RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #18 (Dirk Nowitzki)

[HeartBreakKid]

The Nets certainly did not exceed expectations the last few years. They're going to be the biggest flop of the decade most likely. Don't think anyone from New Jersey is going to look at the Nets with fond memories.

[One_and_Done]

I think the term exceeding or meeting expectations is confusing people. Here is how I see KDs career:

08-12: young team where KD is the clear best player gets better every season, culminating in a finals loss due to their coach being dumb

13: Harden is gone, and then Westbrook gets hurt in the playoffs, making their loss to a strong Grit & Grind Grizz ok, especially given the lack of shooting KD has on these sub-optimal teams.

14: loses in the WCF to a legendary Spurs team, and were actually 2-2 in games Ibaka played.

15: KD hurt, so obviously a mulligan.

16: team still has no spacing to optimise KD, but they push the 73 win Warriors to the brink anyway.

17-18: Warriors are the GOAT team, look unstoppable even when they're taking it easy we all know they'll win, and KD is deemed to be the best player in the finals both years.

19: Warriors were going to win again, but then KD (and others) are hurt in the finals, which is the only reason they lose.

21: both his co-stars get hurt, but he's a literal inch away from taking out the champs anyway.

22: KD isn't as young as he used to be, and his team has a turmoil and injury filled year. You could argue KD underperformed, but he was 33 post an achilles injury and at this point is playing with house money.

23: Still looks great for 34, if Booker hadn't hurt his foot (and CP3) or the team had a little depth I feel they'd have won the title. I have the Suns as favourites next year.

If KD wins a title next year think about how much backtracking there is going to be here.

Also FYI, I think it's dumb to hold an injury against a guy when it's a random injury deep in the playoffs, because you're rewarding guys who never made it that far. If they had made it further maybe they would get hurt. As far as I'm concerned 2017 Kawhi or 2019 KD are functionally healthy years.

[AEnigma]

The idea that there might be backtracking for Durant next year in the unlikely event he wins the title as his team’s best player affects me exactly as much as the idea that there may be backtracking if we see titles won by Luka, Butler, Tatum, Trae, Paul George… all of whom have played in the conference finals more recently than Durant has.

[f4p]

For all the talk of KD just being about stats and not winning, if you go through his career every year until 21 I think you can make a compelling case hus teams met or exceeded expectations given the circumstances.

I won't comment 2008 and 2009 teams.

2011 isn't a massive black mark on Durant's resume, because he was still young but the team definitely underperformed against the Mavs in WCF.

I think 2013 is a tough call because of Westbrook injury, but the Thunder were dominated by solid, but unspectacular Grizzlies team that got destroyed by the Spurs in the next round.

2015 is a clear underperformance due to Durant's injury.
2016 isn't an underpeformance overall, but I guess you can make a case that the Thunder should have closed out the series leading it 3-1. In these last three games, Durant averaged 32 ppg on only 51.7 TS%.
2019 is another underperformance due to Durant's injury.
2020 is obvious.

Of course, both 2022 and 2023 are underperformances, but you didn't include it for some reasons.

I don't know, I guess it depends on how you look at Durant. If you legitimately think he's top 10-15 candidate, then most of these years should be called underperformances. If you view him closer to the high 20s, then I guess only a few of them don't look good.

basically all of your examples are "they were injured", which would seem the point of the phrase "given the circumstances". and the other 2 are "they went as far as you could expect, but not in a good way", which is probably not the general point of saying someone underperformed (if i guess at OaD's meaning).

[One_and_Done]

Yep. That's what 'in the circumstances' means. Kind of crazy that needs to be explained. I know I was furious at KD for choking in the 2019 finals by having a random injury. Only losers get random injuries. What was he thinking?

[rk2023]

The idea that there might be backtracking for Durant next year in the unlikely event he wins the title as his team’s best player affects me exactly as much as the idea that there may be backtracking if we see titles won by Luka, Butler, Tatum, Trae, Paul George… all of whom have played in the conference finals more recently than Durant has.

You don't understand; his foot was one line and centimeters away from making the C.F. / winning a title in what is now the greatest what-if in NBA History.

[One_and_Done]

The idea that there might be backtracking for Durant next year in the unlikely event he wins the title as his team’s best player affects me exactly as much as the idea that there may be backtracking if we see titles won by Luka, Butler, Tatum, Trae, Paul George… all of whom have played in the conference finals more recently than Durant has.

