Top 100 - Expected Titles (by SRS) vs Actual Titles

Post #21 » by **tsherkin** » Sun Sep 24, 2023 1:49 pm

AEnigma wrote:Nice work — and something I am sure the people frustrated by a lot of the Kobe discourse here will appreciate.

Doesn't much help with the Shaq variable, though, since they're sharing the benefits in the "actual title" section, and Kobe's role wasn't focal like most of the rest of the guys on this list on 60% of those actual titles. Of course, that matters only so much unless one is ring counting, because making 3 straight Finals and winning repeat titles without Shaq was exceptionally impressive.

Djoker · Post #22 » by **Djoker** » Sun Sep 24, 2023 3:13 pm

Great thread OP!

I've posted similar analysis of expected titles (ET) using betting odds. I did it with both preseason odds (since 1985) and postseason odds (since 1977) until the end of the 2020-21 season.

Preseason Odds - Titles Over Expected of Some Legends: 1984-85 to 2020-21

Postseason Odds -- Titles Over Expected of Some Legends: 1976-77 to 2020-21

Methodology:

There is a lot of discussion on online forums, barber shops etc. talk about how certain athletes exceed expectations while others underachieve but there has never been a way to quantify this. I have recently realized that betting odds can be used to estimate championship odds for teams of certain players. Here is the methodology.

Say player X had a five year career and his teams had Preseason Odds of +800, +250, +300, +1200, and +10000 to win titles in those years. Those betting lines can be converted to implied odds which is probability of winning using an application like this.

https://www.aceodds.com/bet-calculat...converter.html

This is the data that we get for player X:

Year 1: +800 —> 11.1% —> 0.111 expected titles
Year 2: +250 —> 28.6% —> 0.286 expected titles
Year 3: +300 —> 25.0% —> 0.250 expected titles
Year 4: +1200 —> 7.7% —> 0.077 expected titles
Year 5: +10000 —> 1.0% —> 0.010 expected titles

Total: 0.734 expected titles

Dividing the percentages by 100 gives us expected titles won for that particular year. So for instance in year 3, the player has 0.250 expected titles. If we add up all five years we get 0.734 expected titles meaning that this player should reasonably be expected to win 0.734 titles in that 5-year span. This methodology also makes intuitive sense. For example, if a team has 50% chance of winning a title two years in a row then they are expected to win one championship. If the same team has a 50% chance of winning for four years then they are expected to win two championships.

The advantage of using preseason odds is it allows for an assessment of team building. The disadvantage is it does a poor job of accounting for injuries and trades. Postseason odds are not affected by trades and regular season injuries but also don't account for injuries that occur in the playoffs. Postseason data also gives a "pass" to teams that miss the playoffs because those teams have zero title odds. However this is hardly a major issue because the vast majority of teams that miss the playoffs have very low title odds anyways. No player on the list is really underrated or overrated due to this factor at all.

Overall, preseason and postseason odds give surprisingly similar results.

Sources:

Preseason Odds - Basketball Reference
Postseason Odds - Sports Odds History

f4p · Post #23 » by **f4p** » Mon Sep 25, 2023 4:41 am

WestGOAT wrote:
f4p wrote:.

Have you considered using playoff adjusted SRS, similar to what Santerre explains in viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2021493&start=100, instead of using flat RS SRS? For example after every series you'd update a team's SRS.

This could help better take teams coasting in RS or having a big roster change after the trade-deadline in account.

so, as fantastic as San's top 100 was, the 2018 rockets finishing 95th in San's list and then him defending it kind of ruined me on it forever, lol. also, the 2018 warriors should have been a great example of helping the rockets out against a coasting team using rolling SRS, and it didn't. it just pumped up the warriors. that being said, even if that didn't happen, i'm not sure i'm a big fan of rolling SRS anyway. you get stuff like the 2020 celtics being the 67th best team ever or the 2010 magic being something like 40th. too much emphasis on MOV in what amounts to short bursts of games. and also basically always assuming the winning team overperformed instead of there being the possibility that the losing team underperformed. which ends up with team's with PSRS's way above regular season SRS's. i guess it might equally favor both teams in a matchup (since they both won to get there) and not affect the odds, but it seems too much. not that i can't believe a +2 team can play like a +10 team for a few games (after all, it happens all the time in the regular season) but i don't think they just reset into a +10 team going forward. they could be just at likely to turn back into a pumpkin and have a -6 stretch in their next few games.

DraymondGold · Post #24 » by **DraymondGold** » Mon Sep 25, 2023 4:55 am

Great Stuff Djoker on the expected titles based on betting odds!

Just to get things in the same format as F4p, here are the rankings of the players you listed, updated through 2023:

Delta (by SRS): Difference between Expected Titles (by SRS) and Titles

Spoiler:

Delta Percentage (by SRS): Percentage Difference between Expected Titles (by SRS) and Titles

Spoiler:

Delta (by Preseason Odds): Difference between Expected Titles (by Preseason Odds) and Titles

Spoiler:

Delta Percentage(by Preseason Odds): Percentage Difference between Expected Titles (by Preseason Odds) and Titles

Spoiler:

Delta (by Postseason Odds): Difference between Expected Titles (by Postseason Odds) and Titles

Spoiler:

Delta Percentage(by Postseason Odds): Percentage Difference between Expected Titles (by Postseason Odds) and Titles

Spoiler:

For fun, let's check the players' average ranking in these 6 metrics!
1. Michael Jordan
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Hakeem Olajuwon
4. Dwyane Wade
5. Isiah Thomas
6. Tim Duncan
7. Stephen Curry
8. Magic Johnson
9. Shaquille O'neal
10. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
11. Lebron James
12. David Robinson
13. Kevin Garnett
14. Moses Malone
15. Dirk Nowitzki
16. Larry Bird
17. Kevin Durant
18. Chris Paul
19. Julius Erving
20. Charles Barkley
21. Karl Malone
Qualifier: not all ranks are made equal. Hakeem's 1st place rank in 'Delta Percentage (by SRS)' is out in front by more than the other 1st place rankings, for example. Presumably one could scale all the values to a similar scale, then take a weighted average to get a more accurate average of all 6 metrics. This is a quicker, simpler, but slightly less accurate way to average across these 6 metrics.

Some trends I noticed when comparing the Titles vs Expected Titles, as predicted by SRS, Preseason odds, and pre-Postseason odds:
-Improvers: Tim Duncan's ranking improves the most by going to betting odds, improving by ~9 spots. It seems the bettors pretty severely underrating the Spurs. I would guess 2014 is one of the underrated years. Curry's ranking improves significantly too, rising ~5 spots. I would guess 2015 and 2022 helps Curry here. Both end up in the top third of the 'Average Rank' list above.
Jordan and Robinson also improve by ~5 spots when using Delta Percentage, but stay fairly consistent using a plain Delta. The improvement likely helps Jordan nab the top spot above.

