to discuss him in depth before I make an updated decision)

Nomination is for Oscar Robertson

Not a box score guy, but a thought…

Kobe seems to look better than Bird in box creation, and is pretty close is passer rating, eh? Both might be a bit too optimistic on Larry.

[lessthanjake]

Good post Draymond, however I slightly disagree with Steph maintaining his impact per AuPM at least if you look at his MVP level years. If you look at Steph's AuPM/G from 14-22.

14
RS-5.3

PS-4.8

15
RS-6.5

PS-5.7

16
RS-7.5

PS-3.4

17
RS-6.6

PS-7.5

18
RS-5.2

PS-4.8

19
RS-5.6

PS-5.4

22
RS-4.4

PS-4.3

Steph also had his AupM/G decrease in 2023 from the RS to the PS, however, the Backpicks 23 Playoff Site is currently being funky, so I can't get a correct number. However, I did take note of this number when it happened, as it was a continued trend of Steph's impact falling.

In this time span, we have 1 PS, when Steph rose in impact from the RS to the PS, and then every other year of his prime, his impact decreased per AuPM/G. This does not suggest to me that Steph's impact holds. AuPM was made to hopefully be a decent approximate for RAPM. The amount of the decline from Steph might be show up as greater in pure box-score numbers however than something like AuPM/G.

For what it’s worth, if we look at RAPTOR, Steph rose in impact in the playoffs in 2013-2014, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2021-2022. So that’s Steph rising in half of the years he went to the playoffs in the last decade. And while RAPTOR doesn’t go back this far, it’s fairly obvious he rose in impact in the playoffs in 2012-2013, given that he had a +2.7 RS on-off and a +25.2 playoff on-off. So this would actually suggest he rose in impact more than half of the nine playoffs he’s been to in his career.

Also, if we look at raw on-off, please note that in games Steph played (i.e. excluding the early-round playoff games he missed) and excluding low-leverage garbage time, Steph has a +12.13 on-off in the playoffs in the last decade. (There’s no “leverage” data for earlier than 2013-2014, but this number would surely go up if 2012-2013 were included, given that he had a +25.2 playoff on-off that year). The pbpstats website keeps crashing when I try to run similar data on Steph’s non-low-leverage on-off in regular season games he played for the entire time period, but if I look at individual seasons and run weighted averages of the “on” and “off” net ratings by minutes (which should be pretty close to accurate, but will be slightly off due to pace differences between years), it comes out to around +11.6 on-off. So this isn’t suggestive of his impact being lower in the playoffs either.

And, please note that rising in number or not, Steph’s impact in the playoffs in terms of AuPM/g was really high. In the last decade, Steph ranked the following in the league in playoff AuPM/g in the years he was in the playoffs: 2nd, 2nd, 9th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd. There’s legitimately no player in the NBA that finished ahead of him in more than two of those eight playoffs! And, it’s worth mentioning that he was also 5th in playoff AuPM/g in 2012-2013, while not even in his prime yet.

I think it’s very hard to argue that Steph hasn’t had really great impact in the playoffs. Whether his impact went down or not compared to the regular season is a more difficult question, for which I think there’s some competing evidence. But we can certainly say that if it went down it wasn’t by a lot and his playoff impact was still extremely high. Which I feel like is ultimately what matters, particularly when talking about someone whose regular season impact numbers have often been complete historical outliers (see, for instance, the five-year impact chart I posted from Ben Taylor’s recent video, where Steph is just completely off on his own at the top right corner of the chart).

[DraymondGold]

Good post Draymond, however I slightly disagree with Steph maintaining his impact per AuPM at least if you look at his MVP level years. If you look at Steph's AuPM/G from 14-22.

14
RS-5.3

PS-4.8

15
RS-6.5

PS-5.7

16
RS-7.5

PS-3.4

17
RS-6.6

PS-7.5

18
RS-5.2

PS-4.8

19
RS-5.6

PS-5.4

22
RS-4.4

PS-4.3

Steph also had his AupM/G decrease in 2023 from the RS to the PS, however, the Backpicks 23 Playoff Site is currently being funky, so I can't get a correct number. However, I did take note of this number when it happened, as it was a continued trend of Steph's impact falling.

