RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #23 (Moses Malone)

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1:

Nash - 7 (HBK, rk, falco, trelos, hcl, cupcake, DGold)
Giannis - 4 (Samurai, OaD, iggy, Joao)
Moses - 8 (ZPage, Clyde, ltj, AEnigma, Gibson, OSNB, Doc, f4p)
Barkley - 1 (trex)

No majority, going to runoff between Moses & Nash:

Nash - 1 (OaD)
Moses - 3 (Samurai, Joao, trex)
neither - 1 (iggy)

Moses 11, Nash 8.

Moses Malone is Inducted at #23.



Nomination Vote 1:

Jokic - 4 (HBK, ltj, iggy, cupcake)
Pettit - 5 (Samurai, ZPage, Clyde, Gibson, OSN)
Wade - 8 (rk, OaD, AEnigma, falco, trelos, hcl, Doc, f4p)
Stockton - 3 (Joao, trex, DGold)

No majority, going to runoff between Wade & Pettit.

Pettit - 0 (none)
Wade - 4 (HBK, ltj, trex, DGold)
neither - 3 (iggy, cupcake, Joao)

Wade 12, Pettit 5.

Dwyane Wade is added to Nominee list.

[Owly]

This isn't Shaq with Kobe or KD/Steph all having each other's backs in dominant 1-loss runs. Here are 6 dominant title runs I could think of off the top of my head and the separation between the #1 and #2 player on those teams, sorted by WS48 differential:



We can see that for the 2001 Lakers, 2017 Warriors, and 1999 Spurs, the #1 and #2 were practically identical. Except for BPM, Moses ends up there with MJ as being easily the best player on his team. This may have been a guy who joined a stacked team, but it ended up a one man wrecking crew.

Do you have minutes restriction for who the “#2” player is? Or is the #2 player the perceived second best player?

Think its second most productive in that area (can be different players) perhaps some minutes requirement to eliminate 1 minute 100% from the field guys ... though tbh they're more likely to be first than second.


As before with my general note on this ... Philly, I think, won more with defense and they've got a couple of long-term solid evidence of high impact defenders on that team. This is more a note that Erving ... the second (or RS BPM first) player in terms of productivity had a bad (productivity) playoffs whilst Moses did well in terms of production: held at least steady (BPM takes a jump from a low baseline) versus the higher average standard and tougher opponents.

[Doctor MJ]

[b][color=#FF0040]Harden - Not really sure what to say here. Harden's track record of making demands and then resorting to sabotage if they don't get met is now incredibly extreme. It doesn't erase everything he's accomplished by any means, but I literally see Harden as having negative achievement in the past 3 years, and so rate him lower than in the 2020 project.

this just seems so completely unfounded that i really don't get it. i know you don't like harden, but what exactly did he do to engender this level of hate that it would affect his ranking? one of these years is 2021. an mvp-level season on the court where basically the only reason his team didn't win a title is because they got hurt. we've watched all manner of players without rings ask out of their teams over the last 12 years since "the decision", but harden can't ask for his first trade after year 11 and then play like an mvp for his new team without it being negative value? is 1993 barkley a bad year for asking out? 2020 AD (in a much more calculated and forced move)? seems like we're just blaming people for the initial condition of not having a ring on their original team, which pretty much always results in a trade request. at the time, i think he was literally the longest-tenured player in the league other than steph and haslem and he didn't even ask to be traded from his original team. other than lillard, who has stuck it out longer in recent years without a ring (with a ring pretty much being the only reason any of the "loyalty" guys are loyal)?

and even if you for some reason want to believe that it was harden and not the perpetually crazy kyrie irving sitting out the season that ruined things in brooklyn, i don't see how that would be negative value a whole year later for 2023 philly, where harden had another fringe all-star level season, which is hardly negative. it's not like the demand this offseason somehow retroactively ruined the 2023 season since it was based on a contract negotiation from this offseason (i.e. not some lingering issue that affected the actual 2023 season).

So, with your emphasis on hate, I feel a need to push back and say I was almost certainly cheering for Harden before you were. He's the local boy made good where I live. I know one of the coaches from his high school team. Believe me when I say I was very positive about him for a very long time.

The throughline to understand me here is that I routinely knock guys for behavior disruptive to their franchises and so any assumption that I'm only knocking Harden for this is something you should just remove from your list of thoughts. Honestly, in this day and age, there's absolutely no reason to think that when someone gets knocked for this that they are being singled out in a way that others aren't. Of course, Harden now has one of the worst track records in history at this, which honestly really makes me sad in a way it doesn't with other players with a similar mentality, because of my local connection.

Re: 2021 an MVP level season. You mean a season where he forced a trade by sabotaging the team that had always given everything he wanted, and then after that mid-season trade played really well with a positive attitude for a few months which culminated in a 1st round series victory? Not what I'd call an MVP level season. And yes, injuries suck, but that's how it goes sometimes.

Re: 1992-93 Barkley a bad year for asking out? Timeline is off. Barkley didn't get traded in June of 1992 because Barkley wanted out in 1992, he got traded because he got acquitted in his trial. Everything about Barkley's questionable behavior that's relevant here happened in previous seasons...which would typically be seen as relatively bad years for Barkley.

Re: 2019-20 Davis? Similar story. '18-19 is the year where Davis hurt his franchise not '19-20.

Re: just blaming people for initial conditions. I'm evaluating the effect they had, for good and for ill. There's certainly luck involved in where you start out, but it hardly makes sense to ignore destructive behavior simply because their situation wasn't perfect.

Re: among longest tenured during Houston. Yup, many, many great years where I rank him highly. Doesn't mean I ignore what he actually did in '20-21.

Re: even if not blame Kyrie. Again, it makes no sense for you to assume that I'm letting everyone else off the hook simply because I knock Harden for his bad behavior. I'm very critical of Durant, Irving & Harden for their destructive behavior.

Re: '22-23 negative value? Not negative, just not all that significant. This was a team that had been coasting to the 2nd round year after year before Harden arrived, and Harden didn't change that. Not significantly positive enough to make up for the negatives surrounding it when considering the past few seasons as a whole.

Re: 2023 demand didn't retroactively hurt '22-23. Very true, it's just likely that it will damage '23-34.

[Doctor MJ]

I'll tell you though that I think a critical recent juncture for me came with the identification of Dray's playoff impact to be more of an early round thing, while Ginobili's actually gets more impressive in the deeper rounds - and he led the Spurs in raw +/- in all 4 of the the Spur title runs he was a part of.

Very noisy stuff here. Not that you have to, but the first step to persuading me(and probably others) is explaining in basketball terms what manu ginobli was doing that turned him from seemingly not very impactful in the regular-season to potentially best perimiter player of the era if used right in the playoffs.

Hmm, well I think he was very impactful in the regular season. If I go with Cheema's 5-year-peaks (which is what came up when I just googled it), here are the guys who have a spot ahead of Ginobili:

1. LeBron
2. KG
3. Duncan
4. Curry
5. Wade
6. Jordan
7. Dirk

And that's it. All of those guys are voted in already except Wade, and I've obviously been voting for Wade before Ginobili.

So I think that just from there what we're talking about a guy who in RS or PS, the main question is about what his limited minutes mean. There I've already spoken my take: I think the raw lack of minutes hurts him, but the data I see suggests that his impact within the minutes he did play is absolutely legit.

Now, I did emphasize +/- evidence of Ginobili getting even stronger deep in the playoffs and I think that is noteworthy, but it happens to be particularly noteworthy in the comparison with Draymond. I'm very high on Draymond, but I think Ginobili shows greater signs of being a deep-playoff-specific outlier than Draymond.

To your actual - quite valid - question of what Ginobili's doing differently in the playoffs, I think it's probably less about what he's doing differently, and more about how resilient his approach is in the playoffs. His driving-Pop-nuts improvisational approach also drives opposing coaches nuts as they try to solve for everything in the Spur scheme only to find that whatever they do, Ginobili responds in a way that messes with their solution.

Of course all high BBIQ players can be said to do this to degrees. I would argue that Ginobili stands out here in particular because a) he's more of an outlier in this regard than even most of the savvy players, and b) he doesn't have any glaring weaknesses to his game. Hence, there's just a real limit to how much you can expect to take away from him.

[f4p]

This isn't Shaq with Kobe or KD/Steph all having each other's backs in dominant 1-loss runs. Here are 6 dominant title runs I could think of off the top of my head and the separation between the #1 and #2 player on those teams, sorted by WS48 differential:



We can see that for the 2001 Lakers, 2017 Warriors, and 1999 Spurs, the #1 and #2 were practically identical. Except for BPM, Moses ends up there with MJ as being easily the best player on his team. This may have been a guy who joined a stacked team, but it ended up a one man wrecking crew.

Do you have minutes restriction for who the “#2” player is? Or is the #2 player the perceived second best player?

No, just second in that particular stat (Duncan won 2 out of 3 so he's actually negative to Robinson in bpm).

[homecourtloss]

This isn't Shaq with Kobe or KD/Steph all having each other's backs in dominant 1-loss runs. Here are 6 dominant title runs I could think of off the top of my head and the separation between the #1 and #2 player on those teams, sorted by WS48 differential:



We can see that for the 2001 Lakers, 2017 Warriors, and 1999 Spurs, the #1 and #2 were practically identical. Except for BPM, Moses ends up there with MJ as being easily the best player on his team. This may have been a guy who joined a stacked team, but it ended up a one man wrecking crew.

Do you have minutes restriction for who the “#2” player is? Or is the #2 player the perceived second best player?

No, just second in that particular stat (Duncan won 2 out of 3 so he's actually negative to Robinson in bpm).

So if somebody plays only like 100 minutes, he can be number two in PER or WS/48 or BPM?

[f4p]

[b][color=#FF0040]Harden - Not really sure what to say here. Harden's track record of making demands and then resorting to sabotage if they don't get met is now incredibly extreme. It doesn't erase everything he's accomplished by any means, but I literally see Harden as having negative achievement in the past 3 years, and so rate him lower than in the 2020 project.

this just seems so completely unfounded that i really don't get it. i know you don't like harden, but what exactly did he do to engender this level of hate that it would affect his ranking? one of these years is 2021. an mvp-level season on the court where basically the only reason his team didn't win a title is because they got hurt. we've watched all manner of players without rings ask out of their teams over the last 12 years since "the decision", but harden can't ask for his first trade after year 11 and then play like an mvp for his new team without it being negative value? is 1993 barkley a bad year for asking out? 2020 AD (in a much more calculated and forced move)? seems like we're just blaming people for the initial condition of not having a ring on their original team, which pretty much always results in a trade request. at the time, i think he was literally the longest-tenured player in the league other than steph and haslem and he didn't even ask to be traded from his original team. other than lillard, who has stuck it out longer in recent years without a ring (with a ring pretty much being the only reason any of the "loyalty" guys are loyal)?

and even if you for some reason want to believe that it was harden and not the perpetually crazy kyrie irving sitting out the season that ruined things in brooklyn, i don't see how that would be negative value a whole year later for 2023 philly, where harden had another fringe all-star level season, which is hardly negative. it's not like the demand this offseason somehow retroactively ruined the 2023 season since it was based on a contract negotiation from this offseason (i.e. not some lingering issue that affected the actual 2023 season).

So, with your emphasis on hate, I feel a need to push back and say I was almost certainly cheering for Harden before you were. He's the local boy made good where I live. I know one of the coaches from his high school team. Believe me when I say I was very positive about him for a very long time.

The throughline to understand me here is that I routinely knock guys for behavior disruptive to their franchises and so any assumption that I'm only knocking Harden for this is something you should just remove from your list of thoughts. Honestly, in this day and age, there's absolutely no reason to think that when someone gets knocked for this that they are being singled out in a way that others aren't. Of course, Harden now has one of the worst track records in history at this, which honestly really makes me sad in a way it doesn't with other players with a similar mentality, because of my local connection.

Re: 2021 an MVP level season. You mean a season where he forced a trade by sabotaging the team that had always given everything he wanted, and then after that mid-season trade played really well with a positive attitude for a few months which culminated in a 1st round series victory? Not what I'd call an MVP level season. And yes, injuries suck, but that's how it goes sometimes.

i realize you probably won't respond to this since this thread is over, but you seem to be conflating a lot of different things that misrepresent the situation. it's important for evaluations to not do this. like harden's eventual injury apparently retroactively makes his disruptive behavior worse somehow because it keeps it from being a full mvp level season. as far as sabotaging, it's not even clear what you mean. russell westbrook had already asked out and left. d'antoni either didn't want to come back or the owner didn't want him. the long-serving GM quit to "spend time with his family" before immediately taking another job with a different owner. and i think you would agree morey didn't quit because of harden because he traded for him as soon as he could at his next stop. saying harden sabotaged the rockets would be like calling it sabotage to punch a hole in the Titanic while it's on the ocean floor. harden didn't torpedo the boat and leave everyone else to deal with it, he literally grabbed the last life raft after everyone else got away. there was nothing to sabotage.

and if you're calling the westbrook trade sabotage, well that would just be wrong. a bad choice isn't sabotage any more than wanting mchale and dwight gone was a stroke of genius that built a contender. you've already agreed that relying on chris paul's health doesn't make much sense. so at that point, who else are you really trading him for? russ and cp3 were both point guards with the same (terrible) contract. it was the easiest, cleanest, highest upside trade. the other trades would have been for role players and harden+role players isn't winning a title. you're basically blaming harden for having like 3 bad options and then choosing one you didn't personally like. of course, part of the reason you don't like it is again because of injuries which can't be controlled, where the oft-injured cp3 stays healthy for the playoffs (well, for 7 games) and the iron man westbrook who played 81/80/81/73 games the previous 4 seasons, gets hurt and basically misses the playoffs.

Re: 1992-93 Barkley a bad year for asking out? Timeline is off. Barkley didn't get traded in June of 1992 because Barkley wanted out in 1992, he got traded because he got acquitted in his trial. Everything about Barkley's questionable behavior that's relevant here happened in previous seasons...which would typically be seen as relatively bad years for Barkley.

Re: 2019-20 Davis? Similar story. '18-19 is the year where Davis hurt his franchise not '19-20.

Re: just blaming people for initial conditions. I'm evaluating the effect they had, for good and for ill. There's certainly luck involved in where you start out, but it hardly makes sense to ignore destructive behavior simply because their situation wasn't perfect.

yeah, but you're just calling wanting out of a bad situation destructive behavior. literally, if you don't stay forever on your original team, you end up calling at least one season "destructive behavior" (also, how did davis not hurt the pelicans in 19-20?). it seems important to realize this doesn't really make sense. there's no "non-destructive" behavior that gets you out of a bad situation. it's not like the pelicans or 76ers are going to go "well, we sure did screw up a lot the last decade, so out of the goodness of our hearts, we will let AD/barkley go to help them out, instead of keeping them around and hoping that eventually we don't screw up and we save our jobs." the team will always be perfectly content to keep their star and keep screwing up. surely you would agree. there is no "good" way out. with this rubric, you're basically just praising people like curry/duncan/magic for the NBA equivalent of being "born rich" and penalizing others.

Re: among longest tenured during Houston. Yup, many, many great years where I rank him highly. Doesn't mean I ignore what he actually did in '20-21.

again, unless you stay around forever, you are destructive. that's a weird bar to set that just rewards luck and i don't understand why anyone would reward luck in a ranking like this.

Re: even if not blame Kyrie. Again, it makes no sense for you to assume that I'm letting everyone else off the hook simply because I knock Harden for his bad behavior. I'm very critical of Durant, Irving & Harden for their destructive behavior.

ok, but what was harden's actual bad behavior? it seems pretty clear kyrie sitting out is the problem so why would you want to blame them all other than convenience of narrative? it's not like harden woke up one morning and said "we have to start playing iso-ball again or i'm out".

[f4p]

Do you have minutes restriction for who the “#2” player is? Or is the #2 player the perceived second best player?

No, just second in that particular stat (Duncan won 2 out of 3 so he's actually negative to Robinson in bpm).