You don't understand; his foot was one line and he was centimeters away from making the C.F. / winning a title in what is now the greatest what-if in NBA History.

That would matter if you cared about rings and not performance. I do not.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Yep. That's what 'in the circumstances' means. Kind of crazy that needs to be explained. I know I was furious at KD for choking in the 2019 finals by having a random injury. Only losers get random injuries. What was he thinking?

The issue with KD is pretty much, that in OKC injuries to his cast, or himself, and a pretty horrendous cast and coaching, hurt him, and then he went into this absurdly good situation and dominated in that situation

So it’s two extremes and the answer is probably in the middle. People discount KDs playoffs a tad too much though, you hardly see people mention for example that in 2018 the offense fell off a cliff without him and for the part if you take games they played together in 2018 and 2019 I’m fairly sure KD is the one who has the better playoff impact stuff than Curry, although playoff impact data can be a bit stupid, and that’s what they got him for.

There’s probably an argument that 2018 and 2019 Durant > 2018 and 2019 Curry in the playoffs, if you’re talking about how they played concurrently. (Obviously the injury disqualifies Kd in 2019)

The issue is though that we then basically have 2-3 years where peak KD was genuinely this crazy monster and he got hurt midway through one of them, so if someone has a career value standpoint and is low on most okc years I get it.




It’s hard to know how much of it is the okc situation hurting him vs the warriors situation helping him

[One_and_Done]

The stats from KDs post GSW career, despite being post achilles and well into his 30s, certainly seem to indicate the problem was the lack of spacing and sub-optimal support cast in OKC. Even if we were to use only playoff stats (which is silly btw) KD''s post GSW stats are better than his OKC playoff stats, despite the fact he's now well into his 30s and has had an achilles tear. Factoring that in we might say "sure, KD might not have posted his GSW level stats in every environment, but his stats would look much closer to that they would to his OKC playoff stats in a less optimal situation.

OKC playoff stats per 100: 35.8/10/4.6, 113 Ortg, 575 TS%
Post GSW playoff stats per 100: 36.9/10.2/6.1, 115 Ortg, 603 TS%

What's also annoying is his non-GSW stats are still better than guys we have already voted in, as is what he accomplished with his teams, so why is he getting a demerit for it. I have no idea how anyone can attribute the OKC success to KD, when they were 25-11 without him in 2014 and KD was killing it. KD was clearly the driver of winning on those teams.

[rk2023]

The stats from KDs post GSW career, despite being post achilles and well into his 30s, certainly seem to indicate the problem was the lack of spacing and sub-optimal support cast in OKC. Even if we were to use only playoff stats (which is silly btw) KD''s post GSW stats are better than his OKC playoff stats, despite the fact he's now well into his 30s and has had an achilles tear. Factoring that in we might say "sure, KD might not have posted his GSW level stats in every environment, but his stats would look much closer to that they would to his OKC playoff stats in a less optimal situation.

OKC playoff stats per 100: 35.8/10/4.6, 113 Ortg, 575 TS%
Post GSW playoff stats per 100: 36.9/10.2/6.1, 115 Ortg, 603 TS%

What's also annoying is his non-GSW stats are still better than guys we have already voted in, as is what he accomplished with his teams, so why is he getting a demerit for it. I have no idea how anyone can attribute the OKC success to KD, when they were 25-11 without him in 2014 and KD was killing it. KD was clearly the driver of winning on those teams.

Again, seems funny to call Iggy out for backing his opinions with RAPM/BBR, then coming and making the case about Durant "having better stats" than recent selections primarily because of /100 scoring rate and Individual ORTG (which is even less predictable than WS & BPM - those obviously being flawed themselves). I guess 19 James Harden is the GOAT Offensive peak then.

You also realize that his 21-23 playoff scoring presents a huge disparity when comparing the Clippers and 21 Boston series to that of the Bucks (still an impressive series that time around), 22 Cs, and Nuggets? Plus scoring is not what most people are knocking KD for here. Yes, some of his numbers are impressive - but most of the scoring stretches people regard as upper-most echelon are like 30 or so on ~ >- 60%TS well before the offensive boom era we currently are seeing (but i'm not gonna make this a Goodhart's Law thing). Essentially his scoring dips from all-time++ to "great" levels in the PS - where I don't think the playmaking with some turnover warts and him being a good, not great, defender compensates enough to make Durant the caliber of player you're selling him as.