-Fallers: Shaq falls the most when using betting odds, around ~5 spots. LeBron falls ~4 spots, and falls more using a plain Delta compared to a Delta Percentage. Magic also falls ~4 spots, falling more when using postseason odds and plain Delta. All three go from being above average when doing Titles vs Expected Titles by SRS to slightly below average by betting odds, ending up about middle of the pack in the final list above. It seems bettors were higher on them than SRS. Kobe falls ~3 spots when using betting odds, but is consistently high enough in everything that he still ends up 2nd overall in the final list above. Hakeem falls -5 spots in 'Preseason Odds Delta', and falls -8 spots in 'Preseason Odds Delta Percentage', but is high enough in the other four metrics to still get third overall. It seems people were higher on Hakeem in the preseason, and got lower on him by the end of the regular season to match SRS.

Finally, how do these metrics compare? We can look at which of these 3 metrics have the smallest difference between their Expected Titles and true Titles, at least in this limited sample of players. Here's the Average Magnitude Error in 'Delta' (difference between titles and expected titles):
-SRS: off by 1.27 titles on average
-Preseason Odds: off by 1.09 titles on average
-Postseason Odds: off by 0.92 titles on average
So in this sample of more recent players, it seems like Postseason Odds > Preseason Odds > SRS. Which makes a certain amount of sense, as Postseason Odds can account for context and more recent knowledge that Preseason Odds misses, and both can provide deeper contextual analysis than SRS alone. Still, there are probably biases in the odds that can be improved with the help of more objective metrics like SRS. Interesting stuff!

lessthanjake · Post #25 » by **lessthanjake** » Mon Sep 25, 2023 5:46 am

Djoker wrote:Great thread OP!

I've posted similar analysis of expected titles (ET) using betting odds. I did it with both preseason odds (since 1985) and postseason odds (since 1977) until the end of the 2020-21 season.

Preseason Odds - Titles Over Expected of Some Legends: 1984-85 to 2020-21

Postseason Odds -- Titles Over Expected of Some Legends: 1976-77 to 2020-21

This is great stuff!

Just want to note some updates on the three players in the list that actually are current players and therefore would have their numbers be different if the analysis went through 2022-2023 (Steph Curry, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Chris Paul). For Durant, I used the Suns’ preseason odds for last season, rather than the Nets.

Updated Titles Above Expected - Based on Preseason Odds

Stephen Curry: +1.510
LeBron James: +0.362
Chris Paul: -0.837
Kevin Durant: -1.175

Updated Titles Above Expected - Based on Postseason Odds

Stephen Curry: +1.122
LeBron James: +0.264
Kevin Durant: -1.089
Chris Paul: -1.358

So basically, Steph Curry is now only below MJ and Duncan in the titles above expected vs. preseason odds, and is only below MJ, Duncan, and Kobe in titles above expected vs. postseason odds. Meanwhile, LeBron falls a bit, and is now even closer to the expected value. Durant and Chris Paul obviously fall from an already low level.

Post #26 » by **penbeast0** » Mon Sep 25, 2023 6:01 am

Noticed both the 78 Bullets and the 75 Warriors in the 10 least expected titles. Interestingly, both teams were the best in the regular season the NEXT year but didn't win a ring. Wonder how often teams improve in the regular season after winning a title. Most analysis I see talks about how it is so hard to repeat with everyone gunning for you.

WestGOAT · Post #27 » by **WestGOAT** » Mon Sep 25, 2023 7:22 am

f4p wrote:
WestGOAT wrote:
f4p wrote:.

Have you considered using playoff adjusted SRS, similar to what Santerre explains in viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2021493&start=100, instead of using flat RS SRS? For example after every series you'd update a team's SRS.

This could help better take teams coasting in RS or having a big roster change after the trade-deadline in account.

so, as fantastic as San's top 100 was, the 2018 rockets finishing 95th in San's list and then him defending it kind of ruined me on it forever, lol. also, the 2018 warriors should have been a great example of helping the rockets out against a coasting team using rolling SRS, and it didn't. it just pumped up the warriors. that being said, even if that didn't happen, i'm not sure i'm a big fan of rolling SRS anyway. you get stuff like the 2020 celtics being the 67th best team ever or the 2010 magic being something like 40th. too much emphasis on MOV in what amounts to short bursts of games. and also basically always assuming the winning team overperformed instead of there being the possibility that the losing team underperformed. which ends up with team's with PSRS's way above regular season SRS's. i guess it might equally favor both teams in a matchup (since they both won to get there) and not affect the odds, but it seems too much. not that i can't believe a +2 team can play like a +10 team for a few games (after all, it happens all the time in the regular season) but i don't think they just reset into a +10 team going forward. they could be just at likely to turn back into a pumpkin and have a -6 stretch in their next few games.

I see what you mean, but what do you make of Miami last season then? On one hand you can argue they simply got hot from 3 during the post-season, on the other hand I think it's pretty fair to say that their RS SRS underestimated them.

Perhaps a finer balance could be reached by adjusted the weights of PS games? But yea that could be an arbitrary process.

I'm asking btw cause I'm interested in calculating a rolling/expanding SRS, but trying to figure out how to best do that. It's seems more complicated than it is :lol:

cpower · Post #28 » by **cpower** » Mon Sep 25, 2023 8:15 am

using the lakers example, they are the favorite over memphis and GS, but ended up with less winning probability due to late trade. Maybe its worth running the data only using after trade deadline and that should provide more correlations ? great idea though

Lakers vs Memphis (0.43 vs 3.6) = 0.242 Win Probability
Lakers vs Golden State (0.43 vs 1.66) = 0.374 Win Probability
Lakers vs Denver (0.43 vs 3.04) = 0.279 Win Probability
Lakers vs Miami (0.43 vs -0.13) = 0.509 Win Probability

DraymondGold · Post #29 » by **DraymondGold** » Mon Sep 25, 2023 7:39 pm

Spoiler:

DraymondGold wrote:Great Stuff Djoker on the expected titles based on betting odds! Just to get things in the same format as F4p, here are the rankings of the players you listed, updated through 2023:

...

For fun, let's check the players' average ranking in these 6 metrics!
1. Michael Jordan
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Hakeem Olajuwon
4. Dwyane Wade
5. Isiah Thomas
6. Tim Duncan
7. Stephen Curry
8. Magic Johnson
9. Shaquille O'neal
10. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
11. Lebron James
12. David Robinson
13. Kevin Garnett
14. Moses Malone
15. Dirk Nowitzki
16. Larry Bird
17. Kevin Durant
18. Chris Paul
19. Julius Erving
20. Charles Barkley
21. Karl Malone
Qualifier: not all ranks are made equal. Hakeem's 1st place rank in 'Delta Percentage (by SRS)' is out in front by more than the other 1st place rankings, for example. Presumably one could scale all the values to a similar scale, then take a weighted average to get a more accurate average of all 6 metrics. This is a quicker, simpler, but slightly less accurate way to average across these 6 metrics.

Some trends I noticed when comparing the Titles vs Expected Titles, as predicted by SRS, Preseason odds, and pre-Postseason odds:
-Improvers: Tim Duncan's ranking improves the most by going to betting odds, improving by ~9 spots. It seems the bettors pretty severely underrating the Spurs. I would guess 2014 is one of the underrated years. Curry's ranking improves significantly too, rising ~5 spots. I would guess 2015 and 2022 helps Curry here. Both end up in the top third of the 'Average Rank' list above.
Jordan and Robinson also improve by ~5 spots when using Delta Percentage, but stay fairly consistent using a plain Delta. The improvement likely helps Jordan nab the top spot above.

