PEAK ONLY: Embiid vs Durant

[70sFan]

Does anyone genuinely believe that Embiid alone is worth +15 SRS and 40 wins? If so, then we should all accept that we witnessed GOAT level peak this year until the injury.

[OhayoKD]

Does anyone genuinely believe that Embiid alone is worth +15 SRS and 40 wins?

Whether it is or not, it's a data point durant has no real equivalent for. Priors are priors. Evidence is evidence. You could do embid no maxey VS westbrook no durant(2015/2016) and it would still favor embid. pair it with multiple league-leading rapm stretches and an even better version of what we saw from durant in 2014 without westbrook(without harden), Embid's building a hefty RS case here. Now if we could just get a healthy playoff run...

[AEnigma]

Does anyone genuinely believe that Embiid alone is worth +15 SRS and 40 wins? If so, then we should all accept that we witnessed GOAT level peak this year until the injury.

I think they are 8-12 with Maxey but no Embiid, which seems like a much more realistic floor marker here.

I also do not at all believe they would have finished the year as a +10 team even if Embiid had been mostly healthy.

In the context of this thread, it is definitely fair support for healthy Embiid over Durant… but if Embiid can never stay healthy, do we really care?

[PooledSilver]

If Embiid gets healthy in the playoffs and matchups go well for him he’ll probably be in that Giannis and Jokic tier peaks wise

whether GSW KD is in that range or not is interesting honestly, I get both sides of that argument

Being worth X wins honestly doesn’t matter much, 10 bron was probably worth 40 ish based on their performance the next year but it’s not like that was his peak, roster construction and how the offense is built around someone matters. Impact is really tied to usage role and fit like ability is, but not many can lead to that level of impact even in an ideal situation though

[OhayoKD]

If Embiid gets healthy in the playoffs and matchups go well for him he’ll probably be in that Giannis and Jokic tier peaks wise

whether GSW KD is in that range or not is interesting honestly, I get both sides of that argument

Being worth X wins honestly doesn’t matter much, 10 bron was probably worth 40 ish based on their performance the next year but it’s not like that was his peak, roster construction and how the offense is built around someone matters. Impact is really tied to usage role and fit like ability is, but not many can lead to that level of impact even in an ideal situation though

Thing about Lebron is he was doing it again the second he resumed playing small forward.

Situation is situation, but cherrypicking when it counts and when it doesn't arbitrary as you-know-who does is a pretty good signal someone is just looking for a specific conclusion.

I do think Embid having so much success with an elite coach is notable.

whether GSW KD is in that range or not is interesting honestly, I get both sides of that argument

Feel like you'd have to combine the 2014 regular season and the 2017 playoffs and ignore everything else for the other side of this

[PooledSilver]

If Embiid gets healthy in the playoffs and matchups go well for him he’ll probably be in that Giannis and Jokic tier peaks wise

whether GSW KD is in that range or not is interesting honestly, I get both sides of that argument

Being worth X wins honestly doesn’t matter much, 10 bron was probably worth 40 ish based on their performance the next year but it’s not like that was his peak, roster construction and how the offense is built around someone matters. Impact is really tied to usage role and fit like ability is, but not many can lead to that level of impact even in an ideal situation though

Thing about Lebron is he was doing it again the second he resumed playing small forward.

Situation is situation, but cherrypicking when it counts and when it doesn't arbitrary as you-know-who does is a pretty good signal someone is just looking for a specific conclusion.

I do think Embid having so much success with an elite coach is notable.

whether GSW KD is in that range or not is interesting honestly, I get both sides of that argument

Feel like you'd have to combine the 2014 regular season and the 2017 playoffs and ignore everything else for the other side of this

Bron was legitimately worth 40 wins on some teams, if you extend to certain playoff performances he deadass brought a 0 win team to the finals till jr smith broke his hand because his pregame bong hit had indica instead of setiva lol

For KD its tough because he tore his Achilles so it’s not fair to use those years as any real reference point when it’s kind of insane he’s still good at basketball, so it would be based off growth in golden state if anything, but he wasn’t the engine of that offense so he clearly wasn’t as impactful as curry even if you think he was the best in the playoffs for some of those runs

[lessthanjake]

I think Embiid is the better regular season player for sure. But, as always with Embiid, the difficulty in assessing him is about the playoffs. Peak Durant was a bit up and down in the playoffs overall, but was definitely better than Embiid has been. And I guess the question is whether we think it’s just randomness and bad injury luck that has caused that for Embiid, or whether he’s systematically significantly less good in the playoffs. I can see an argument either way, and I guess we’ll have a better idea years from now when we have Embiid’s whole career to look at. The concern about Embiid just being systematically less good in the playoffs revolves a lot around being very FT reliant and not having top-tier conditioning. Players that rely a lot on FTs have a tougher time in the playoffs, where fouls aren’t called as easily. And the game is more intense and tiring in the playoffs because everyone’s trying harder, so having conditioning issues comes out a lot more. That said, he has had bad luck with injuries, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he put up some monster playoff run at some point that dragged his team to a title (similar to what Giannis did a few years ago).

[70sFan]

Does anyone genuinely believe that Embiid alone is worth +15 SRS and 40 wins?

Whether it is or not, it's a data point durant has no real equivalent for. Priors are priors. Evidence is evidence. You could do embid no maxey VS westbrook no durant(2015/2016) and it would still favor embid. pair it with multiple league-leading rapm stretches and an even better version of what we saw from durant in 2014 without westbrook(without harden), Embid's building a hefty RS case here. Now if we could just get a healthy playoff run...

I'm not sure it would (pbp-stats.net):

2013/14 OKC:

with KD, with WB: +7.1 (1371 min)
with KD, no WB: +8.7 (1751 min)

2023/24 Philly:

with JE, with TM: +11.0 (889 min)
with JE, no TM: +4.7 (268 min)

Very small samples for Philly duo, but KD did quite well without Westbrook in the 2014 RS. It's true that Philly without Embiid collapsed more than OKC without Durant, Philly was a weaker team with weaker secondary star after all.

I think Embiid's per-possession impact is higher than Durant's in the RS, but availability matters and playoffs matter even more so.

[70sFan]

I think they are 8-12 with Maxey but no Embiid, which seems like a much more realistic floor marker here.

Yeah, they are:

with Embiid: 26-8, +10.3 Net Rtg
no Embiid, with Maxey: 9-15, -5.9 Net Rtg
no Embiid, no Maxey: 1-7, -7.4 Net Rtg

No Maxey games deflate their no Embiid record significantly.

I also do not at all believe they would have finished the year as a +10 team even if Embiid had been mostly healthy.

Me neither and I don't think people realize that Embiid only played 34 games this season. It's a fairly small sample, a sample in which they played Wizards 3 times, Pistons 3 times, Hornets 2 times, Spurs once and Blazers once. That's 10 out of 34 games against the worst teams in the league. If we look at these 10 games vs the rest 24 games, the difference is staggering:

Vs the 5 worst teams in the league: 10-0, +22.1 Net Rtg
Vs the rest of the league: 16-8, +5.4 Net Rtg

I think Philly are closer to this +5/+6 value than the staggering +10.

In the context of this thread, it is definitely fair support for healthy Embiid over Durant… but if Embiid can never stay healthy, do we really care?

I struggle to rank such players over the ones who proved to be available for many postseasons. Durant isn't the most durable superstar, but he at least gave his teams a lot of long and healthy postseason runs.

[Peregrine01]

Ah yes, the mythical "healthy Embiid". I don't think he's ever finished a season healthy and this with him being load managed his entire career. I think we need to retire the notion of "healthy player x" and accept the reality that health is as much an attribute of a player that height, quickness and jumping ability is.

[PooledSilver]

Ah yes, the mythical "healthy Embiid". I don't think he's ever finished a season healthy and this with him being load managed his entire career. I think we need to retire the notion of "healthy player x" and accept the reality that health is as much an attribute of a player that height, quickness and jumping ability is.

He’s missing half a meniscus my guy of course his health is screwed

[Top10alltime]

purely era-relative there is a case for kd's 2014 as a match for any embid regular-season in large part due to the relative weakness of the league. That said, Embid is the better basketball talent and any sort of successful playoff translation of his rs play should give him a year better than 14 on either front.

Hopefully his body holds up and we see the full thing.

What? 2014 KD isn't his peak. 14 KD was a worse driver and finisher, way worse decision maker (and PM in general), worse rim-protector and less versatile defender than 17 KD.

That being said, their both interchangeable as peaks. Embiid and KD are both similar levels as scorers, although KD has PM advantage, and Embiid has defensive advantage, you can go either way...

Embiid peaked in 2022-23 season, he played too little games in 23-24 for that to be his peak...