So if somebody plays only like 100 minutes, he can be number two in PER or WS/48 or BPM?

okay, no, i guess i didn't answer properly in my rush. it was for the main starter type guys on the team, but wouldn't necessarily just be for the perceived #2 if different guys were #2 in a certain stat. as it stands, pippen is #2 in all 3 categories (regardless of minutes) for both bulls teams, robinson is #2 (or #1) for every stat regardless of minutes, steph is #2 in all 3 in the chart (javale mcgee would barely edge ahead of both in WS48 but only played less than 10 mpg), and kobe is #2 in all 3 in the chart (ron harper in 42 total minutes would lead both in BPM).

for the sixers, ignoring 2 minutes from mark mcnamara, cheeks is #2 in PER and jones is #2 in WS48/BPM.

[trex_8063]

VOTE: Charles Barkley
Alternate (throws dart between Moses and Harden...): Moses Malone, I guess

Moses' record of accomplishment, even in a slightly lesser [imo] era is hard to argue with. The value of elite offensive rebounding is sometimes underappreciated, and as 70sFan has frequently stated: he's a better all-around scorer than he's often credited with.

I'd feel more bullish about him if he had any notable playmaking skills, or if he wasn't so turnover-prone. Or if he was consistently putting in the defensive effort like he was in '83. Of course, if ALL of those things were true, I'd have supported him a long time ago.


Barkley, I am supporting for similar reasons to why I voted for Durant the last couple threads: I've the most confidence in his combined box-production/efficiency profile, impact profile, longevity, and career accomplishment (in a tough era) of those players listed.

Harden, at this point, is a strong consideration for my alternate. Honestly, I think his player type [vaguely: offensive power-house, weak defensively], effective longevity, career accomplishment and accolades all closely parallel that of Charles Barkley. I consequently feel that wherever you have Barkley on your list, Harden should not be far away. Their respective careers just have too much in common, imo.

Nomination: John Stockton
Alt Nom: Dwyane Wade

Would you be willing to elaborate on what made you favor Charles over the other two?

Moses obviously won and while both Charles and James are ringless, Harden was more competitive against a much better eventual champion and came closer to replicating that success. Perhaps their is a statistical argument to be made here, but I haven't seen it yet

Well, one doesn't have to look far for the statistical argument over Moses, at any rate......

If I define Barkley's prime as '87-'97 (it's a wide, "extended prime" sample), and an equally wide '79-'89 sample for Moses, here's how they compare [peak year/prime/career total] in some of the major box-based metrics:

PER
Barkley: 28.9/25.8/24.6
Moses: 26.8/23.4/22.0

WS/48
Barkley: .269/.229/.216
Moses: .248/.192/.174

BPM
Barkley: 9.3/7.0/6.1
Moses: 4.5/2.3/1.6

Net rating
Barkley: +23/+16/+14
Moses: +19/+11/+10

Straight across the board, Barkley bests Moses in rs box-based all-in-ones (peak, prime, and career), and pretty substantially so in the BPM family. Things tighten up somewhat in a playoff comparison (with Moses edging Charles in a couple peak figures), but Barkley still broadly wins the comp. (Edit: in what I judge to be a tougher era, fwiw)

So there's the statistical argument over Moses, I guess. Harden is tougher. His statistical profile is just as robust, and as I say, I think he and Barkley belong in VERY close proximity. I ultimately sided with Moses as my alternative partly out of strategy (Harden had no traction), and also because of my comfort level bucking convention [on the conventional opinion/position for Moses].

Giannis has peak arguments over either [rather easily, perhaps]; but he's just losing out on longevity for me at this stage (another year or two, though.....).

[Doctor MJ]

this just seems so completely unfounded that i really don't get it. i know you don't like harden, but what exactly did he do to engender this level of hate that it would affect his ranking? one of these years is 2021. an mvp-level season on the court where basically the only reason his team didn't win a title is because they got hurt. we've watched all manner of players without rings ask out of their teams over the last 12 years since "the decision", but harden can't ask for his first trade after year 11 and then play like an mvp for his new team without it being negative value? is 1993 barkley a bad year for asking out? 2020 AD (in a much more calculated and forced move)? seems like we're just blaming people for the initial condition of not having a ring on their original team, which pretty much always results in a trade request. at the time, i think he was literally the longest-tenured player in the league other than steph and haslem and he didn't even ask to be traded from his original team. other than lillard, who has stuck it out longer in recent years without a ring (with a ring pretty much being the only reason any of the "loyalty" guys are loyal)?

and even if you for some reason want to believe that it was harden and not the perpetually crazy kyrie irving sitting out the season that ruined things in brooklyn, i don't see how that would be negative value a whole year later for 2023 philly, where harden had another fringe all-star level season, which is hardly negative. it's not like the demand this offseason somehow retroactively ruined the 2023 season since it was based on a contract negotiation from this offseason (i.e. not some lingering issue that affected the actual 2023 season).

So, with your emphasis on hate, I feel a need to push back and say I was almost certainly cheering for Harden before you were. He's the local boy made good where I live. I know one of the coaches from his high school team. Believe me when I say I was very positive about him for a very long time.

The throughline to understand me here is that I routinely knock guys for behavior disruptive to their franchises and so any assumption that I'm only knocking Harden for this is something you should just remove from your list of thoughts. Honestly, in this day and age, there's absolutely no reason to think that when someone gets knocked for this that they are being singled out in a way that others aren't. Of course, Harden now has one of the worst track records in history at this, which honestly really makes me sad in a way it doesn't with other players with a similar mentality, because of my local connection.

Re: 2021 an MVP level season. You mean a season where he forced a trade by sabotaging the team that had always given everything he wanted, and then after that mid-season trade played really well with a positive attitude for a few months which culminated in a 1st round series victory? Not what I'd call an MVP level season. And yes, injuries suck, but that's how it goes sometimes.

i realize you probably won't respond to this since this thread is over, but you seem to be conflating a lot of different things that misrepresent the situation. it's important for evaluations to not do this. like harden's eventual injury apparently retroactively makes his disruptive behavior worse somehow because it keeps it from being a full mvp level season. as far as sabotaging, it's not even clear what you mean. russell westbrook had already asked out and left. d'antoni either didn't want to come back or the owner didn't want him. the long-serving GM quit to "spend time with his family" before immediately taking another job with a different owner. and i think you would agree morey didn't quit because of harden because he traded for him as soon as he could at his next stop. saying harden sabotaged the rockets would be like calling it sabotage to punch a hole in the Titanic while it's on the ocean floor. harden didn't torpedo the boat and leave everyone else to deal with it, he literally grabbed the last life raft after everyone else got away. there was nothing to sabotage.viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2318305&p=108183544#p108183544

I mean, Harden's '20-21 campaign was not seen as a major regular season MVP candidate campaign nor a major all-season POY candidate candidate campaign. Those are just facts. If you want to say that when he was 100% healthy and engaged he was playing at an MVP level, cool, but there's really nothing in the accolades that indicates he was seen as such for the season.

And why? Well, the events at the start of the year, and the events at the end of the year, are both essential things to note to understand why. Again, just facts of what actually happened. I can understand why you'd want to distinguish between the types of negative action, but in life, the fact that you failed to do more for two different reasons at two different times only matters if those who you are justifying yourself to don't care first and foremost for results.

Re: sabotaging. Harden a) publicly demanded a trade, b) showed up out of shape, c) played poorly, d) and made a point of ignoring NBA safety protocols. He was very clearly souring the milk to make the Rockets trade him. To say otherwise is to underestimate his intelligence.

None of this has anything to do with Westbrook. That was just plain incompetent team building by all involved who thought Westbrook would make things better instead of worse, when it was crystal clear what would happen ahead of time, and while I believe Harden absolutely is among the group who deserves to get criticized for this, I don't think he actually thought life would be worse with Westbrook instead of Paul.

you've already agreed that relying on chris paul's health doesn't make much sense. so at that point, who else are you really trading him for? russ and cp3 were both point guards with the same (terrible) contract. it was the easiest, cleanest, highest upside trade. the other trades would have been for role players and harden+role players isn't winning a title. you're basically blaming harden for having like 3 bad options and then choosing one you didn't personally like. of course, part of the reason you don't like it is again because of injuries which can't be controlled, where the oft-injured cp3 stays healthy for the playoffs (well, for 7 games) and the iron man westbrook who played 81/80/81/73 games the previous 4 seasons, gets hurt and basically misses the playoffs.