-Fallers: Shaq falls the most when using betting odds, around ~5 spots. LeBron falls ~4 spots, and falls more using a plain Delta compared to a Delta Percentage. Magic also falls ~4 spots, falling more when using postseason odds and plain Delta. All three go from being above average when doing Titles vs Expected Titles by SRS to slightly below average by betting odds, ending up about middle of the pack in the final list above. It seems bettors were higher on them than SRS. Kobe falls ~3 spots when using betting odds, but is consistently high enough in everything that he still ends up 2nd overall in the final list above. Hakeem falls -5 spots in 'Preseason Odds Delta', and falls -8 spots in 'Preseason Odds Delta Percentage', but is high enough in the other four metrics to still get third overall. It seems people were higher on Hakeem in the preseason, and got lower on him by the end of the regular season to match SRS.

Finally, how do these metrics compare? We can look at which of these 3 metrics have the smallest difference between their Expected Titles and true Titles, at least in this limited sample of players. Here's the Average Magnitude Error in 'Delta' (difference between titles and expected titles):
-SRS: off by 1.27 titles on average
-Preseason Odds: off by 1.09 titles on average
-Postseason Odds: off by 0.92 titles on average
So in this sample of more recent players, it seems like Postseason Odds > Preseason Odds > SRS. Which makes a certain amount of sense, as Postseason Odds can account for context and more recent knowledge that Preseason Odds misses, and both can provide deeper contextual analysis than SRS alone. Still, there are probably biases in the odds that can be improved with the help of more objective metrics like SRS. Interesting stuff!

Alright, I've decided to make a better Average ranking in Expected Titles vs actual Titles, based on our 6 metrics so far:
-Expected Titles vs actual titles, based on SRS, counting the raw difference in titles
-Expected Titles vs actual titles, based on SRS, counting the percentage difference in titles
-Expected Titles vs actual titles, based on preseason odds, counting the raw difference in titles
-Expected Titles vs actual titles, based on preseason odds, counting the percentage difference in titles
-Expected Titles vs actual titles, based on postseason odds, counting the raw difference in titles
-Expected Titles vs actual titles, based on postseason odds, counting the percentage difference in titles

Methodology: In my original post above, I just calculated player's average ranking. But this may miss subtler trends: e.g. not every 1st place is the same, some are out in front by more than others, etc. So to calculate a better average, we need to normalize the various metrics in some way, to get them on the same scale. I choose to standardize the lists (i.e. for every value in one of those metrics, I subtract the mean value of that metric, then divide by the standard deviation). This should get these 6 metrics in the same scale, so we can then average across all 6 metrics. The result is a list that ranges from ~ –1.5 to 1.5, with the middle value near 0. Positive values mean you(r team) over performed expectations, negative values mean you(r team) underperformed expectations.

With methodology out of the way, here's how players over performed or underperformed in their number of titles compared to expectations, based on SRS, preseason odds, and postseason odds:
Rank / Player / Standardized Value
1. Michael Jordan:    1.61
2. Hakeem Olajuwon: 1.34
3. Kobe Bryant: 0.89
4. Tim Duncan:    0.75
5. Dwyane Wade: 0.59
6. Stephen Curry: 0.58
7. Isiah Thomas:    0.5
8. Magic Johnson: 0.4
9. Shaquille O'neal:    0.27
10. Lebron James:    0.16
11. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 0.06
12. David Robinson:    0
13. Moses Malone:    -0.36
14. Kevin Garnett: -0.38
15. Dirk Nowitzki: -0.4
16. Larry Bird:    -0.5
17. Julius Erving: -0.75
18. Kevin Durant:    -0.76
19. Chris Paul:    -1.33
20. Charles Barkley: -1.36
21. Karl Malone: -1.49
Note: SRS available for full careers, preseason odds are since 1985, postseason odds are since 1977.

OhayoKD · Post #30 » by **OhayoKD** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 7:26 am

tsherkin wrote:
AEnigma wrote:Nice work — and something I am sure the people frustrated by a lot of the Kobe discourse here will appreciate.

Doesn't much help with the Shaq variable, though, since they're sharing the benefits in the "actual title" section, and Kobe's role wasn't focal like most of the rest of the guys on this list on 60% of those actual titles. Of course, that matters only so much unless one is ring counting, because making 3 straight Finals and winning repeat titles without Shaq was exceptionally impressive.

You don't have to be the focal point overall to be the focal point in terms of playoff elevation. Given that 2001 was the year they jumped up a bunch in playoff performance(even relatiev to surrounding championship runs), i think you can argue kobe was the bigger riser pretty easily

OhayoKD · Post #31 » by **OhayoKD** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 7:33 am

f4p wrote:
WestGOAT wrote:
f4p wrote:.

Have you considered using playoff adjusted SRS, similar to what Santerre explains in viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2021493&start=100, instead of using flat RS SRS? For example after every series you'd update a team's SRS.

This could help better take teams coasting in RS or having a big roster change after the trade-deadline in account.

so, as fantastic as San's top 100 was, the 2018 rockets finishing 95th in San's list and then him defending it kind of ruined me on it forever, lol. also, the 2018 warriors should have been a great example of helping the rockets out against a coasting team using rolling SRS, and it didn't. it just pumped up the warriors. that being said, even if that didn't happen, i'm not sure i'm a big fan of rolling SRS anyway. you get stuff like the 2020 celtics being the 67th best team ever or the 2010 magic being something like 40th. too much emphasis on MOV in what amounts to short bursts of games. and also basically always assuming the winning team overperformed instead of there being the possibility that the losing team underperformed. which ends up with team's with PSRS's way above regular season SRS's. i guess it might equally favor both teams in a matchup (since they both won to get there) and not affect the odds, but it seems too much. not that i can't believe a +2 team can play like a +10 team for a few games (after all, it happens all the time in the regular season) but i don't think they just reset into a +10 team going forward. they could be just at likely to turn back into a pumpkin and have a -6 stretch in their next few games.

Wouldn't flat srs hate the 2018 rockets alot more? The 2020 example seems more like preference. In a league where all the contenders coast, rolling is just flat out more useful than flat. Teams should not be penalized for opponents not trying as they hard as they did in the regular-season(2018 warriors, 2013 spurs, 2019 raptors, ect)

It does seem to think every champion overperformed, but that's not really much of a concern if you're using it comapratively as opposed to just saying in a vacuum "Player x is a riser". Just compare the champions and adjust for injury context((no duncan in 2000 spikes the suns and by proxy the lakers)

The benefit of course is it's more inclusive than "expected championships" which --always-- assumes the losing team didn't overperform and --always-- assumes the winning team didn't underperform which is a big problem if you are comparing individual players where better teammates can be the reason a close win wasn't a close loss.

One_and_Done · Post #32 » by **One_and_Done** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 7:44 am

f4p wrote:With the top 100 project going, I figured now was the time to make this post. Maybe it's already been done elsewhere, but I haven't seen it. I basically took the 2020 Top 100 players and looked at their expected titles (by regular season SRS) and compared to their actual titles won. If a team lost before the finals, I simply used the subsequent opponents they would have played based on how the other parts of the playoff bracket worked out. So this year Lebron's expected titles were based on:

Lakers vs Memphis (0.43 vs 3.6) = 0.242 Win Probability
Lakers vs Golden State (0.43 vs 1.66) = 0.374 Win Probability
Lakers vs Denver (0.43 vs 3.04) = 0.279 Win Probability
Lakers vs Miami (0.43 vs -0.13) = 0.509 Win Probability
-----------------------------------------------
Total = 0.013 Expected Titles

The first list is simply in the order of the 2020 Top 100 (plus Butler, Tatum, and Luka) in terms of expected vs actual titles.