In this time span, we have 1 PS, when Steph rose in impact from the RS to the PS, and then every other year of his prime, his impact decreased per AuPM/G. This does not suggest to me that Steph's impact holds. AuPM was made to hopefully be a decent approximate for RAPM. The amount of the decline from Steph might be show up as greater in pure box-score numbers however than something like AuPM/G.

For what it’s worth, if we look at RAPTOR, Steph rose in impact in the playoffs in 2013-2014, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2021-2022. So that’s Steph rising in half of the years he went to the playoffs in the last decade. And while RAPTOR doesn’t go back this far, it’s fairly obvious he rose in impact in the playoffs in 2012-2013, given that he had a +2.7 RS on-off and a +25.2 playoff on-off. So this would actually suggest he rose in impact more than half of the nine playoffs he’s been to in his career.

Also, if we look at raw on-off, please note that in games Steph played (i.e. excluding the early-round playoff games he missed) and excluding low-leverage garbage time, Steph has a +12.13 on-off in the playoffs in the last decade. (There’s no “leverage” data for earlier than 2013-2014, but this number would surely go up if 2012-2013 were included, given that he had a +25.2 playoff on-off that year). The pbpstats website keeps crashing when I try to run similar data on Steph’s non-low-leverage on-off in regular season games he played, but if I look at individual seasons and weigh the “on” and “off” net ratings by minutes (which should be pretty close accurate, but will be slightly off due to pace differences between years), it comes out to around +11.6. So this isn’t suggestive of his impact being lower in the playoffs either.

And, please note that rising in number or not, Steph’s impact in the playoffs in terms of AuPM/g was really high. In the last decade, Steph ranked the following in the league in playoff AuPM/g in the years he was in the playoffs: 2nd, 2nd, 9th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd. There’s legitimately no player in the NBA that finished ahead of him in more than two of those eight playoffs! And, it’s worth mentioning that he was also 5th in playoff AuPM/g in 2012-2013, while not even in his prime yet.

I think it’s very hard to argue that Steph hasn’t had really great impact in the playoffs. Whether his impact went down or not compared to the regular season is a more difficult question, for which I think there’s some competing evidence. But we can certainly say that if it went down it wasn’t by a lot and his playoff impact was still extremely high. Which I feel like is ultimately what matters, particularly when talking about someone whose regular season impact numbers have often been complete historical outliers (see, for instance, the five-year impact chart I posted from Ben Taylor’s recent video, where Steph is just completely off on his own at the top right corner of the chart).

Don't have time to check which years Thinking Basketball disagrees (maybe just including 2013?), but he did a calculation of who changes in AuPM in RS vs PS here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2021/07/10/playoff-plus-minus-part-iii-changes-in-the-postseason/.

1997–2022, Curry had a...
-Regular Season AuPM of 5.11 (1st all time in that list... though there are certain minute thresholds to get on this list)
-Postseason AuPM of 5.04 (3rd all time in that list, behind Jordan and LeBron).
This is a change of -0.07, or 1.3%. He got worse in 43% of his playoff runs in this sample, and got better in 57% of his playoff runs.

He didn't really decline in 2022, sounds like you recall he got worse in 2023 (but the calculation have been messed up for a while, so we can't check).

I don't know -- a 1% decline is not a major sign of decline overall, at least not beyond uncertainty range. Regardless, even in decline, he's still 3rd ever in PS AuPM post 1997, ahead of all the other modern candidates up for vote/nomination. And again, given his biggest personal decline year happened in 2016, when he was injured, there's an even stronger argument that he doesn't decline when healthy. Pulling my list from the Duncan thread and adding a few people:

Playoff Improvements by AuPM (1997-2021):
Jordan (only in 97-98) improves 22%. (1st in PS AuPM all time)
Hakeem (only 97-98) improves 15%
LeBron improves 13% (2nd all time)
Shaq improves 7% (5th all time)
Garnett improves 9% (9th all time)
Duncan improves 8% (8th all time)
Kobe improves by 4%
Wade improves by 0%
Jokic (pre-2022) gets worse by -0%
Curry (pre-2022) gets worse by -1% (3rd all time)
Durant gets worse by -1% (10th all time)
Dirk gets worse by -1% (7th all time)
Chris Paul gets worse by -4%
Giannis gets worse by -8%
Karl Malone (97+) gets worse by -17%