I mean, what I would have suggested was that the best move was to be grateful for Paul's presence, hope that he got healthier again, and continued as best as possible to keep trying to contend. And given that Paul would literally get MVP candidate talk in the time since, none of this was actually far-fetched.

Further, while it makes sense for a younger alpha to think that an older beta is pointless because he won't be around in the long-term, when you're talking about a guy who would soon enough be jumping ship yearly while Paul was still helping contenders, the logic falls flat.

If Harden had been committed to staying with Houston for another half-decade it would have been different. As it was, he was thinking short-term, and doing so with poor evaluation of the situation for reasons that clearly had to do with his emotions.

Re: 1992-93 Barkley a bad year for asking out? Timeline is off. Barkley didn't get traded in June of 1992 because Barkley wanted out in 1992, he got traded because he got acquitted in his trial. Everything about Barkley's questionable behavior that's relevant here happened in previous seasons...which would typically be seen as relatively bad years for Barkley.

Re: 2019-20 Davis? Similar story. '18-19 is the year where Davis hurt his franchise not '19-20.

Re: just blaming people for initial conditions. I'm evaluating the effect they had, for good and for ill. There's certainly luck involved in where you start out, but it hardly makes sense to ignore destructive behavior simply because their situation wasn't perfect.

yeah, but you're just calling wanting out of a bad situation destructive behavior. literally, if you don't stay forever on your original team, you end up calling at least one season "destructive behavior" (also, how did davis not hurt the pelicans in 19-20?). it seems important to realize this doesn't really make sense. there's no "non-destructive" behavior that gets you out of a bad situation. it's not like the pelicans or 76ers are going to go "well, we sure did screw up a lot the last decade, so out of the goodness of our hearts, we will let AD/barkley go to help them out, instead of keeping them around and hoping that eventually we don't screw up and we save our jobs." the team will always be perfectly content to keep their star and keep screwing up. surely you would agree. there is no "good" way out. with this rubric, you're basically just praising people like curry/duncan/magic for the NBA equivalent of being "born rich" and penalizing others.

If you're not seeing how Harden has had negative impact to the Rockets and Nets on his way out, then you have your eyes closed.

Re: doesn't make sense to call all behavior when trying to make your franchise be wiling to trade you "destructive". Sure it does. The fact that it's now normal doesn't change what it is.

Re: no way out but destructive behavior! Literally all you have to do is wait until you're a free agent. That's what free agency is for.

Now, in practice there's reason to expect that negotiations with your existing team will reach a breaking point before then, but this has been a norm for considerably longer than the Player Empowerment Era. Simply having internal negotiations is not what I'm talking about.

Re: among longest tenured during Houston. Yup, many, many great years where I rank him highly. Doesn't mean I ignore what he actually did in '20-21.

again, unless you stay around forever, you are destructive. that's a weird bar to set that just rewards luck and i don't understand why anyone would reward luck in a ranking like this.

I've been very clear that I'm using a criteria based on actual accomplishment, and accomplishment in life always involves contextual luck. Me using this scheme has everything to do with why I was, say, lower on Garnett this time around.

As I've also said, I'm not forcing anyone else to use this criteria...but if you can't understand why using accomplishment to evaluate the greatest careers makes sense, I think you need to take a step back and consider what kinds of assumptions you've been making about this project.

Re: even if not blame Kyrie. Again, it makes no sense for you to assume that I'm letting everyone else off the hook simply because I knock Harden for his bad behavior. I'm very critical of Durant, Irving & Harden for their destructive behavior.

ok, but what was harden's actual bad behavior? it seems pretty clear kyrie sitting out is the problem so why would you want to blame them all other than convenience of narrative? it's not like harden woke up one morning and said "we have to start playing iso-ball again or i'm out".

Kyrie was THE problem until Harden got irritated with it and began the process of forcing his way out. Then he became a major problem too. I mean c'mon dude. Obviously you think Harden is great. Would you have traded Harden-at-his-best for Ben "I'm too afraid to get back on the court" Simmons? Of course you wouldn't. The Nets made the trade because Harden twisted their arm until they felt they had no choice but to make a mid-season trade.

Honestly man, it just seems like you're not looking at Harden like you would if he were a co-worker acting this way and f-ing you over. You're looking at why Harden was frustrated, seeing that frustration as understandable, and then ignoring everything he does after that frustration point...when the reality is that it's only after the frustration point that such bad behavior was ever going to emerge.

[Joao Saraiva]

Vote Giannis
Alternate Moses Malone
Nomination John Stockton

Giannis is now in a realm where his longevity isn't great, but it's already good. He's a guy that contributes on both sides of the court. Defense has been superb. His reportoire is "limited" on offense, but I don't care, he brings the production to the table.

Sure he doesn't have the same team success has other, but neither did Wilt or Karl Malone for example, but circumstance matters. Giannis hasn't been the front runner for a long time but individually he performs. In an era where we saw big 4s and big 3s, this guy has made his job with Middleton as a sidekick. Don't get me wrong, Bucks have a good team and Middleton is a good player, but we can't make a comparison of his cast with the casts KD has had or Steph or LeBron.

I'm a believer Giannis' impact stats will have him pretty high and in the future he'll look a bit like Kevin Garnett in the discussion due to some lack of team success, unless he changes teams.

Sorry Moses, but I feel Giannis overall has more impact.

We can defintely compare steph casts and Lebron is inarguable the other direction in his second and first cleveland stint. Giannis's impact data crushes the kd's and james harden's of the world, but he doesn't really top steph and isn't rivalling lebron

Well the other two are in. But who is to say Giannis wouldn't be more impactful in a better team situation? He might be more of a ceilling raiser than a floor raiser. We'll have to wait and see if we have a chance to evaluate that.

I'm not much of a beilever as I think both James and Curry play a level above, but it's not impossible since Giannis foccusing more on defense might be a big upgrade to a great offensive team, more than James and Curry (and I have James in good regard as a defensive guy, but no, he doesn't top Giannis on that end)

[OhayoKD]

Vote Giannis
Alternate Moses Malone
Nomination John Stockton

Giannis is now in a realm where his longevity isn't great, but it's already good. He's a guy that contributes on both sides of the court. Defense has been superb. His reportoire is "limited" on offense, but I don't care, he brings the production to the table.

Sure he doesn't have the same team success has other, but neither did Wilt or Karl Malone for example, but circumstance matters. Giannis hasn't been the front runner for a long time but individually he performs. In an era where we saw big 4s and big 3s, this guy has made his job with Middleton as a sidekick. Don't get me wrong, Bucks have a good team and Middleton is a good player, but we can't make a comparison of his cast with the casts KD has had or Steph or LeBron.

I'm a believer Giannis' impact stats will have him pretty high and in the future he'll look a bit like Kevin Garnett in the discussion due to some lack of team success, unless he changes teams.

Sorry Moses, but I feel Giannis overall has more impact.

We can defintely compare steph casts and Lebron is inarguable the other direction in his second and first cleveland stint. Giannis's impact data crushes the kd's and james harden's of the world, but he doesn't really top steph and isn't rivalling lebron

Well the other two are in. But who is to say Giannis wouldn't be more impactful in a better team situation? He might be more of a ceilling raiser than a floor raiser. We'll have to wait and see if we have a chance to evaluate that.

"Ceiling raising" is not magic. For giannis it would be about how well he can retain value on better teams, not him gaining value. The actual pathway for him to generate more impact than he does is better offensive coaching, but that's about him being optimized, not giannis as he plays now magically being worth 30 wins on a 50 win team.

ceiling raisiing also is not really going to help you much vs Lebron who posts outlier looking impact on teams that are title-level(rs) to all-time(playoffs) with him and therefore has a great argument as the best "ceiling raiser" since Milwaukee Kareem.

Curry had great impact in 2017 as a ceilign raisier and great impact in 2015/2-16 and 2021 as a floor-raiser. It might be a "possibility", but it's certainly not a probability based on what we know that Giannis matches Lebron or surpasses steph. His defensive influence is already gigantic and enough for him to generate all-time rs and/or playoff impact at points(2019 rs and po, 2020 rs, 2021 po, 2022 po). You're probably not accoutning for defense if you think he's way below steph

I'm not much of a beilever as I think both James and Curry play a level above, but it's not impossible since Giannis foccusing more on defense might be a big upgrade to a great offensive team, more than James and Curry (and I have James in good regard as a defensive guy, but no, he doesn't top Giannis on that end)

[/quote]
I don't cherrypick offense or defense when trying to assess support. The cavs were bad without lebron by any emperical approach over any sort of sample(including a pretty big one in 2015). The 2019-2020 Bucks were average without Giannis.

"Whose to say? is fine and good", but it's Lebron who has proof of concept with even worse fit(miami) and with optimal fit showed something which has never been replicated in 2009/2010. Possibilities are not really arguments for anything inofthemselves

[OhayoKD]

VOTE: Charles Barkley
Alternate (throws dart between Moses and Harden...): Moses Malone, I guess

Moses' record of accomplishment, even in a slightly lesser [imo] era is hard to argue with. The value of elite offensive rebounding is sometimes underappreciated, and as 70sFan has frequently stated: he's a better all-around scorer than he's often credited with.

I'd feel more bullish about him if he had any notable playmaking skills, or if he wasn't so turnover-prone. Or if he was consistently putting in the defensive effort like he was in '83. Of course, if ALL of those things were true, I'd have supported him a long time ago.


Barkley, I am supporting for similar reasons to why I voted for Durant the last couple threads: I've the most confidence in his combined box-production/efficiency profile, impact profile, longevity, and career accomplishment (in a tough era) of those players listed.

Harden, at this point, is a strong consideration for my alternate. Honestly, I think his player type [vaguely: offensive power-house, weak defensively], effective longevity, career accomplishment and accolades all closely parallel that of Charles Barkley. I consequently feel that wherever you have Barkley on your list, Harden should not be far away. Their respective careers just have too much in common, imo.

Nomination: John Stockton
Alt Nom: Dwyane Wade

Would you be willing to elaborate on what made you favor Charles over the other two?

Moses obviously won and while both Charles and James are ringless, Harden was more competitive against a much better eventual champion and came closer to replicating that success. Perhaps their is a statistical argument to be made here, but I haven't seen it yet

Well, one doesn't have to look far for the statistical argument over Moses, at any rate......

If I define Barkley's prime as '87-'97 (it's a wide, "extended prime" sample), and an equally wide '79-'89 sample for Moses, here's how they compare [peak year/prime/career total] in some of the major box-based metrics:

PER
Barkley: 28.9/25.8/24.6
Moses: 26.8/23.4/22.0

WS/48
Barkley: .269/.229/.216
Moses: .248/.192/.174

BPM
Barkley: 9.3/7.0/6.1
Moses: 4.5/2.3/1.6

Net rating
Barkley: +23/+16/+14
Moses: +19/+11/+10


Straight across the board, Barkley bests Moses in rs box-based all-in-ones (peak, prime, and career), and pretty substantially so in the BPM family. Things tighten up somewhat in a playoff comparison (with Moses edging Charles in a couple peak figures), but Barkley still broadly wins the comp. (Edit: in what I judge to be a tougher era, fwiw)

Well, as alot of people have pointed out, you could just track different things or weigh things differently to give moses a box-edge. Moses is also a better defender and fwiw barkley doesn't have any impact-on-winning signals on par with what malone has for 82. There's context for the real-world mark, but Moses also looks really strong by pollock's +/- which to my knowledge can't be explained away with the context you offered for the wowy drop-off

So there's the statistical argument over Moses, I guess. Harden is tougher. His statistical profile is just as robust, and as I say, I think he and Barkley belong in VERY close proximity. I ultimately sided with Moses as my alternative partly out of strategy (Harden had no traction), and also because of my comfort level bucking convention [on the conventional opinion/position for Moses)

Could you elaborate on why you went with Barkley over harden? You say the stats are close and your era-adjustment presmablu gibes harden a bit of a boost. Harden would also have better longanimity and he lead a team that was better in the rs and the playoffs than he 93 suns/

[tsherkin]

To be clear, I was referring to '02-03 to '06-07, where they won 3 titles in 5 years and had league leading SRSes in the other two seasons. I'd say if a team is at best-SRS levels, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where they win the title in those years. When you add on top of that the possibility of a significant offensive improvement, it only makes it more plausible.

I so very much meant to return to this post, and then night shift destroyed my brain, heh.

So then, it's the '03-04 Pistons are relevant here, and frankly I think it's interesting you see them as so unstoppable, because that's certainly not how they were perceived at the time. Remember that this is a club that went down 3-2 to the 47-35 1.88 SRS Nets in the second round, and keep in mind that the two teams played after the Sheed acquisition the Spurs won.

I wouldn't use the word "unstoppable."

What I said was I don't think handing the keys to Manu that early in his NBA career doesn't make me believe they could have beat the 04 Pistons. That was his second season in the league, and he wasn't the same level of player he was even a year later. And I'm not saying the rules changes opened up his game, i'm saying time on the court in the NBA did, though there is a massive jump in FTr from 04-05 onward. 05-12, we have a different discussion of who he was as a player.

The moreso for 02-03, which was his rookie year in the NBA. They won that year anyway, so it didn't matter, of course.

06 becomes interesting. The Dallas series was tight to begin with, but Manu was a 21+ ppg scorer in that series anyway. If they'd had a bench, or Duncan had made his free throws, or Tony Parker hadn't been incompetent at scoring that series, then we see San Antonio in the Finals. Duncan was like a 32 ppg guy on 62% TS in that series, and as always a quality passer who worked inside of their offensive system. Parker withered RIGHT up his own butt that series and it was an issue. Maybe they could have given more of those possessions to Manu, maybe not.

I think my contention here is more specifically about 04, though (though damn, 4 in 5 would have been incredible) because I don't believe in Manu in his 2nd season as the difference-maker.

As I say all of that, I'll acknowledge again concerns about Ginobili's health and durability. I do think it's clear that Pop's inability to know what to do with Ginobili was part of the equation, but I'm not going to say I know that Ginobili's body could have held up.

That is the other major consideration, of course. Pops seemed to understand when and how to deploy Manu. He certainly try the 42 mpg thing in the Dallas series and Manu came through, but doing that too often wasn't an awesome idea.

[Doctor MJ]

To be clear, I was referring to '02-03 to '06-07, where they won 3 titles in 5 years and had league leading SRSes in the other two seasons. I'd say if a team is at best-SRS levels, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where they win the title in those years. When you add on top of that the possibility of a significant offensive improvement, it only makes it more plausible.

I so very much meant to return to this post, and then night shift destroyed my brain, heh.

No worries t. This ain't supposed to feel like work!

So then, it's the '03-04 Pistons are relevant here, and frankly I think it's interesting you see them as so unstoppable, because that's certainly not how they were perceived at the time. Remember that this is a club that went down 3-2 to the 47-35 1.88 SRS Nets in the second round, and keep in mind that the two teams played after the Sheed acquisition the Spurs won.

I wouldn't use the word "unstoppable."

What I said was I don't think handing the keys to Manu that early in his NBA career doesn't make me believe they could have beat the 04 Pistons. That was his second season in the league, and he wasn't the same level of player he was even a year later. And I'm not saying the rules changes opened up his game, i'm saying time on the court in the NBA did, though there is a massive jump in FTr from 04-05 onward. 05-12, we have a different discussion of who he was as a player.

The moreso for 02-03, which was his rookie year in the NBA. They won that year anyway, so it didn't matter, of course.

06 becomes interesting. The Dallas series was tight to begin with, but Manu was a 21+ ppg scorer in that series anyway. If they'd had a bench, or Duncan had made his free throws, or Tony Parker hadn't been incompetent at scoring that series, then we see San Antonio in the Finals. Duncan was like a 32 ppg guy on 62% TS in that series, and as always a quality passer who worked inside of their offensive system. Parker withered RIGHT up his own butt that series and it was an issue. Maybe they could have given more of those possessions to Manu, maybe not.

I think my contention here is more specifically about 04, though (though damn, 4 in 5 would have been incredible) because I don't believe in Manu in his 2nd season as the difference-maker.

I completely understand that how you draw the conclusions you do, and I think most in the NBA saw things similarly...

but keep in mind that the summer after '03-04 where Ginobili led Argentina to the Gold Medal which included eliminating the USA from Gold Medal contention in the semis in a game where Ginobili was by far the best player on a court that a whole bunch of American players that were supposedly much better than him, including his teammate Tim Duncan.

Consider then how that fits into the narrative that you've presented.

Does it really make sense to assert that Ginobili took his great leap forward as a player during the '04-05 season when he was already capable of running circles around all willing Americans the summer before on a team where he was actually allowed to play alpha? I don't think so.

Does it really make sense to assert that Ginobili took his great leap in the time between the '03-04 regular season and the summer? I don't think so.

Then there's the matter that we're talking about a man who was already 26 in '03-04 and had been winning awards as the best player in Europe for years already. At the time people thought that just meant that Euro leagues were trash...but the Olympics told a different story.

Hence why I put forth a different explanation instead of the classic "He was still figuring out the NBA" that we do for rookie-aged players who make leaps in their 2nd or 3rd year. While Ginobili's box score stats for the Spurs make a leap that one could assume to be a standard young-player leap, another possibility is simply that the Spurs were slow in figuring out how to make use of a player who improvised when he was told to be mechanically predictable, and shot 3's when they still thought that was a bad idea.

As I say all of that, I'll acknowledge again concerns about Ginobili's health and durability. I do think it's clear that Pop's inability to know what to do with Ginobili was part of the equation, but I'm not going to say I know that Ginobili's body could have held up.

That is the other major consideration, of course. Pops seemed to understand when and how to deploy Manu. He certainly try the 42 mpg thing in the Dallas series and Manu came through, but doing that too often wasn't an awesome idea.

But why do you think Pop understood Manu when I've already pointed to oral history from the Spurs at the time saying specifically that he did NOT understand Manu?

I believe that folks think Pop knew what he was doing because a) Pop is now a legend, so he must not have been 180 degrees wrong back then, and b) they won 3 titles in 5 years so that must have been a good approach. But a) we know full well that the Spur offense didn't actually get great until Pop stopped treating Duncan post-ups like the best way to score points, and b) logically any level of success other than perfection could have been improved upon.

I realize you're talking about this in the context of Ginobili's endurance/durability which I've agree is something I cannot know Pop was wrong about, but what I'm looking to emphasize here is that Ginobili's endurance/durability really had nothing to do with why Ginobili played so little early in his NBA career. Rather, it was all about Ginobili not doing what he was told, which caused Pop to yell at him constantly and plant him on the bench.

And as the stories from Spurs tell us, I think the real truth here is: Pop was not ahead of the curve on pace & space strategy, and he did not understand how effective what Ginobili did was. I think Pop has a solid case for being the GOAT coach...but the Spurs success with Ginobili wasn't about Pop being a basketball visionary, but instead more about getting lucky and not realizing how lucky he was getting.

[tsherkin]

I completely understand that how you draw the conclusions you do, and I think most in the NBA saw things similarly...

but keep in mind that the summer after '03-04 where Ginobili led Argentina to the Gold Medal which included eliminating the USA from Gold Medal contention in the semis in a game where Ginobili was by far the best player on a court that a whole bunch of American players that were supposedly much better than him, including his teammate Tim Duncan.


Does it really make sense to assert that Ginobili took his great leap forward as a player during the '04-05 season when he was already capable of running circles around all willing Americans the summer before on a team where he was actually allowed to play alpha? I don't think so.

Depends on how you look at it. FIBA ball and the NBA aren't the same, so there's a degree of comfort in FIBA style which aided Manu. He wasn't nobody prior to coming to the NBA. It wasn't his skills that were in doubt or the way he thought through the game, it's how he adapted to the NBA. The rules changes helped open things up for perimeter guys, which was why there was a massive rise in FTr for many perimeter attack players, but two years in the league and some deep postseason reasons helped him adjust. I can't envision a way where that didn't happen, since that's roughly how it goes for everyone who hits in the league. Even guys with 4 years of college ball back in the 60s and 70s hit their stride a few years into the league more often than not.

Hence why I put forth a different explanation instead of the classic "He was still figuring out the NBA" that we do for rookie-aged players who make leaps in their 2nd or 3rd year. While Ginobili's box score stats for the Spurs make a leap that one could assume to be a standard young-player leap, another possibility is simply that the Spurs were slow in figuring out how to make use of a player who improvised when he was told to be mechanically predictable, and shot 3's when they still thought that was a bad idea.

I'm sure there is a degree of Pops figuring out what to do with Manu involved, absolutely. I don't want to put it all on Manu figuring out the league, earning it from the refs and so forth, I agree. But I don't think he would have just suddenly been that guy over his first two seasons just with more primacy.

But why do you think Pop understood Manu when I've already pointed to oral history from the Spurs at the time saying specifically that he did NOT understand Manu?

I meant WRT health, not strategic deployment on the court. I'm talking limiting his minutes in the RS and generally managing him in that fashion to help him stay healthy for the postseason.

I realize you're talking about this in the context of Ginobili's endurance/durability which I've agree is something I cannot know Pop was wrong about, but what I'm looking to emphasize here is that Ginobili's endurance/durability really had nothing to do with why Ginobili played so little early in his NBA career. Rather, it was all about Ginobili not doing what he was told, which caused Pop to yell at him constantly and plant him on the bench.

He was a 21 mpg player as a rookie. He was a 29 mpg player in his second season. He'd average 29 mpg from 04-11 until he began tailing off from age and health. I don't really see there being space to argue that time on the court was the issue, particularly since you imply that later he was getting the minutes he needed.

HOW he was used, that's a separate consideration, but I was explicitly speaking of minutes and health, and by year two, he was at his prime MPG.

[Doctor MJ]

I completely understand that how you draw the conclusions you do, and I think most in the NBA saw things similarly...

but keep in mind that the summer after '03-04 where Ginobili led Argentina to the Gold Medal which included eliminating the USA from Gold Medal contention in the semis in a game where Ginobili was by far the best player on a court that a whole bunch of American players that were supposedly much better than him, including his teammate Tim Duncan.


Does it really make sense to assert that Ginobili took his great leap forward as a player during the '04-05 season when he was already capable of running circles around all willing Americans the summer before on a team where he was actually allowed to play alpha? I don't think so.

Depends on how you look at it. FIBA ball and the NBA aren't the same, so there's a degree of comfort in FIBA style which aided Manu. He wasn't nobody prior to coming to the NBA. It wasn't his skills that were in doubt or the way he thought through the game, it's how he adapted to the NBA. The rules changes helped open things up for perimeter guys, which was why there was a massive rise in FTr for many perimeter attack players, but two years in the league and some deep postseason reasons helped him adjust. I can't envision a way where that didn't happen, since that's roughly how it goes for everyone who hits in the league. Even guys with 4 years of college ball back in the 60s and 70s hit their stride a few years into the league more often than not.

Not the same, but a hell of a coincidence if Ginobil just happened to be able dominate the world in the Olympics in 2004 and then also had his best season in '04-05, right?

Re: it's how he adapted to the NBA. I mean, we know that this "adaption" process involved Ginobili a) playing fast, b) shooting 3's, c) reading & reacting better than his teammates, and d) him getting yelled at by his coach to not do these tings until e) his team started playing more like him.

It's logical to think that players from outside the NBA need to "figure out the NBA", but I don't think that's really what happened here.