Code: Select all
Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 2 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 3 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 4 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 5 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 6 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 7 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 8 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 9 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 10 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 11 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 12 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 13 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 14 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 15 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 16 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 17 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 18 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 19 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 20 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 21 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 22 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 23 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 24 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 25 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 26 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 27 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 28 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 29 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 30 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 31 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 32 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 33 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 34 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 35 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 36 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 37 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 38 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 39 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 40 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 41 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 42 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 43 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 44 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 45 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 46 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 47 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 48 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 49 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 50 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 51 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 52 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 53 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 54 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 55 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 56 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 57 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 58 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 59 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 60 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 61 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 62 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 63 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 64 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 65 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 66 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 67 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 68 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 69 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 70 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 71 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 72 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 73 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 74 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 75 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 76 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 77 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 78 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 79 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 80 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 81 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 82 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 83 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 84 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 85 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 86 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 87 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 88 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 89 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 90 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 91 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 92 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 93 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 94 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 95 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 96 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 97 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 98 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 99 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100% 100 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 101 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 102 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 103 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100%

As can be seen, most of the highest ranked players exceed expectations. Is this just because we rank players higher when they win (ringz)? Is it an indication that SRS simply can't account for greatness and, in a sport like basketball where one player has so much impact, the best players are expected to turn the probable into the inevitable in the playoffs?

The next list is in order of expected championships. Hakeem finishing 98th not only shows that he won without a ton of surrounding talent, but with almost historic levels of poor surrounding talent. And he won twice!

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 2 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 3 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 4 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 5 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 6 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 7 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 8 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 9 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 10 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 11 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 12 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 13 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 14 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 15 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 16 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 17 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 18 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 19 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 20 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 21 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 22 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 23 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 24 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 25 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 26 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 27 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 28 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 29 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 30 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 31 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 32 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 33 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 34 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 35 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 36 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 37 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 38 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 39 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 40 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 41 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 42 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 43 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 44 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 45 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 46 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 47 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 48 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 49 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 50 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 51 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 52 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 53 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 56 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 57 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 58 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 59 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 60 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 61 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 62 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 63 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 64 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 65 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 66 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 67 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 68 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 69 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 70 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 71 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 72 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 73 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 74 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 75 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 76 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 77 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 78 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 79 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 80 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 81 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 82 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 83 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 84 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 85 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 86 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 87 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 88 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 89 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 90 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 91 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 92 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 93 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 94 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 95 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 96 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 97 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 98 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 99 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 100 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 101 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 102 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 103 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100%

The next list is ranked by the absolute delta between expected and actual champions. As expected, Russell is near the top. Kobe comes out looking pretty good, basically 2nd behind the russell celtics. Kareem comes in 19th place and Duncan in 24th place even with 6 titles and 5 titles, respectively.

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 2 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 3 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 4 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 5 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 6 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 7 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 8 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 9 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 10 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 11 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 12 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 13 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 14 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 15 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 16 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 17 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 18 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 19 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 20 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 21 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 22 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 23 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 24 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 25 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 26 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 27 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 28 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 29 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 30 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 31 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 32 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 33 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 34 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 35 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 36 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 37 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 38 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 39 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 40 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 41 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 42 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 43 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 44 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 45 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 46 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 47 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 48 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 49 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 50 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 51 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 52 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 53 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 56 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100% 57 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 58 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 59 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 60 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 61 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 62 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 63 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 64 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 65 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 66 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 67 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 68 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 69 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 70 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 71 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 72 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 73 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 74 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 75 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 76 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 77 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 78 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 79 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 80 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 81 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 82 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 83 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 84 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 85 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 86 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 87 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 88 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 89 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 90 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 91 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 92 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 93 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 94 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 95 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 96 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 97 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 98 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 99 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 100 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 101 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 102 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 103 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5%

The next list is ranked by the percentage delta between expected and actual champions. Hakeem just laps the field with an almost 20x ratio. Russell gets knocked down quite a bit but hard to be at the top when 7 is expected (+86% would have been his max). Kobe once again comes out in 2nd place. With a decent amount of separation on Shaq on both lists, so it's not just Shaq's regular/season playoff switch-flipping doing it all.

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 2 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 3 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 4 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 5 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 6 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 7 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 8 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 9 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 10 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 11 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 12 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 13 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 14 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 15 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 16 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 17 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 18 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 19 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 20 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 21 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 22 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 23 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 24 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 25 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 26 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 27 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 28 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 29 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 30 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 31 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 32 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 33 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 34 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 35 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 36 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 37 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 38 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 39 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 40 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 41 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 42 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 43 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 44 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 45 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 46 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 47 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 48 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 49 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 50 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 51 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 52 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 53 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 56 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 57 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 58 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 59 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 60 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 61 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 62 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 63 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 64 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 65 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 66 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 67 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 68 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 69 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 70 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 71 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 72 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 73 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 74 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 75 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 76 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 77 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 78 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 79 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 80 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 81 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 82 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 83 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 84 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 85 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 86 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 87 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 88 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 89 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 90 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 91 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 92 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 93 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 94 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 95 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 96 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 97 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 98 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 99 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 100 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 101 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 102 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 103 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100%

Elgin Baylor, Chris Paul and Steve Nash lead the way for ringless players in the Top 50 in terms of most expected championships. Though to be fair to CP3, he and Harden both get a nearly 0.5 hit just from the hamstring injury in 2018.

I'm running out of ways to explain the same point. We went through why SRS cannot be used in this way to determine individual players impact so many times in the top 100 project it's not even funny.

I don't understand why it's still being cited. If Lebron carries a garbage team to 60 wins, and they lose in the playoffs to a team whose better roster can expose the flaws that Lebron was able to mask in the RS, how is that a negative for him? Am I supposed to care that the veteran team who bear him coasted in the regular season and so had a slightly lower SRS? Do teams get a more favourable seeding if their SRS is higher.

This is a metric that seems totally arbitrary, and happens to favour Hakeem for arbitrary reasons, but it has no value at all when used in this way.

OhayoKD · Post #33 » by **OhayoKD** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 7:47 am

One_and_Done wrote:
f4p wrote:
Elgin Baylor, Chris Paul and Steve Nash lead the way for ringless players in the Top 50 in terms of most expected championships. Though to be fair to CP3, he and Harden both get a nearly 0.5 hit just from the hamstring injury in 2018.

I'm running out of ways to explain the same point. We went through why SRS cannot be used in this way to determine individual players impact so many times in the top 100 project it's not even funny.

I don't understand why it's still being cited. If Lebron carries a garbage team to 60 wins, and they lose in the playoffs to a team whose better roster can expose the flaws that Lebron was able to mask in the RS, how is that a negative for him? Am I supposed to care that the veteran team who bear him coasted in the regular season and so had a slightly lower SRS? Do teams get a more favourable seeding if their SRS is higher.