[One_and_Done]

I'm not saying we should judge KD solely on his stats, this isn't a video game. I pointed to a bunch of Pro-KD factors, including how the team did when Westbrick was out in 14, his skillset, his role, the eye test, the team results he's had even as the context has changed, etc. But the stats indicate stuff too, and his naysayers have been citing the 'subpar' stats outside of GSW as proof he's overrated. A closer inspection shows it's more complicated than that.

[Colbinii]

The stats from KDs post GSW career, despite being post achilles and well into his 30s, certainly seem to indicate the problem was the lack of spacing and sub-optimal support cast in OKC. Even if we were to use only playoff stats (which is silly btw) KD''s post GSW stats are better than his OKC playoff stats, despite the fact he's now well into his 30s and has had an achilles tear. Factoring that in we might say "sure, KD might not have posted his GSW level stats in every environment, but his stats would look much closer to that they would to his OKC playoff stats in a less optimal situation.

OKC playoff stats per 100: 35.8/10/4.6, 113 Ortg, 575 TS%
Post GSW playoff stats per 100: 36.9/10.2/6.1, 115 Ortg, 603 TS%

What's also annoying is his non-GSW stats are still better than guys we have already voted in, as is what he accomplished with his teams, so why is he getting a demerit for it. I have no idea how anyone can attribute the OKC success to KD, when they were 25-11 without him in 2014 and KD was killing it. KD was clearly the driver of winning on those teams.

What about Dirk from 2009-2011 in comparison to KD?

38.0/12.1/3.8, 120 Ortg, 62.1 TS%

Simply a much better offensive player, no?

[One_and_Done]

Are we just cherry picking a guys best 3 year stretch then? Cos pretty sure KD still has better stats when we do that. Or is this a triple hypothetical, where to help Dirk look better we're limiting it to non-GSW playoffs only and only over 3 years? Seems like we have to do alot to help Dirk compete with KD.

[rk2023]

Are we just cherry picking a guys best 3 year stretch then? Cos pretty sure KD still has better stats when we do that. Or is this a triple hypothetical, where to help Dirk look better we're limiting it to non-GSW playoffs only and only over 3 years? Seems like we have to do alot to help Dirk compete with KD.

You're running through a lot of hoops yourself to help KD compete with Dirk.

[One_and_Done]

I'm unclear how looking at the whole of their RS, and then their playoffs, is less useful than a cherry picked smaller sample.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I don't really agree that Reggie would be worse in the current league where the things he was best at - shooting and off-ball movement - are valued more than they ever have been.

That only really matters if "optimized" reggie's raw production increase outpaces the increase in shooting we've seen from the field. This is also pretty reductive. Sure shooting has gone up. So has passing, and ball-handling. To the extent you are not a #1 on a solid offense if you aren't good at both or carrying a large size/height advantage. Reggie in his time was the #1 on historically great offenses. And then there's the matter of a vastly larger talent pool...

A scoring guard without great handling or passing might be the worst thing you can be for era-translation purposes. You bring up Durant, but Durant was probably a less valuable player today than reggie was in his time. And he's taller and bigger with better passing and ball-handling to go with it. If the comparison is Ray Allen you've pretty much conceded he's not going to be what he was.

I don't know what you mean by that(the underlined). I think that's an apt comparison. Allen, by his Boston years - late 00s/early 10s - had similar "%Ast'd" numbers and played the same type of game Reggie used to, running off screens, catch-and-shoot and was pretty effective.

Maybe you're getting at the fact that Ray was never a true #1 option type player, and I would agree with that, it's just that I think the same can be said of Reggie even back in his era, but then I probably have a higher opinion of those Pacers teams than a lot of people do. Those were whole teams. They were well-coached by Brown and Bird, they had a bunch of really high-basketball-IQ players, they played both sides of the ball, they were a really solid top-to-bottom ensemble team where Reggie was clearly the best (offensive anyway) player, but even back then it was understood that he was a system guy and that he wasn't going to go one-on-one like other scoring guards might.

And we can highlight his off-ball movement and "gravity" but that is not leading to significant creation without the on-ball package. Steph has that. Reggie does not. No one besides Steph is creating much off-ball and even then, he still creates alot more on.

Well, yeah. Reggie didn't create like that in the 90s and he wouldn't now.

Reggie was a career 39.5% and 39% 3P shooter in the RS and PO, respectively, having topped 40% 10 times in the RS and 9 times in the PO.

And now he's going to have to need to have that volume skyrocket(at least double, maybe triple) with more defensive attention and significantly more on-ball responsibility while also being hunted on the other end to a significantly greater degree. He's also going to be playing smarter defenders and attackers who are also being optimized with all the stuff Indiana ran for him not being ahead of the curve,

He is also going to need to cover more ground on both ends playing at a higher pace, find a way to average 30-32 with defenses not having to choose between hard doubles and leaving him on his own, and on top of all that, that trick he used to pull where he'd turn things up in the playoffs isn't so cool anymore. Now everyone coasts so whatever advantage he had holding back for the postseason is pretty much gone.

So yeah, he's worse. I don't know why we're trying to jump 400 hoops to say otherwise. Steve Kerr is not building a system around things he cannot do. "Shoot, cut, and drive" does not make you an offensive centerpiece these days.

He'll do better than Stockton FWIW.

This is just getting into the modern-era-cheerleading that rubs me the wrong way - the game is so much more sophisticated and the degree of difficulty so much higher now that the old guys couldn't possibly keep up! I say the amount of on-ball responsibility he'd have would depend on what team he's on, who he's playing with, etc., and the degree to which he'd be hunted defensively also depends on those things.

Look, I don't know if Reggie would be what he was, but his last season was 2004-05. He played four seasons in the legal-zone-defense era and one year in the no-hand-check era and he still put up pretty decent numbers, and if there was any visible decline, it was probably due to age more than anything else. If Ray Allen was as good has he was in the late 00s and early 10s, then I guess I'm more confident than you are that Reggie would be fine in the current game. We can agree to disagree that there would be some big drop.

Having said all that - I lean towards era-relativity, so how well(or not) Reggie translates to the modern game doesn't actually matter so much to where I'd rank him. He was #39 last time, which seems fair to me, maybe a little high, I could see in the 40s somewhere, maybe as high as 50.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

The stats from KDs post GSW career, despite being post achilles and well into his 30s, certainly seem to indicate the problem was the lack of spacing and sub-optimal support cast in OKC. Even if we were to use only playoff stats (which is silly btw) KD''s post GSW stats are better than his OKC playoff stats, despite the fact he's now well into his 30s and has had an achilles tear. Factoring that in we might say "sure, KD might not have posted his GSW level stats in every environment, but his stats would look much closer to that they would to his OKC playoff stats in a less optimal situation.

OKC playoff stats per 100: 35.8/10/4.6, 113 Ortg, 575 TS%
Post GSW playoff stats per 100: 36.9/10.2/6.1, 115 Ortg, 603 TS%

What's also annoying is his non-GSW stats are still better than guys we have already voted in, as is what he accomplished with his teams, so why is he getting a demerit for it. I have no idea how anyone can attribute the OKC success to KD, when they were 25-11 without him in 2014 and KD was killing it. KD was clearly the driver of winning on those teams.

Again, seems funny to call Iggy out for backing his opinions with RAPM/BBR, then coming and making the case about Durant "having better stats" than recent selections primarily because of /100 scoring rate and Individual ORTG (which is even less predictable than WS & BPM - those obviously being flawed themselves). I guess 19 James Harden is the GOAT Offensive peak then.

You also realize that his 21-23 playoff scoring presents a huge disparity when comparing the Clippers and 21 Boston series to that of the Bucks (still an impressive series that time around), 22 Cs, and Nuggets? Plus scoring is not what most people are knocking KD for here. Yes, some of his numbers are impressive - but most of the scoring stretches people regard as upper-most echelon are like 30 or so on ~ >- 60%TS well before the offensive boom era we currently are seeing (but i'm not gonna make this a Goodhart's Law thing). Essentially his scoring dips from all-time++ to "great" levels in the PS - where I don't think the playmaking with some turnover warts and him being a good, not great, defender compensates enough to make Durant the caliber of player you're selling him as.

