penbeast0 wrote:Owly wrote:I'll note
Rice's three highest volume 3pt shooting seasons in terms of 3s attempted per game come in the 3 shortened line seasons.
Three of Rice's four highest accuracy 3pt shooting seasons come in the 3 shortened line seasons.
It's age 27-29 it's not wild that he's peaking then ...
he's .435085008 on the short line; .382782475 on the full line.
Peja's '04 box peak is, at least across the board in the Reference aggregates, the better (and this ties in to the above, Rice's peak is with the shortened line).
Due to above, before any serious dive, I'd be inclined towards PS.
This is a good point and one I forgot about but as a counterpoint, Rice played almost a decade earlier than Peja. 3 point shooting was a rarer and less used and practiced skill so he stands out from his contemporaries more (assuming both are going considered SFs; if you are playing them at SG or PF it may change that equation too). And presumably, Rice would benefit a bit more from modern coaching, playstyle, conditioning, etc. as those were more primitive in his day. So, I would say it's still pretty close.
That's venturing a bit into the teeth of how does one do time travel ... is Peja better because he is more modern and has less adaptation to do. Is Rice better because he get more benefit.
I hate dismissing older guys as sucking because of circumstances re coaching, training, rules etc
I don't love ... well we'll give this player an entirely different childhood (or X many months in the gym) and pretend we know with confidence what comes of that.
When it comes down to it too, what do we know of Peja's coaching versus Rice's. What do we know of modern guys ... over their lives. Maybe some can try to adjust for that for specific players (rather than giving broad strokes context about era norms) with any confidence ... not me.
For these guys, they're chronologically close enough for me not to get hung up on it anyway. In any case, as you say (at least based on my superficial glances) it is close.