This is a metric that seems totally arbitrary, and happens to favour Hakeem for arbitrary reasons, but it has no value at all when used in this way.

I mean there's not much to explain. FP4 is assuming an upper-bound to situational player value on the basis of nothing. If i took a player and added a bunch of skillsets they didn't have , it would be perfectly plausible they're worth alot more wins and of course actual real-world impact suggests that player value can vary widly both in terms of replication and in terms of thr high marks

lebron is also a hakeem-tier playoff elevator if we just track stuff raw team performance, production increases, srs-upsets ect, so he's probably a breaking point for these sorts of metrics that basically throw away positive data when it's not positive enough

One_and_Done · Post #34 » by **One_and_Done** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 7:57 am

It reminds me of when people cite HCA record as a big plus for Jordan. The premise is Jordan is the best, so HCA is reverse engineered to be the explanation to justify that starting point. It can't account for the context of what happens in a season, which is why it's better to just look at each year and judge things from there with nuanced arguments. Of course if we did that the playoff record for Hakeem would look weak, because he's losing to the sub-500 Sonics or the 80s Mavs etc.

OhayoKD · Post #35 » by **OhayoKD** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 8:04 am

One_and_Done wrote:It reminds me of when people cite HCA record as a big plus for Jordan. The premise is Jordan is the best, so HCA is reverse engineered to be the explanation to justify that starting point. It can't account for the context of what happens in a season, which is why it's better to just look at each year and judge things from there with nuanced arguments. Of course if we did that the playoff record for Hakeem would look weak, because he's losing to the sub-500 Sonics or the 80s Mavs etc.

I mean, if you don't apply arbitrary tresholds, you don't need "year by year" whatever to see that jordan is very clearly not the gold standard of playoff elevation, even at looking conventional interpretations of raw box production.

and then there's the matter of his team elevating without him...

Post #36 » by **tsherkin** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 3:02 pm

OhayoKD wrote:You don't have to be the focal point overall to be the focal point in terms of playoff elevation. Given that 2001 was the year they jumped up a bunch in playoff performance(even relatiev to surrounding championship runs), i think you can argue kobe was the bigger riser pretty easily

And I still disagree, if only because I think that Shaq's presence enabled that. Meantime, the super efficient 30 ppg guy averaging nearly 6 ORB per game during the playoffs was a huge factor that postseason as well. You can argue that Kobe's play in game 1 of the Portland series was a big sell for them, because Shaq shot like crap, and the last two games of the Kings series after Shaq obliterated them over the first two. You can argue Kobe in the San Antonio series, but he also played like dogcrap in the Finals, as per his custom, so...

I can see how you can make the argument, but Shaq was still both ultra dominant and the focal point of that team and I find it challenging to look at Kobe and say he was more important. Particularly in 01, to be honest, since that was the year he rode the pine with his injury watching the team click without him and then fit back in come the playoffs as the team sorted out its RS defensive woes come the playoffs. Kobe was very much not the defensive anchor for that squad. Their defense made a mockery of everyone in the playoffs that year, which was their major improvement.

f4p · Post #37 » by **f4p** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 8:44 pm

One_and_Done wrote:
f4p wrote:With the top 100 project going, I figured now was the time to make this post. Maybe it's already been done elsewhere, but I haven't seen it. I basically took the 2020 Top 100 players and looked at their expected titles (by regular season SRS) and compared to their actual titles won. If a team lost before the finals, I simply used the subsequent opponents they would have played based on how the other parts of the playoff bracket worked out. So this year Lebron's expected titles were based on:

Lakers vs Memphis (0.43 vs 3.6) = 0.242 Win Probability
Lakers vs Golden State (0.43 vs 1.66) = 0.374 Win Probability
Lakers vs Denver (0.43 vs 3.04) = 0.279 Win Probability
Lakers vs Miami (0.43 vs -0.13) = 0.509 Win Probability
-----------------------------------------------
Total = 0.013 Expected Titles

The first list is simply in the order of the 2020 Top 100 (plus Butler, Tatum, and Luka) in terms of expected vs actual titles.

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 2 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 3 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 4 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 5 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 6 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 7 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 8 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 9 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 10 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 11 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 12 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 13 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 14 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 15 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 16 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 17 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 18 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 19 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 20 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 21 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 22 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 23 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 24 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 25 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 26 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 27 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 28 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 29 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 30 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 31 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 32 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 33 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 34 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 35 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 36 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 37 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 38 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 39 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 40 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 41 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 42 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 43 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 44 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 45 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 46 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 47 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 48 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 49 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 50 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 51 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 52 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 53 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 54 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 55 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 56 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 57 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 58 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 59 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 60 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 61 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 62 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 63 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 64 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 65 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 66 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 67 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 68 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 69 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 70 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 71 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 72 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 73 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 74 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 75 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 76 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 77 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 78 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 79 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 80 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 81 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 82 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 83 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 84 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 85 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 86 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 87 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 88 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 89 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 90 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 91 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 92 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 93 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 94 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 95 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 96 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 97 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 98 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 99 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100% 100 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 101 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 102 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 103 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100%

As can be seen, most of the highest ranked players exceed expectations. Is this just because we rank players higher when they win (ringz)? Is it an indication that SRS simply can't account for greatness and, in a sport like basketball where one player has so much impact, the best players are expected to turn the probable into the inevitable in the playoffs?

The next list is in order of expected championships. Hakeem finishing 98th not only shows that he won without a ton of surrounding talent, but with almost historic levels of poor surrounding talent. And he won twice!

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 2 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 3 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 4 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 5 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 6 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 7 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 8 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 9 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 10 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 11 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 12 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 13 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 14 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 15 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 16 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 17 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 18 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 19 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 20 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 21 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 22 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 23 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 24 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 25 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 26 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 27 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 28 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 29 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 30 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 31 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 32 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 33 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 34 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 35 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 36 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 37 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 38 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 39 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 40 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 41 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 42 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 43 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 44 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 45 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 46 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 47 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 48 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 49 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 50 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 51 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 52 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 53 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 56 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 57 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 58 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 59 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 60 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 61 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 62 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 63 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 64 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 65 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 66 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 67 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 68 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 69 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 70 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 71 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 72 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 73 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 74 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 75 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 76 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 77 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 78 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 79 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 80 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 81 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 82 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 83 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 84 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 85 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 86 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 87 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 88 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 89 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 90 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 91 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 92 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 93 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 94 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 95 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 96 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 97 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 98 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 99 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 100 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 101 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 102 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 103 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100%

The next list is ranked by the absolute delta between expected and actual champions. As expected, Russell is near the top. Kobe comes out looking pretty good, basically 2nd behind the russell celtics. Kareem comes in 19th place and Duncan in 24th place even with 6 titles and 5 titles, respectively.