Are you sure about the underlined? His D-RAPMs from 2007-08 through 2018-19:

-2.86
-2.24
-0.68
-0.53
0.7
-0.07
0.25
1.42
-0.68
-0.57
-1.62
0.74

[iggymcfrack]

I'm unclear how looking at the whole of their RS, and then their playoffs, is less useful than a cherry picked smaller sample.

The better numbers you use, the further Dirk is ahead. Like yeah, KD gets up more shots with slightly better efficiency, but he’s not as complete of a player as Dirk and nowhere NEAR as complete of a player as Paul.

[iggymcfrack]

The stats from KDs post GSW career, despite being post achilles and well into his 30s, certainly seem to indicate the problem was the lack of spacing and sub-optimal support cast in OKC. Even if we were to use only playoff stats (which is silly btw) KD''s post GSW stats are better than his OKC playoff stats, despite the fact he's now well into his 30s and has had an achilles tear. Factoring that in we might say "sure, KD might not have posted his GSW level stats in every environment, but his stats would look much closer to that they would to his OKC playoff stats in a less optimal situation.

OKC playoff stats per 100: 35.8/10/4.6, 113 Ortg, 575 TS%
Post GSW playoff stats per 100: 36.9/10.2/6.1, 115 Ortg, 603 TS%

What's also annoying is his non-GSW stats are still better than guys we have already voted in, as is what he accomplished with his teams, so why is he getting a demerit for it. I have no idea how anyone can attribute the OKC success to KD, when they were 25-11 without him in 2014 and KD was killing it. KD was clearly the driver of winning on those teams.

Again, seems funny to call Iggy out for backing his opinions with RAPM/BBR, then coming and making the case about Durant "having better stats" than recent selections primarily because of /100 scoring rate and Individual ORTG (which is even less predictable than WS & BPM - those obviously being flawed themselves). I guess 19 James Harden is the GOAT Offensive peak then.

You also realize that his 21-23 playoff scoring presents a huge disparity when comparing the Clippers and 21 Boston series to that of the Bucks (still an impressive series that time around), 22 Cs, and Nuggets? Plus scoring is not what most people are knocking KD for here. Yes, some of his numbers are impressive - but most of the scoring stretches people regard as upper-most echelon are like 30 or so on ~ >- 60%TS well before the offensive boom era we currently are seeing (but i'm not gonna make this a Goodhart's Law thing). Essentially his scoring dips from all-time++ to "great" levels in the PS - where I don't think the playmaking with some turnover warts and him being a good, not great, defender compensates enough to make Durant the caliber of player you're selling him as.

Are you sure about the underlined? His D-RAPMs from 2007-08 through 2018-19:

-2.86
-2.24
-0.68
-0.53
0.7
-0.07
0.25
1.42
-0.68
-0.57
-1.62
0.74

Which source are you using? We don’t even know if negative or positive is good on your scale.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Again, seems funny to call Iggy out for backing his opinions with RAPM/BBR, then coming and making the case about Durant "having better stats" than recent selections primarily because of /100 scoring rate and Individual ORTG (which is even less predictable than WS & BPM - those obviously being flawed themselves). I guess 19 James Harden is the GOAT Offensive peak then.

You also realize that his 21-23 playoff scoring presents a huge disparity when comparing the Clippers and 21 Boston series to that of the Bucks (still an impressive series that time around), 22 Cs, and Nuggets? Plus scoring is not what most people are knocking KD for here. Yes, some of his numbers are impressive - but most of the scoring stretches people regard as upper-most echelon are like 30 or so on ~ >- 60%TS well before the offensive boom era we currently are seeing (but i'm not gonna make this a Goodhart's Law thing). Essentially his scoring dips from all-time++ to "great" levels in the PS - where I don't think the playmaking with some turnover warts and him being a good, not great, defender compensates enough to make Durant the caliber of player you're selling him as.

Are you sure about the underlined? His D-RAPMs from 2007-08 through 2018-19:

-2.86
-2.24
-0.68
-0.53
0.7
-0.07
0.25
1.42
-0.68
-0.57
-1.62
0.74

Which source are you using? We don’t even know if negative or positive is good on your scale.

My apologies, I should've clarified. It's JE's RS+PO. In these datasets, negative is bad.