Sometimes I think people over-index on playoff changes relative to the player in the regular season, because comparing a player to himself is easier. Like the fact that Player A declines or doesn't improve... doesn't mean they're worse than Player B who does improve. Curry doesn't improve as much as some of the other guys... and is still 3rd all time in this time frame, only behind Jordan and LeBron. Yet we're punishing him for not improving enough? Playoff change just doesn't seem like the right metric... and regardless, I don't see it as all that critical of Curry even if we do want to focus on it.

[lessthanjake]

Good post Draymond, however I slightly disagree with Steph maintaining his impact per AuPM at least if you look at his MVP level years. If you look at Steph's AuPM/G from 14-22.

14
RS-5.3

PS-4.8

15
RS-6.5

PS-5.7

16
RS-7.5

PS-3.4

17
RS-6.6

PS-7.5

18
RS-5.2

PS-4.8

19
RS-5.6

PS-5.4

22
RS-4.4

PS-4.3

Steph also had his AupM/G decrease in 2023 from the RS to the PS, however, the Backpicks 23 Playoff Site is currently being funky, so I can't get a correct number. However, I did take note of this number when it happened, as it was a continued trend of Steph's impact falling.

In this time span, we have 1 PS, when Steph rose in impact from the RS to the PS, and then every other year of his prime, his impact decreased per AuPM/G. This does not suggest to me that Steph's impact holds. AuPM was made to hopefully be a decent approximate for RAPM. The amount of the decline from Steph might be show up as greater in pure box-score numbers however than something like AuPM/G.

For what it’s worth, if we look at RAPTOR, Steph rose in impact in the playoffs in 2013-2014, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2021-2022. So that’s Steph rising in half of the years he went to the playoffs in the last decade. And while RAPTOR doesn’t go back this far, it’s fairly obvious he rose in impact in the playoffs in 2012-2013, given that he had a +2.7 RS on-off and a +25.2 playoff on-off. So this would actually suggest he rose in impact more than half of the nine playoffs he’s been to in his career.

Also, if we look at raw on-off, please note that in games Steph played (i.e. excluding the early-round playoff games he missed) and excluding low-leverage garbage time, Steph has a +12.13 on-off in the playoffs in the last decade. (There’s no “leverage” data for earlier than 2013-2014, but this number would surely go up if 2012-2013 were included, given that he had a +25.2 playoff on-off that year). The pbpstats website keeps crashing when I try to run similar data on Steph’s non-low-leverage on-off in regular season games he played, but if I look at individual seasons and weigh the “on” and “off” net ratings by minutes (which should be pretty close accurate, but will be slightly off due to pace differences between years), it comes out to around +11.6. So this isn’t suggestive of his impact being lower in the playoffs either.

And, please note that rising in number or not, Steph’s impact in the playoffs in terms of AuPM/g was really high. In the last decade, Steph ranked the following in the league in playoff AuPM/g in the years he was in the playoffs: 2nd, 2nd, 9th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd. There’s legitimately no player in the NBA that finished ahead of him in more than two of those eight playoffs! And, it’s worth mentioning that he was also 5th in playoff AuPM/g in 2012-2013, while not even in his prime yet.

I think it’s very hard to argue that Steph hasn’t had really great impact in the playoffs. Whether his impact went down or not compared to the regular season is a more difficult question, for which I think there’s some competing evidence. But we can certainly say that if it went down it wasn’t by a lot and his playoff impact was still extremely high. Which I feel like is ultimately what matters, particularly when talking about someone whose regular season impact numbers have often been complete historical outliers (see, for instance, the five-year impact chart I posted from Ben Taylor’s recent video, where Steph is just completely off on his own at the top right corner of the chart).

Don't have time to check which years Thinking Basketball disagrees (maybe just including 2013?), but he did a calculation of who changes in AuPM in RS vs PS here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2021/07/10/playoff-plus-minus-part-iii-changes-in-the-postseason/.

1997–2022, Curry had a...
-Regular Season AuPM of 5.11 (1st all time in that list... though there are certain minute thresholds to get on this list)
-Postseason AuPM of 5.04 (3rd all time in that list, behind Jordan and LeBron).
This is a change of -0.07, or 1.3%. He got worse in 43% of his playoff runs in this sample, and got better in 57% of his playoff runs.

He didn't really decline in 2022, sounds like you recall he got worse in 2023 (but the calculation have been messed up for a while, so we can't check).

I don't know -- a 1% decline is not a major sign of decline overall, at least not beyond uncertainty range. Regardless, even in decline, he's still 3rd ever in PS AuPM post 1997, ahead of all the other modern candidates up for vote/nomination. And again, given his biggest personal decline year happened in 2016, when he was injured, there's an even stronger argument that he doesn't decline when healthy. Pulling my list from the Duncan thread and adding a few people:

Playoff Improvements by AuPM (1997-2021):
Jordan (only in 97-98) improves 22%. (1st in PS AuPM all time)
Hakeem (only 97-98) improves 15%
LeBron improves 13% (2nd all time)
Shaq improves 7% (5th all time)
Garnett improves 9% (9th all time)
Duncan improves 8% (8th all time)
Kobe improves by 4%
Wade improves by 0%
Jokic (pre-2022) gets worse by -0%
Curry (pre-2022) gets worse by -1% (3rd all time)
Durant gets worse by -1% (10th all time)
Dirk gets worse by -1% (7th all time)
Chris Paul gets worse by -4%
Giannis gets worse by -8%
Karl Malone (97+) gets worse by -17%

Great find! I’d not seen that article, and it’s hard to really look at it and argue against Curry’s huge playoff impact or to really argue that his impact drops a bunch in the playoffs.

I’d add that this article was written in 2021. Since then, there’s been two playoffs. Curry did actually technically go down in AuPM/g in the 2022 playoffs (a bit of a surprise TBH), but it was 4.4 in the regular season and 4.3 in the playoffs, so not meaningfully different and wouldn’t change this article’s analysis in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, the numbers for 2023 playoff AuPM/g are weird (they appear to be scaled much higher than the regular season numbers), so the 2023 playoff number for Curry is a lot higher than in the 2023 regular season but that’s probably not meaningful in and of itself. That said, I find it very hard to believe he wouldn’t have been higher in AuPM/g in the playoffs this season if it were scaled the same, given that he was ranked 12th in AuPM/g in the regular season and 3rd in the playoffs. There is no year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than 12th in RS AuPM/g, nor is there a year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than Curry’s actual RS AuPM/g in this past regular season. Looking at the numbers, I have a feeling the 2023 playoff AuPM/g numbers are just doubled (in which case, Steph would have improved quite a bit from RS to playoffs) but I can’t be sure if I’m right about that specific theory.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Good post Draymond, however I slightly disagree with Steph maintaining his impact per AuPM at least if you look at his MVP level years. If you look at Steph's AuPM/G from 14-22.

14
RS-5.3

PS-4.8

15
RS-6.5

PS-5.7

16
RS-7.5

PS-3.4

17
RS-6.6

PS-7.5

18
RS-5.2

PS-4.8

19
RS-5.6

PS-5.4

22
RS-4.4

PS-4.3

Steph also had his AupM/G decrease in 2023 from the RS to the PS, however, the Backpicks 23 Playoff Site is currently being funky, so I can't get a correct number. However, I did take note of this number when it happened, as it was a continued trend of Steph's impact falling.

In this time span, we have 1 PS, when Steph rose in impact from the RS to the PS, and then every other year of his prime, his impact decreased per AuPM/G. This does not suggest to me that Steph's impact holds. AuPM was made to hopefully be a decent approximate for RAPM. The amount of the decline from Steph might be show up as greater in pure box-score numbers however than something like AuPM/G.

For what it’s worth, if we look at RAPTOR, Steph rose in impact in the playoffs in 2013-2014, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2021-2022. So that’s Steph rising in half of the years he went to the playoffs in the last decade. And while RAPTOR doesn’t go back this far, it’s fairly obvious he rose in impact in the playoffs in 2012-2013, given that he had a +2.7 RS on-off and a +25.2 playoff on-off. So this would actually suggest he rose in impact more than half of the nine playoffs he’s been to in his career.

Also, if we look at raw on-off, please note that in games Steph played (i.e. excluding the early-round playoff games he missed) and excluding low-leverage garbage time, Steph has a +12.13 on-off in the playoffs in the last decade. (There’s no “leverage” data for earlier than 2013-2014, but this number would surely go up if 2012-2013 were included, given that he had a +25.2 playoff on-off that year). The pbpstats website keeps crashing when I try to run similar data on Steph’s non-low-leverage on-off in regular season games he played, but if I look at individual seasons and weigh the “on” and “off” net ratings by minutes (which should be pretty close accurate, but will be slightly off due to pace differences between years), it comes out to around +11.6. So this isn’t suggestive of his impact being lower in the playoffs either.

And, please note that rising in number or not, Steph’s impact in the playoffs in terms of AuPM/g was really high. In the last decade, Steph ranked the following in the league in playoff AuPM/g in the years he was in the playoffs: 2nd, 2nd, 9th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd. There’s legitimately no player in the NBA that finished ahead of him in more than two of those eight playoffs! And, it’s worth mentioning that he was also 5th in playoff AuPM/g in 2012-2013, while not even in his prime yet.

I think it’s very hard to argue that Steph hasn’t had really great impact in the playoffs. Whether his impact went down or not compared to the regular season is a more difficult question, for which I think there’s some competing evidence. But we can certainly say that if it went down it wasn’t by a lot and his playoff impact was still extremely high. Which I feel like is ultimately what matters, particularly when talking about someone whose regular season impact numbers have often been complete historical outliers (see, for instance, the five-year impact chart I posted from Ben Taylor’s recent video, where Steph is just completely off on his own at the top right corner of the chart).

Don't have time to check which years Thinking Basketball disagrees (maybe just including 2013?), but he did a calculation of who changes in AuPM in RS vs PS here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2021/07/10/playoff-plus-minus-part-iii-changes-in-the-postseason/.

1997–2022, Curry had a...
-Regular Season AuPM of 5.11 (1st all time in that list... though there are certain minute thresholds to get on this list)
-Postseason AuPM of 5.04 (3rd all time in that list, behind Jordan and LeBron).
This is a change of -0.07, or 1.3%. He got worse in 43% of his playoff runs in this sample, and got better in 57% of his playoff runs.

He didn't really decline in 2022, sounds like you recall he got worse in 2023 (but the calculation have been messed up for a while, so we can't check).

I don't know -- a 1% decline is not a major sign of decline overall, at least not beyond uncertainty range. Regardless, even in decline, he's still 3rd ever in PS AuPM post 1997, ahead of all the other modern candidates up for vote/nomination. And again, given his biggest personal decline year happened in 2016, when he was injured, there's an even stronger argument that he doesn't decline when healthy. Pulling my list from the Duncan thread and adding a few people:

Playoff Improvements by AuPM (1997-2021):
Jordan (only in 97-98) improves 22%. (1st in PS AuPM all time)
Hakeem (only 97-98) improves 15%
LeBron improves 13% (2nd all time)
Shaq improves 7% (5th all time)
Garnett improves 9% (9th all time)
Duncan improves 8% (8th all time)
Kobe improves by 4%
Wade improves by 0%
Jokic (pre-2022) gets worse by -0%
Curry (pre-2022) gets worse by -1% (3rd all time)
Durant gets worse by -1% (10th all time)
Dirk gets worse by -1% (7th all time)
Chris Paul gets worse by -4%
Giannis gets worse by -8%
Karl Malone (97+) gets worse by -17%

Sometimes I think people over-index on playoff changes relative to the player in the regular season, because comparing a player to himself is easier. Like the fact that Player A declines or doesn't improve... doesn't mean they're worse than Player B who does improve. Curry doesn't improve as much as some of the other guys... and is still 3rd all time in this time frame, only behind Jordan and LeBron. Yet we're punishing him for not improving enough? Playoff change just doesn't seem like the right metric... and regardless, I don't see it as all that critical of Curry even if we do want to focus on it.

That article is old and AuPM has been updated since then. The formula is not the same. Also, you said no player has more than 2 PS higher in AuPM. Well yeah, but Curry has missed years. Lebron in 2016 and 2017 is higher, and if my memory serves correctly, he was higher in the 2023 PS as well (numbers are messed up and can't be checked sadly).

[LukaTheGOAT]

For what it’s worth, if we look at RAPTOR, Steph rose in impact in the playoffs in 2013-2014, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2021-2022. So that’s Steph rising in half of the years he went to the playoffs in the last decade. And while RAPTOR doesn’t go back this far, it’s fairly obvious he rose in impact in the playoffs in 2012-2013, given that he had a +2.7 RS on-off and a +25.2 playoff on-off. So this would actually suggest he rose in impact more than half of the nine playoffs he’s been to in his career.

Also, if we look at raw on-off, please note that in games Steph played (i.e. excluding the early-round playoff games he missed) and excluding low-leverage garbage time, Steph has a +12.13 on-off in the playoffs in the last decade. (There’s no “leverage” data for earlier than 2013-2014, but this number would surely go up if 2012-2013 were included, given that he had a +25.2 playoff on-off that year). The pbpstats website keeps crashing when I try to run similar data on Steph’s non-low-leverage on-off in regular season games he played, but if I look at individual seasons and weigh the “on” and “off” net ratings by minutes (which should be pretty close accurate, but will be slightly off due to pace differences between years), it comes out to around +11.6. So this isn’t suggestive of his impact being lower in the playoffs either.

And, please note that rising in number or not, Steph’s impact in the playoffs in terms of AuPM/g was really high. In the last decade, Steph ranked the following in the league in playoff AuPM/g in the years he was in the playoffs: 2nd, 2nd, 9th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd. There’s legitimately no player in the NBA that finished ahead of him in more than two of those eight playoffs! And, it’s worth mentioning that he was also 5th in playoff AuPM/g in 2012-2013, while not even in his prime yet.

I think it’s very hard to argue that Steph hasn’t had really great impact in the playoffs. Whether his impact went down or not compared to the regular season is a more difficult question, for which I think there’s some competing evidence. But we can certainly say that if it went down it wasn’t by a lot and his playoff impact was still extremely high. Which I feel like is ultimately what matters, particularly when talking about someone whose regular season impact numbers have often been complete historical outliers (see, for instance, the five-year impact chart I posted from Ben Taylor’s recent video, where Steph is just completely off on his own at the top right corner of the chart).

Don't have time to check which years Thinking Basketball disagrees (maybe just including 2013?), but he did a calculation of who changes in AuPM in RS vs PS here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2021/07/10/playoff-plus-minus-part-iii-changes-in-the-postseason/.

1997–2022, Curry had a...
-Regular Season AuPM of 5.11 (1st all time in that list... though there are certain minute thresholds to get on this list)
-Postseason AuPM of 5.04 (3rd all time in that list, behind Jordan and LeBron).
This is a change of -0.07, or 1.3%. He got worse in 43% of his playoff runs in this sample, and got better in 57% of his playoff runs.

He didn't really decline in 2022, sounds like you recall he got worse in 2023 (but the calculation have been messed up for a while, so we can't check).

I don't know -- a 1% decline is not a major sign of decline overall, at least not beyond uncertainty range. Regardless, even in decline, he's still 3rd ever in PS AuPM post 1997, ahead of all the other modern candidates up for vote/nomination. And again, given his biggest personal decline year happened in 2016, when he was injured, there's an even stronger argument that he doesn't decline when healthy. Pulling my list from the Duncan thread and adding a few people:

Playoff Improvements by AuPM (1997-2021):
Jordan (only in 97-98) improves 22%. (1st in PS AuPM all time)
Hakeem (only 97-98) improves 15%
LeBron improves 13% (2nd all time)
Shaq improves 7% (5th all time)
Garnett improves 9% (9th all time)
Duncan improves 8% (8th all time)
Kobe improves by 4%
Wade improves by 0%
Jokic (pre-2022) gets worse by -0%
Curry (pre-2022) gets worse by -1% (3rd all time)
Durant gets worse by -1% (10th all time)
Dirk gets worse by -1% (7th all time)
Chris Paul gets worse by -4%
Giannis gets worse by -8%
Karl Malone (97+) gets worse by -17%

Great find! I’d not seen that article, and it’s hard to really look at it and argue against Curry’s huge playoff impact or to really argue that his impact drops a bunch in the playoffs.

I’d add that this article was written in 2021. Since then, there’s been two playoffs. Curry did actually technically go down in AuPM/g in the 2022 playoffs (a bit of a surprise TBH), but it was 4.4 in the regular season and 4.3 in the playoffs, so not meaningfully different and wouldn’t change this article’s analysis in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, the numbers for 2023 playoff AuPM/g are weird (they appear to be scaled much higher than the regular season numbers), so the 2023 playoff number for Curry is a lot higher than in the 2023 regular season but that’s probably not meaningful in and of itself. That said, I find it very hard to believe he wouldn’t have been higher in AuPM/g in the playoffs this season if it were scaled the same, given that he was ranked 12th in AuPM/g in the regular season and 3rd in the playoffs. I’m not aware of any year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than 12th in RS AuPM/g, nor am I aware of a year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than Curry’s actual RS AuPM/g in this past regular season. Looking at the numbers, I have a feeling the 2023 playoff AuPM/g numbers are just doubled (in which case, Steph would have improved quite a bit from RS to playoffs) but I can’t be sure if I’m right about that specific theory.

The article contains the older version of AuPM and then therefore is not what I am referring to.

Also, I can't prove to you that his 2023 PS AuPM/G is lower because the playoffs numbers are screwed (like Jokic has a rTS% of 62.9%, lol). But considering Curry's scoring numbers were much worse, in the PS versus the RS, I don't see how it is crazy to argue his impact dropped. Also his playmaking value dropped from the RS to PS if you look his PlayVal.

I never said Curry didn't have top tier impact. I argued against the idea that his AuPM suggests he maintains his RS impact into the PS.

[lessthanjake]

Don't have time to check which years Thinking Basketball disagrees (maybe just including 2013?), but he did a calculation of who changes in AuPM in RS vs PS here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2021/07/10/playoff-plus-minus-part-iii-changes-in-the-postseason/.

1997–2022, Curry had a...
-Regular Season AuPM of 5.11 (1st all time in that list... though there are certain minute thresholds to get on this list)
-Postseason AuPM of 5.04 (3rd all time in that list, behind Jordan and LeBron).
This is a change of -0.07, or 1.3%. He got worse in 43% of his playoff runs in this sample, and got better in 57% of his playoff runs.

He didn't really decline in 2022, sounds like you recall he got worse in 2023 (but the calculation have been messed up for a while, so we can't check).

I don't know -- a 1% decline is not a major sign of decline overall, at least not beyond uncertainty range. Regardless, even in decline, he's still 3rd ever in PS AuPM post 1997, ahead of all the other modern candidates up for vote/nomination. And again, given his biggest personal decline year happened in 2016, when he was injured, there's an even stronger argument that he doesn't decline when healthy. Pulling my list from the Duncan thread and adding a few people:

Playoff Improvements by AuPM (1997-2021):
Jordan (only in 97-98) improves 22%. (1st in PS AuPM all time)
Hakeem (only 97-98) improves 15%
LeBron improves 13% (2nd all time)
Shaq improves 7% (5th all time)
Garnett improves 9% (9th all time)
Duncan improves 8% (8th all time)
Kobe improves by 4%
Wade improves by 0%
Jokic (pre-2022) gets worse by -0%
Curry (pre-2022) gets worse by -1% (3rd all time)
Durant gets worse by -1% (10th all time)
Dirk gets worse by -1% (7th all time)
Chris Paul gets worse by -4%
Giannis gets worse by -8%
Karl Malone (97+) gets worse by -17%

Great find! I’d not seen that article, and it’s hard to really look at it and argue against Curry’s huge playoff impact or to really argue that his impact drops a bunch in the playoffs.