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 2 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 3 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 4 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 5 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 6 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 7 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 8 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 9 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 10 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 11 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 12 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 13 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 14 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 15 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 16 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 17 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 18 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 19 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 20 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 21 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 22 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 23 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 24 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 25 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 26 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 27 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 28 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 29 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 30 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 31 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 32 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 33 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 34 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 35 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 36 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 37 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 38 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 39 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 40 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 41 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 42 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 43 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 44 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 45 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 46 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 47 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 48 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 49 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 50 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 51 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 52 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 53 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 56 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100% 57 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 58 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 59 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 60 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 61 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 62 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 63 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 64 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 65 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 66 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 67 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 68 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 69 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 70 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 71 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 72 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 73 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 74 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 75 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 76 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 77 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 78 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 79 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 80 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 81 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 82 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 83 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 84 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 85 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 86 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 87 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 88 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 89 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 90 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 91 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 92 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 93 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 94 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 95 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 96 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 97 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 98 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 99 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 100 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 101 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 102 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 103 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5%

The next list is ranked by the percentage delta between expected and actual champions. Hakeem just laps the field with an almost 20x ratio. Russell gets knocked down quite a bit but hard to be at the top when 7 is expected (+86% would have been his max). Kobe once again comes out in 2nd place. With a decent amount of separation on Shaq on both lists, so it's not just Shaq's regular/season playoff switch-flipping doing it all.

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 2 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 3 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 4 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 5 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 6 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 7 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 8 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 9 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 10 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 11 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 12 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 13 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 14 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 15 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 16 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 17 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 18 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 19 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 20 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 21 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 22 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 23 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 24 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 25 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 26 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 27 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 28 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 29 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 30 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 31 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 32 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 33 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 34 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 35 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 36 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 37 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 38 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 39 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 40 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 41 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 42 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 43 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 44 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 45 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 46 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 47 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 48 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 49 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 50 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 51 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 52 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 53 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 56 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 57 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 58 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 59 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 60 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 61 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 62 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 63 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 64 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 65 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 66 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 67 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 68 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 69 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 70 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 71 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 72 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 73 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 74 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 75 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 76 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 77 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 78 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 79 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 80 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 81 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 82 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 83 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 84 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 85 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 86 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 87 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 88 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 89 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 90 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 91 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 92 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 93 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 94 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 95 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 96 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 97 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 98 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 99 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 100 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 101 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 102 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 103 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100%

Elgin Baylor, Chris Paul and Steve Nash lead the way for ringless players in the Top 50 in terms of most expected championships. Though to be fair to CP3, he and Harden both get a nearly 0.5 hit just from the hamstring injury in 2018.

I'm running out of ways to explain the same point. We went through why SRS cannot be used in this way to determine individual players impact so many times in the top 100 project it's not even funny.

this thread is from a while ago. and you saying something doesn't mean "we went through why".

I don't understand why it's still being cited. If Lebron carries a garbage team to 60 wins, and they lose in the playoffs to a team whose better roster can expose the flaws that Lebron was able to mask in the RS, how is that a negative for him? Am I supposed to care that the veteran team who bear him coasted in the regular season and so had a slightly lower SRS? Do teams get a more favourable seeding if their SRS is higher.

lebron lost 3 series as an SRS favorite. one to orlando in 2009, who definitely wasn't coasting and one to the mavs in 2011, who definitely weren't coasting. so maybe one example to 2010 boston. over 20 years. oh no. and of course, lebron was basically the king of coasting and winning as an underdog in his second cleveland stint.

This is a metric that seems totally arbitrary,

it compares the regular season to the postseason. i guess it's arbitrary that the nba has a regular season and a postseason, but other than that, there's nothing arbitrary about it.

and happens to favour Hakeem for arbitrary reasons,

ahh, now i see why there is a complaint, lol. hakeem look great, duncan no look great. you'll notice people other than hakeem also look great. what can i tell you? is there a non-arbitrary way to not make it look like hakeem is a playoff riser? his teams winning way more than suggested by the regular season isn't really "arbitrary".

but it has no value at all when used in this way.

and your suggestion for how it should be used to have value?

It reminds me of when people cite HCA record as a big plus for Jordan. The premise is Jordan is the best, so HCA is reverse engineered to be the explanation to justify that starting point.

yes, how can people be praising hakeem and jordan. not sure how it's "reverse engineered" to point out the one person who never lost with homecourt. it just is what it is.

It can't account for the context of what happens in a season, which is why it's better to just look at each year and judge things from there with nuanced arguments.

lol, you could apply this to literally any career measure. then how would we ever talk about anything? we need to go year by year, in nuanced detail, through hundreds of players, to derive anything useful about every single statistic? i mean, if that's what we need to do, then get to it. otherwise, accept it as a data point in a sea of other data points. "this is wrong, we should definitely do x" followed by "well, i'm not gonna do x" doesn't really help.

Of course if we did that the playoff record for Hakeem would look weak, because he's losing to the sub-500 Sonics or the 80s Mavs etc.

so your suggestion for adding nuance is to leave out all nuance and just look the raw playoff record? of course, we also have this:

Records against good teams, which we'll call +6 SRS teams. Duncan had a way better team situation and beating good teams is an absolute performance thing (i.e. not relative like winning as an underdog), so he should be beating +6 teams way better than Hakeem.

Hakeem played 11 teams that were +6. He went 5-6.

Duncan played 10 teams that were +6. He went 4-6!

If the cut-off were 5.9, it would be:

Hakeem played 12 teams that were +5.9. He went 6-6.

Duncan played 11 teams that were +5.9. He went 4-7!

with so much more talent on duncan's teams, he had a worse record against good teams.

One_and_Done · Post #38 » by **One_and_Done** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 9:21 pm

I wasn't literally talking about Lebron, I was saying hypothetically if this happened RE: Lebron am I supposed to care? Clearly not.

SRS can be used as a good indicator of how strong a team was, provided you apply context. Adding it up over X many years and dividing it, etc, is the opposite of context. There is no mathematical way to factor in stuff like "oh, that guy was injured that year", or "these guys were coasting". Most importantly, it's actually punishing guys who could floor raise a bad team to a good record in the RS because the flaws in the team couldn't be masked as much come playoff time.

There is no logical reason to use this method of rating players, and I think my reaction is much the same as it would be if a Jordan fan came here and started talking about how how many times you lost with HCA was the test of greatness. It feels like a test retrofit to prop one player. Maybe we should be asking why Jordan/whoever didn't have HCA in the first place.

OhayoKD · Post #39 » by **OhayoKD** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 9:37 pm

tsherkin wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:You don't have to be the focal point overall to be the focal point in terms of playoff elevation. Given that 2001 was the year they jumped up a bunch in playoff performance(even relatiev to surrounding championship runs), i think you can argue kobe was the bigger riser pretty easily

And I still disagree, if only because I think that Shaq's presence enabled that. Meantime, the super efficient 30 ppg guy averaging nearly 6 ORB per game during the playoffs was a huge factor that postseason as well. You can argue that Kobe's play in game 1 of the Portland series was a big sell for them, because Shaq shot like crap, and the last two games of the Kings series after Shaq obliterated them over the first two. You can argue Kobe in the San Antonio series, but he also played like dogcrap in the Finals, as per his custom, so...

I can see how you can make the argument, but Shaq was still both ultra dominant and the focal point of that team and I find it challenging to look at Kobe and say he was more important. Particularly in 01, to be honest, since that was the year he rode the pine with his injury watching the team click without him and then fit back in come the playoffs as the team sorted out its RS defensive woes come the playoffs. Kobe was very much not the defensive anchor for that squad. Their defense made a mockery of everyone in the playoffs that year, which was their major improvement.

Was shaq's presence not "enabling it" when the lakers only posted a +7.8 PSRS in 2000? Was it not also enabling it in 2001? Shaq' was not able to defensively anchor a good defense the prior playoffs,a nd it was Kobe's minutes and production who went up when the lakers saw a 9 ppint psrs jump.

This seems like a classic case of just double counting. Gravity cannot just be scaled indefinitely to explain away when teammates see their production skyrocket having already been benefitting from that aforementioned gravity

OhayoKD · Post #40 » by **OhayoKD** » Tue Sep 26, 2023 9:54 pm

f4p wrote:
One_and_Done wrote:
f4p wrote:With the top 100 project going, I figured now was the time to make this post. Maybe it's already been done elsewhere, but I haven't seen it. I basically took the 2020 Top 100 players and looked at their expected titles (by regular season SRS) and compared to their actual titles won. If a team lost before the finals, I simply used the subsequent opponents they would have played based on how the other parts of the playoff bracket worked out. So this year Lebron's expected titles were based on:

Lakers vs Memphis (0.43 vs 3.6) = 0.242 Win Probability
Lakers vs Golden State (0.43 vs 1.66) = 0.374 Win Probability
Lakers vs Denver (0.43 vs 3.04) = 0.279 Win Probability
Lakers vs Miami (0.43 vs -0.13) = 0.509 Win Probability
-----------------------------------------------
Total = 0.013 Expected Titles

The first list is simply in the order of the 2020 Top 100 (plus Butler, Tatum, and Luka) in terms of expected vs actual titles.

Code: Select all
Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 2 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 3 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 4 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 5 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 6 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 7 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 8 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 9 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 10 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 11 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 12 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 13 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 14 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 15 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 16 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 17 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 18 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 19 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 20 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 21 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 22 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 23 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 24 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 25 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 26 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 27 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 28 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 29 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 30 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 31 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 32 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 33 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 34 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 35 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 36 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 37 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 38 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 39 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 40 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 41 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 42 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 43 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 44 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 45 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 46 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 47 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 48 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 49 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 50 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 51 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 52 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 53 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 54 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 55 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 56 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 57 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 58 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 59 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 60 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 61 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 62 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 63 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 64 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 65 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 66 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 67 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 68 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 69 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 70 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 71 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 72 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 73 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 74 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 75 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 76 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 77 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 78 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 79 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 80 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 81 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 82 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 83 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 84 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 85 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 86 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 87 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 88 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 89 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 90 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 91 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 92 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 93 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 94 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 95 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 96 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 97 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 98 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 99 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100% 100 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 101 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 102 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 103 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100%

As can be seen, most of the highest ranked players exceed expectations. Is this just because we rank players higher when they win (ringz)? Is it an indication that SRS simply can't account for greatness and, in a sport like basketball where one player has so much impact, the best players are expected to turn the probable into the inevitable in the playoffs?

The next list is in order of expected championships. Hakeem finishing 98th not only shows that he won without a ton of surrounding talent, but with almost historic levels of poor surrounding talent. And he won twice!

Code: Select all
Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 2 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 3 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 4 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 5 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 6 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 7 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 8 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 9 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 10 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 11 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 12 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 13 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 14 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 15 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 16 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 17 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 18 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 19 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 20 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 21 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 22 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 23 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 24 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 25 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 26 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 27 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 28 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 29 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 30 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 31 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 32 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 33 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 34 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 35 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 36 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 37 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 38 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 39 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 40 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 41 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 42 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 43 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 44 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 45 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 46 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 47 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 48 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 49 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 50 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 51 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 52 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 53 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 56 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 57 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 58 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 59 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 60 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 61 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 62 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 63 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 64 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 65 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 66 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 67 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 68 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 69 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 70 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 71 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 72 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 73 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 74 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 75 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 76 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 77 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 78 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 79 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 80 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 81 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 82 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 83 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 84 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 85 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 86 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 87 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 88 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 89 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 90 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 91 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 92 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 93 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 94 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 95 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 96 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 97 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 98 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 99 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 100 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 101 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 102 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 103 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100%

The next list is ranked by the absolute delta between expected and actual champions. As expected, Russell is near the top. Kobe comes out looking pretty good, basically 2nd behind the russell celtics. Kareem comes in 19th place and Duncan in 24th place even with 6 titles and 5 titles, respectively.

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 2 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 3 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 4 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 5 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 6 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 7 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 8 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 9 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 10 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 11 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 12 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 13 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 14 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 15 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 16 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 17 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 18 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 19 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 20 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 21 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 22 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 23 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 24 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 25 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 26 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 27 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 28 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 29 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 30 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 31 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 32 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 33 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 34 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 35 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 36 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 37 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 38 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 39 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 40 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 41 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 42 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 43 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 44 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 45 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 46 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 47 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 48 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 49 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 50 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 51 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 52 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 53 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 56 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100% 57 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 58 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 59 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 60 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 61 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 62 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 63 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 64 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 65 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 66 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 67 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 68 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 69 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 70 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 71 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 72 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 73 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 74 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 75 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 76 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 77 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 78 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 79 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 80 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 81 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 82 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 83 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 84 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 85 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 86 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 87 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 88 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 89 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 90 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 91 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 92 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 93 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 94 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 95 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 96 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 97 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 98 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 99 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 100 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 101 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 102 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 103 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5%

The next list is ranked by the percentage delta between expected and actual champions. Hakeem just laps the field with an almost 20x ratio. Russell gets knocked down quite a bit but hard to be at the top when 7 is expected (+86% would have been his max). Kobe once again comes out in 2nd place. With a decent amount of separation on Shaq on both lists, so it's not just Shaq's regular/season playoff switch-flipping doing it all.

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Rk Player Name Exp Titles Actual Delta Delta % 1 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.1    2    1.9 1868% 2 Kobe Bryant 1.41 5    3.59 254.2% 3 Jack Sikma    0.3    1    0.7 228% 4 Isiah Thomas    0.66 2    1.34 202.6% 5 Nikola Jokic    0.37 1    0.63 172.6% 6 Bob McAdoo    0.77 2    1.23 160.9% 7 Dwyane Wade 1.18 3    1.82 154.1% 8 Jason Kidd    0.39 1    0.61 153.5% 9 Pau Gasol 0.81 2    1.19 147.4% 10 Shaquille O'neal    1.69 4    2.31 136.6% 11 Horace Grant    1.77 4    2.23 125.8% 12 Chris Bosh    0.9    2    1.1 121.8% 13 George Mikan    2.31 5    2.69 116.2% 14 John Havlicek 3.73 8    4.27 114.3% 15 Anthony Davis 0.47 1    0.53 111.6% 16 Michael Jordan    2.88 6    3.12 108.5% 17 Alonzo Mourning 0.49 1    0.51 102.9% 18 Magic Johnson 2.49 5    2.51 100.4% 19 Scottie Pippen    3.03 6    2.97 97.7% 20 Dennis Rodman 2.53 5    2.47 97.5% 21 Willis Reed 1.06 2    0.94 88.7% 22 Lebron James    2.13 4    1.87 87.5% 23 Walt Frazier    1.07 2    0.93 87.5% 24 James Worthy    1.8    3    1.2 66.9% 25 Ray Allen 1.24 2    0.76 60.7% 26 Sam Jones 6.28 10 3.72 59.3% 27 Bill Russell    7.03 11 3.97 56.5% 28 Moses Malone    0.65 1    0.35 54.7% 29 Stephen Curry 2.65 4    1.35 51% 30 Draymond Green    2.65 4    1.35 51% 31 Clyde Drexler 0.67 1    0.33 49.3% 32 Paul Pierce 0.68 1    0.32 46.9% 33 Dave Cowens 1.43 2    0.57 39.8% 34 Robert Parish 2.91 4    1.09 37.7% 35 Bill Walton 1.47 2    0.53 36.4% 36 Manu Ginobili 3.06 4    0.94 30.8% 37 Kevin Garnett 0.76 1    0.24 30.8% 38 Kevin McHale    2.3    3    0.7 30.2% 39 Shawn Marion    0.77 1    0.23 29.9% 40 Chauncey Billups    0.78 1    0.22 28.3% 41 Tony Parker 3.16 4    0.84 26.5% 42 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4.79 6    1.21 25.3% 43 Tim Duncan    4.04 5    0.96 23.9% 44 David Robinson    1.66 2    0.34 20.5% 45 Elvin Hayes 0.85 1    0.15 18.2% 46 Kawhi Leonard 1.72 2    0.28 16% 47 Cliff Hagan 0.87 1    0.13 15.2% 48 Rasheed Wallace 0.88 1    0.12 14.1% 49 Bob Pettit    0.89 1    0.11 13% 50 Bob Cousy 5.36 6    0.64 11.9% 51 Dirk Nowitzki 0.9    1    0.1 10.7% 52 Rick Barry    0.92 1    0.08 8.7% 53 Larry Bird    2.81 3    0.19 6.8% 54 Wes Unseld    0.95 1    0.05 4.8% 55 Kevin Durant    2    2    0 -0.1% 56 Gus Williams    1.03 1    -0.03 -2.9% 57 Ben Wallace 1.05 1    -0.05 -4.4% 58 Paul Arizin 1.11 1    -0.11 -9.9% 59 Dwight Howard 1.13 1    -0.13 -11.4% 60 Gary Payton 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.2% 61 Giannis Antetokounmpo 1.21 1    -0.21 -17.4% 62 Bobby Jones 1.35 1    -0.35 -26.1% 63 Wilt Chamberlain    3.04 2    -1.04 -34.3% 64 Billy Cunningham    1.6    1    -0.6 -37.6% 65 Julius Erving 1.86 1    -0.86 -46.1% 66 Dolph Schayes 1.87 1    -0.87 -46.5% 67 Hal Greer 1.96 1    -0.96 -49% 68 Jerry West    2.33 1    -1.33 -57.1% 69 Oscar Robertson 2.53 1    -1.53 -60.5% 70 Terry Porter    1.35 0    -1.35 -100% 71 Elgin Baylor    1.34 0    -1.34 -100% 72 Chris Paul    1.29 0    -1.29 -100% 73 Steve Nash    1.15 0    -1.15 -100% 74 Jeff Hornacek 1.12 0    -1.12 -100% 75 James Harden    1.06 0    -1.06 -100% 76 Sidney Moncrief 1.03 0    -1.03 -100% 77 Karl Malone 0.93 0    -0.93 -100% 78 Jayson Tatum    0.91 0    -0.91 -100% 79 John Stockton 0.9    0    -0.9 -100% 80 Russell Westbrook 0.8    0    -0.8 -100% 81 Kevin Johnson 0.7    0    -0.7 -100% 82 Reggie Miller 0.62 0    -0.62 -100% 83 Patrick Ewing 0.58 0    -0.58 -100% 84 George Gervin 0.57 0    -0.57 -100% 85 Bob Lanier    0.54 0    -0.54 -100% 86 Nate Thurmond 0.52 0    -0.52 -100% 87 Dikembe Mutombo 0.47 0    -0.47 -100% 88 Larry Nance 0.46 0    -0.46 -100% 89 Vince Carter    0.41 0    -0.41 -100% 90 Charles Barkley 0.39 0    -0.39 -100% 91 Dan Issel 0.38 0    -0.38 -100% 92 Tracy McGrady 0.37 0    -0.37 -100% 93 Dominique Wilkins 0.27 0    -0.27 -100% 94 Artis Gilmore 0.25 0    -0.25 -100% 95 Adrian Dantley    0.22 0    -0.22 -100% 96 Grant Hill    0.19 0    -0.19 -100% 97 Allen Iverson 0.18 0    -0.18 -100% 98 Carmelo Anthony 0.12 0    -0.12 -100% 99 Jimmy Butler    0.09 0    -0.09 -100% 100 Damian Lillard    0.08 0    -0.08 -100% 101 Alex English    0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 102 Luka Doncic 0.06 0    -0.06 -100% 103 Walt Bellamy    0.02 0    -0.02 -100%

Elgin Baylor, Chris Paul and Steve Nash lead the way for ringless players in the Top 50 in terms of most expected championships. Though to be fair to CP3, he and Harden both get a nearly 0.5 hit just from the hamstring injury in 2018.

I'm running out of ways to explain the same point. We went through why SRS cannot be used in this way to determine individual players impact so many times in the top 100 project it's not even funny.

this thread is from a while ago. and you saying something doesn't mean "we went through why".

I don't understand why it's still being cited. If Lebron carries a garbage team to 60 wins, and they lose in the playoffs to a team whose better roster can expose the flaws that Lebron was able to mask in the RS, how is that a negative for him? Am I supposed to care that the veteran team who bear him coasted in the regular season and so had a slightly lower SRS? Do teams get a more favourable seeding if their SRS is higher.

lebron lost 3 series as an SRS favorite. one to orlando in 2009, who definitely wasn't coasting and one to the mavs in 2011, who definitely weren't coasting. so maybe one example to 2010 boston. over 20 years. oh no. and of course, lebron was basically the king of coasting and winning as an underdog in his second cleveland stint.

Except second cleveland lebron was by any emperical basis also one of the most valuable regular season players ever...

In fact the only player definitively topping him by the cold data post-merger is...2009/2010 Lebron

and happens to favour Hakeem for arbitrary reasons,

ahh, now i see why there is a complaint, lol. hakeem look great, duncan no look great. you'll notice people other than hakeem also look great. what can i tell you? is there a non-arbitrary way to not make it look like hakeem is a playoff riser? his teams winning way more than suggested by the regular season isn't really "arbitrary".

Well no, the complaint would be that when we just try to look at performnace-cast, Duncan just looks like a more proven of Hakeem as far as the cold data goes. So when you come up with metrics that treats Hakeem as better based on assumptions about the upper-limit of value, we've probably reached another breaking point

Duncan's career and prime sees bigger team performance splits than anyone from the 80's/90's(magic comes closest) and then he extends that further, he is the arguable 2nd of databall with lineup adjustment despite uniquely lopsided minute distributions with all his best teammates(meaning he is playing with their **** backups), and he has a case as the best winnier post-russell.

Hakeem is a similar player whose data is conflicting and consequently much of his case in the top 100 was that he was similar to duncan

Duncan of course has no need for Hakeem. He is just flatly one of the most valuable players ever and one of the winningest players ever based on what we have. When you make assumptions about how much a player can actually contribute to srs to dimiss that, we have a problem.