Re: rule changes helped his free throw rate. I don't think there's any reason to think Ginobili would be helped by this any more than other perimeter players, yet he had a huge increase in '04-05, so what explains that?

I think there's a simple answer: The Spurs stopped telling him to stand in a corner Bowen-style, and let him play more his natural style.

Hence why I put forth a different explanation instead of the classic "He was still figuring out the NBA" that we do for rookie-aged players who make leaps in their 2nd or 3rd year. While Ginobili's box score stats for the Spurs make a leap that one could assume to be a standard young-player leap, another possibility is simply that the Spurs were slow in figuring out how to make use of a player who improvised when he was told to be mechanically predictable, and shot 3's when they still thought that was a bad idea.

I'm sure there is a degree of Pops figuring out what to do with Manu involved, absolutely. I don't want to put it all on Manu figuring out the league, earning it from the refs and so forth, I agree. But I don't think he would have just suddenly been that guy over his first two seasons just with more primacy.

Oh in general I think it's easier for players to start immediately playing how they're used to playing rather than being forced to fit into a new role. Do players take time to adjust to the level of talent in the NBA? Sure, if they have the body and brain for it, I don't think it necessarily takes that long - and when you're talking about someone who was already a Euro superstar, this is a far cry from the someone who only played college ball, let alone compared to the prep-to-pro and one-and-done guys.

But why do you think Pop understood Manu when I've already pointed to oral history from the Spurs at the time saying specifically that he did NOT understand Manu?

I meant WRT health, not strategic deployment on the court. I'm talking limiting his minutes in the RS and generally managing him in that fashion to help him stay healthy for the postseason.

Fair enough.

I realize you're talking about this in the context of Ginobili's endurance/durability which I've agree is something I cannot know Pop was wrong about, but what I'm looking to emphasize here is that Ginobili's endurance/durability really had nothing to do with why Ginobili played so little early in his NBA career. Rather, it was all about Ginobili not doing what he was told, which caused Pop to yell at him constantly and plant him on the bench.

He was a 21 mpg player as a rookie. He was a 29 mpg player in his second season. He'd average 29 mpg from 04-11 until he began tailing off from age and health. I don't really see there being space to argue that time on the court was the issue, particularly since you imply that later he was getting the minutes he needed.

HOW he was used, that's a separate consideration, but I was explicitly speaking of minutes and health, and by year two, he was at his prime MPG.

I'll actually go a step further and point out Ginobili's minute splits in his 2nd year:

Oct - 34.8
Nov - 33.1
Dec - 34.0
Jan - 26.3
Feb - 27.5
Mar - 25.2
Apr - 26.6

So notice that for the first couple months Ginobili's getting played basically normal starters minutes and then there's a huge drop off as Ginobili gets relegated to the bench, which my understand has always been that it wasn't intended as a demotion nor an adjustment based on his health so much as a decision to have him lead the bench unit, and that Pop said he felt bad about it for Ginobili, but he thought it was what was best for the team - and of course, it's possible that it was based on staggering theory.

I honestly think that more than anything else Ginobili played in more limited minutes in those early years for reasons that had little to do with perceived stamina and everything to do with the fact that it made sense to play him separately from the post-up volume scoring scheme the Spurs insisted on using with Duncan.

Later on, as Pop became obsessed with limiting all his players minutes, there's no doubt that he was particularly concerned about Ginobili. In this part of Ginobili's career I have less skepticism about Pop's evaluation. Older guys get tired, so it's quite possible that Ginobili just showed signs that he got tired more quickly than other players.

With that said, I still think it's entirely possible that all of this was less about Ginobili needing to actually play less than other starters of comparable age because he got tired more quickly than them, and more about Pop coming to think that he was doing Ginobili a favor by having him play less than the other guys...because that's what he'd always done.

[tsherkin]

Not the same, but a hell of a coincidence if Ginobil just happened to be able dominate the world in the Olympics in 2004 and then also had his best season in '04-05, right?

Best season... to date, not over his whole career.

Re: rule changes helped his free throw rate. I don't think there's any reason to think Ginobili would be helped by this any more than other perimeter players, yet he had a huge increase in '04-05, so what explains that?

Yes, very much so. It was his single-season high, and he was far from alone in experiencing that boost in 05, and even in 06. Those were the only two seasons he was ever above .449 FTr and they line up nicely with similar boosts to many, many other players. That very specific thing was rules-change-dependent in a big way, but the refs calmed that down some in subsequent seasons.

Oh in general I think it's easier for players to start immediately playing how they're used to playing rather than being forced to fit into a new role. Do players take time to adjust to the level of talent in the NBA? Sure, if they have the body and brain for it, I don't think it necessarily takes that long - and when you're talking about someone who was already a Euro superstar, this is a far cry from the someone who only played college ball, let alone compared to the prep-to-pro and one-and-done guys.

Depends on the style of play. Manu did take a couple seasons to start calming down his turnovers (which were awful as a rook), among other things. Took him a while to find his jumper, to grow in consistency finishing in close. There was lots of development going on in his game. 05-12 was his clear prime and that maps pretty regularly to an NBA career.

So notice that for the first couple months Ginobili's getting played basically normal starters minutes and then there's a huge drop off as Ginobili gets relegated to the bench, which my understand has always been that it wasn't intended as a demotion nor an adjustment based on his health so much as a decision to have him lead the bench unit, and that Pop said he felt bad about it for Ginobili, but he thought it was what was best for the team - and of course, it's possible that it was based on staggering theory.

His February and March efficiency when he wasn't starting also went up as a result of that switch, FWIW.

With that said, I still think it's entirely possible that all of this was less about Ginobili needing to actually play less than other starters of comparable age because he got tired more quickly than them, and more about Pop coming to think that he was doing Ginobili a favor by having him play less than the other guys...because that's what he'd always done.

I don't know if it's about fatigue. I think it was about load management and physical health (an area where Pops has been at the forefront for a long time) and about having Manu lead the bench unit and what-not. Pops didn't seem to have nearly the same reservations about minutes come the playoffs, mostly so in the regular season.

[Doctor MJ]

Not the same, but a hell of a coincidence if Ginobil just happened to be able dominate the world in the Olympics in 2004 and then also had his best season in '04-05, right?

Best season... to date, not over his whole career.

Interesting. I don't think him having an even better season later goes against my point, but I would consider '04-05 to be his best season.

Re: rule changes helped his free throw rate. I don't think there's any reason to think Ginobili would be helped by this any more than other perimeter players, yet he had a huge increase in '04-05, so what explains that?

Yes, very much so. It was his single-season high, and he was far from alone in experiencing that boost in 05, and even in 06. Those were the only two seasons he was ever above .449 FTr and they line up nicely with similar boosts to many, many other players. That very specific thing was rules-change-dependent in a big way, but the refs calmed that down some in subsequent seasons.

But the league boost and Ginobili's "boost" were not the same order of magnitude.

The NBA saw a 7.8% increase in FTA.
The #1 guard free throw getter (Iverson) saw a 6.9% in FTr.
The guard people tend to say benefitted most dramatically from this (Nash) saw his FTr go down.

And Ginobili saw his FTr go up by 54.7%.

Equating these things as if they can all be explained by a league-wide rule change isn't just missing subtleties, it's missing the dominant factors when it comes to a guy like Ginobili.

Oh in general I think it's easier for players to start immediately playing how they're used to playing rather than being forced to fit into a new role. Do players take time to adjust to the level of talent in the NBA? Sure, if they have the body and brain for it, I don't think it necessarily takes that long - and when you're talking about someone who was already a Euro superstar, this is a far cry from the someone who only played college ball, let alone compared to the prep-to-pro and one-and-done guys.

Depends on the style of play. Manu did take a couple seasons to start calming down his turnovers (which were awful as a rook), among other things. Took him a while to find his jumper, to grow in consistency finishing in close. There was lots of development going on in his game. 05-12 was his clear prime and that maps pretty regularly to an NBA career.

Turnovers are often bad for rookies so you point in general makes sense, but I don't know if it was really that dramatic in Ginobili's case.

During Ginobili's rookie regular season he had a 17.5 TO%, which went down to 14.3% in the playoffs, and was 14.9% the following regular season. His career average was 14.9%. So to me this is a thing that's largely settled pretty quickly, and it's not even really that dramatic of a difference compared to what we sometimes get as rookies mature.

Re: took him a while to find his jumper. It's certainly true that Ginobili became a better long distance shooter years into his career, but there we're talking about '07-08 rather than '04-05. Certainly you can argue that '07-08 represents something more like his true peak, but in terms of his total shooting efficiency, it's '04-05 where he truly arrives. Further I'd argue that when you're talking about a guy peaking as a long distance shooter at age 30 (which he was in '07-08), you're probably talking about a guy who is starting to need to rely more on shooting due to his age.

Re: took while to grow consistent in finishing in close. I mean, his rookie season is arguably his best season on this front on a per minute basis. Very high % of his shots from 0-3 feet, and very FG% on those shots.

So notice that for the first couple months Ginobili's getting played basically normal starters minutes and then there's a huge drop off as Ginobili gets relegated to the bench, which my understand has always been that it wasn't intended as a demotion nor an adjustment based on his health so much as a decision to have him lead the bench unit, and that Pop said he felt bad about it for Ginobili, but he thought it was what was best for the team - and of course, it's possible that it was based on staggering theory.

His February and March efficiency when he wasn't starting also went up as a result of that switch, FWIW.

I would not say his February TS% is glaringly higher than all that came before. His March TS% is much higher...but then his April goes back down.

I'm not saying that it's not possible that moving Ginobili to the bench helped on this front, but I think the trends are coarse.

Further, I think the real question if he gets more efficient from the bench is "Why?". A natural hypothesis is that he benefitted from playing against weaker competition, but a change in role around teammates might be the bigger thing.

With that said, I still think it's entirely possible that all of this was less about Ginobili needing to actually play less than other starters of comparable age because he got tired more quickly than them, and more about Pop coming to think that he was doing Ginobili a favor by having him play less than the other guys...because that's what he'd always done.

I don't know if it's about fatigue. I think it was about load management and physical health (an area where Pops has been at the forefront for a long time) and about having Manu lead the bench unit and what-not. Pops didn't seem to have nearly the same reservations about minutes come the playoffs, mostly so in the regular season.

Thing is, if it's about "load management and physical health" without evidence of fatigue, I think that often amounts to guesswork. It's different of course if there's a specific medical concern that's actively being monitored, but if you're just talking about limiting how much you use a guy to maximize the chance he'll be healthy in the playoffs, there's no way to know what the right answer for that is.

The fact that Pop was proactive on this and others have followed suit tells us that he understood something broadly that others did not, but that doesn't mean he was adept at evaluating this on a case-by-case basis. I also think the fact that the player he seemed to load manage the most is also the player he did not know what to do with is pretty suspicious.

[tsherkin]

But the league boost and Ginobili's "boost" were not the same order of magnitude.

The NBA saw a 7.8% increase in FTA.
The #1 guard free throw getter (Iverson) saw a 6.9% in FTr.
The guard people tend to say benefitted most dramatically from this (Nash) saw his FTr go down.

And Ginobili saw his FTr go up by 54.7%.

Player / 2004 FTr/ 2005 FTr

Manu / .378 / .567
Lebron / .378 / .447
Wade / .391 / .578
Kobe / .452 / .502
Iverson / .404 / .432
Melo / .358 / .466
McGrady / .319 / .336
Arenas / .347 / .420
Ray Allen / .266 / .286
Michael Redd / .306 / .305
Marbury / .315 / .420
Vince Carter / .286 / .299
Maggette / .612 / .666

There are guys who didn't see any change, or much of change, and some guys who saw a lot. 05 and 06 were very specifically years where we saw a lot of reward for aggressive drivers. It's a trend which lines up with the rules changing and extends especially into 06 with someone like Wade in those Finals. How much you want to say this influenced Manu is one thing, but age is not the only reason he set his career-high FTr that specific season and then managed .450+ or better only once more, in 2006.

EDIT: I don't think the rule was ever going to change Nash's draw rate because he wasn't a contact-seeker. He liked to find space, rather, and loved pull-ups and floaters. It afforded him a little more dynamism in his dribble attack, but he wasn't really doing anything in 05 and later than he hadn't already showcased in Dallas, he just had more possessions to do it with and didn't have to share the ball with an iso-heavy primary star (not that I think Dirk held him back or whatever).

In any case, I don't think the league boost vs. Manu's boost matter much. Style of play matters much more so, and he went to the rack aggressively, and often. Dude took over a third of his shots inside 3 feet, so the chances of him drawing were always going to be higher. That's part of why he maintained a high rate throughout his career, even as he developed his J. That Eurostep was a thing of beauty.

Turnovers are often bad for rookies so you point in general makes sense, but I don't know if it was really that dramatic in Ginobili's case.

During Ginobili's rookie regular season he had a 17.5 TO%, which went down to 14.3% in the playoffs, and was 14.9% the following regular season. His career average was 14.9%. So to me this is a thing that's largely settled pretty quickly, and it's not even really that dramatic of a difference compared to what we sometimes get as rookies mature.

Yes, but it's still something that affects the idea of them ripping titles the entire time. Same same as the shooting concern below.

Re: took him a while to find his jumper. It's certainly true that Ginobili became a better long distance shooter years into his career, but there we're talking about '07-08 rather than '04-05. Certainly you can argue that '07-08 represents something more like his true peak, but in terms of his total shooting efficiency, it's '04-05 where he truly arrives. Further I'd argue that when you're talking about a guy peaking as a long distance shooter at age 30 (which he was in '07-08), you're probably talking about a guy who is starting to need to rely more on shooting due to his age.

That would make more sense to discuss in terms of proportion of shots than just efficiency. You see him flirting with 80% from the line for his first few years, dipping into the high 70s, and then you see as a 29 year-old, he begins a stretch from 07-12 where he shoots 86.7%, peaking at 88.4%. Then a year just below 80%, and then back to 85.1%. There were some changes there, and in his jumper, and in his confidence in its usage. You can argue that necessity dictated that, but it's still a change in his skill set and player profile that is of relevance across the passage of his time in the league, which was my point.

Re: took while to grow consistent in finishing in close. I mean, his rookie season is arguably his best season on this front on a per minute basis. Very high % of his shots from 0-3 feet, and very FG% on those shots.

You can argue that. You can also look at 69 games and 5 starts and wonder how both of those things affected the defensive attention he saw as a rookie while trying to finish, of course. There is room for both of these things to be true, but you can also see a rising trend in his finishing ability over the years that isn't all era-related.

I would not say his February TS% is glaringly higher than all that came before. His March TS% is much higher...but then his April goes back down.

I'm not saying that it's not possible that moving Ginobili to the bench helped on this front, but I think the trends are coarse.

Rookie February, no, but the last 25 games of the season (March and April), he was north of 61% TS while not starting, which fits the general trend that year of his efficiency as a reserve versus as a starter. The trend repeats in 2004, though there is a smaller gap. Thereafter, of course, he became a starter playing controlled minutes.

Further, I think the real question if he gets more efficient from the bench is "Why?". A natural hypothesis is that he benefitted from playing against weaker competition, but a change in role around teammates might be the bigger thing.

I'm of the opinion that both were relevant.

Thing is, if it's about "load management and physical health" without evidence of fatigue, I think that often amounts to guesswork. It's different of course if there's a specific medical concern that's actively being monitored, but if you're just talking about limiting how much you use a guy to maximize the chance he'll be healthy in the playoffs, there's no way to know what the right answer for that is.

The fact that Pop was proactive on this and others have followed suit tells us that he understood something broadly that others did not, but that doesn't mean he was adept at evaluating this on a case-by-case basis. I also think the fact that the player he seemed to load manage the most is also the player he did not know what to do with is pretty suspicious.

Sure, you can look at it that way. To me, I always figured Pop saw him ping-ponging all over the place and picking up little injuries, so he thought to keep him healthy by shortening his minutes. We're speaking of a player who managed 80 games once in 16 seasons and played less than 70 games in 9 different seasons. Health was an issue for him over the years.