I’d add that this article was written in 2021. Since then, there’s been two playoffs. Curry did actually technically go down in AuPM/g in the 2022 playoffs (a bit of a surprise TBH), but it was 4.4 in the regular season and 4.3 in the playoffs, so not meaningfully different and wouldn’t change this article’s analysis in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, the numbers for 2023 playoff AuPM/g are weird (they appear to be scaled much higher than the regular season numbers), so the 2023 playoff number for Curry is a lot higher than in the 2023 regular season but that’s probably not meaningful in and of itself. That said, I find it very hard to believe he wouldn’t have been higher in AuPM/g in the playoffs this season if it were scaled the same, given that he was ranked 12th in AuPM/g in the regular season and 3rd in the playoffs. I’m not aware of any year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than 12th in RS AuPM/g, nor am I aware of a year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than Curry’s actual RS AuPM/g in this past regular season. Looking at the numbers, I have a feeling the 2023 playoff AuPM/g numbers are just doubled (in which case, Steph would have improved quite a bit from RS to playoffs) but I can’t be sure if I’m right about that specific theory.

The article contains the older version of AuPM and then therefore is not what I am referring to.

Also, I can't prove to you that his 2023 PS AuPM/G is lower because the playoffs numbers are screwed (like Jokic has a rTS% of 62.9%, lol). But considering Curry's scoring numbers were much worse, in the PS versus the RS, I don't see how it is crazy to argue his impact dropped.

Given that he was 12th in AuPM/g in the regular season and 3rd in AuPM/g in the playoffs, I do actually think it would be a bit crazy to argue his impact dropped (at least as measured by AuPM/g), because in the entire history of AuPM/g there is not a single year where 12th in RS AuPM/g was as high a number as 3rd in playoff AuPM/g (nor is there a single year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t higher than Curry’s RS AuPM/g this past year).

[LukaTheGOAT]

Great find! I’d not seen that article, and it’s hard to really look at it and argue against Curry’s huge playoff impact or to really argue that his impact drops a bunch in the playoffs.

I’d add that this article was written in 2021. Since then, there’s been two playoffs. Curry did actually technically go down in AuPM/g in the 2022 playoffs (a bit of a surprise TBH), but it was 4.4 in the regular season and 4.3 in the playoffs, so not meaningfully different and wouldn’t change this article’s analysis in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, the numbers for 2023 playoff AuPM/g are weird (they appear to be scaled much higher than the regular season numbers), so the 2023 playoff number for Curry is a lot higher than in the 2023 regular season but that’s probably not meaningful in and of itself. That said, I find it very hard to believe he wouldn’t have been higher in AuPM/g in the playoffs this season if it were scaled the same, given that he was ranked 12th in AuPM/g in the regular season and 3rd in the playoffs. I’m not aware of any year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than 12th in RS AuPM/g, nor am I aware of a year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t a higher number than Curry’s actual RS AuPM/g in this past regular season. Looking at the numbers, I have a feeling the 2023 playoff AuPM/g numbers are just doubled (in which case, Steph would have improved quite a bit from RS to playoffs) but I can’t be sure if I’m right about that specific theory.

The article contains the older version of AuPM and then therefore is not what I am referring to.

Also, I can't prove to you that his 2023 PS AuPM/G is lower because the playoffs numbers are screwed (like Jokic has a rTS% of 62.9%, lol). But considering Curry's scoring numbers were much worse, in the PS versus the RS, I don't see how it is crazy to argue his impact dropped.

Given that he was 12th in RS AuPM/g in the regular season and 3rd in AuPM/g in the playoffs, I do actually think it is a bit crazy to argue his impact dropped (at least as measured by AuPM/g), because in the entire history of AuPM/g there is not a single year where 12th in RS AuPM/g was as high a number as 3rd in playoff AuPM/g (nor is there a single year where 3rd in playoff AuPM/g wasn’t higher than Curry’s RS AuPM/g this past year).

The AuPM/G you are referring too I am quite confident is off. The numbers in general are greatly off. Before the numbers were screwed up, I am pretty confident Curry wasn't 3rd. However, since Backpicks does not want to work the way it is supposed to, I can't show you the real AuPM/G number.