Special_Puppy wrote:Steph's career plus-minus is better than Shaq's.
I'll take your word for it, though we have better metrics than raw plus-minus, if that's what you reference.
J.E. recently released career ['97-'24] RAPM's, and Curry is ahead, though only barely (+7.8 to +7.2).
Bear in mind that for Shaq that sample both:
a) misses some prime years; years where, for example, he finished top-10 in regular-season AuPM in all three of '94-'96 [as high as 3rd], while also having very impressive playoff runs in both '95 and '96. And....
b) it INCLUDES all of his post-prime and twilight (at least five years worth: '07-'11 [even '06 is only on the fringes of what might be called prime]).
Will Curry's remain ahead if he continues to play until, say......2028? Or will those post-prime years drag it down?
I speak semi-rhetorically; obviously we'll have to wait and see. However, I think it's fairly for-certain assumption that yes: subsequent years will drag his figure downward.
I also don't know if the figures he used to arrive at the career number were year-to-year scaled (his prior yearly sheets were not). However, I note that Steph perhaps hasn't rated
quite as impressively in yearly RAPM rank.
Below is Steph from '13 through '19 rank:
37th, 6th, 2nd, 4th, 1st, 2nd, 4th
On the heels of Shaq's finishes of 10th, 3rd, and 7th in rs AuPM ['94-'96], here are his league rank in RAPM from '97 through '06 [full decade]:
17th,
1st, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 12th
That's eight consecutive years where he's never worse than 3rd (3x #1).
It's the years AFTER '06 that are dragging his career RAPM down [below Curry's]: Shaq was tied for 50th in the league in '07, 33rd in '08, and then plummets from there (tied for 86th in '09, a substantial negative in '10, and a negligible positive in '11).
The game has changed a fair bit, but Shaq was a monster in his league environment. I remember genuinely questioning if '00 Shaq was the most dominant relative to league ever.
Broad strokes of that year, just note that he made a clean sweep of each box-amalgamated metrics: 1st in the league in PER, WS/48, and BPM, and did so while playing >40 mpg (4th in league). Then in the playoffs [en route to title] he was 1st in PER and WS/48, 3rd in BPM (while playing 43.5 mpg [1st and 2nd place in playoff BPM were 5 and 4-game samples, respectively, at around 39 mpg).
And he was #1 in league in RAPM, as well.
I don't feel like Steph had a year where he crushed everything (rs AND playoffs) to such a definitive degree as this. I think he matches it or even marginally
exceeds it
during the rs in '16, but then falls off a fair bit in the playoffs.
'17 might be a better all-around year, honestly, but it doesn't quite match the '00 Shaq template of total dominance, imo.
And yeah: Shaq's prime and career are longer.
So idk; it's still Shaq pretty clearly ahead for me.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire