Retro Player of the Year 1997-98 UPDATE — Michael Jordan

[OhayoKD]

Duncan averaged 6 more minutes in the regular season and 3 more minutes in the playoffs in 1998. He averaged 8 more minutes in the regular season and 8 more minutes in the playoffs in 1999. Please be serious.

If you want to argue that Duncan was more valuable than Robinson because of the minute advantage, sure. But if you are arguing any player who plays more must be better, please be serious yourself.

The argument is that "staggering" hurts Duncan more, though also yeah, why would a coach play a less valuable player 8 or 9 more minutes? Are they trying to lose?

Oh that's the only counter? Say. How did San-Antonio do without Duncan in the 1996 playoffs getting to use a much better David Robinson. Surely they didn't go from 15-2 to getting cooked by postseason fodder in 2000 with Drob steering the ship?

Since you completely dodged the data I posted for this year, yes, I'm guessing you have no counter to it.

The Spurs went 6-3 minus Drob over actual games and performed 7-points better than their duncan-less iteration against the Suns. As was brought up by aenigma at the top of this page. Care to explain how that happened with -3.1 Tim Duncan as their minutes lead in 98? Also interesting you don't mention that in the regular-season, Duncan's on/off doubled Drob's. All these things you thought were mentioning in 1997 conveniently stopped becoming mention-worthy when it was time to start a Drob>Duncan movement. You're throwing rubbish and hoping something sticks.

1996 - I voted Robinson even lower than you that season already.

And that Robinson was much better than this one. What is your point?

1999 - You mean the title run where Robinson set a record +20 on-court net while Duncan lagged far behind?

Yes. Because in-spite of that on-court rating they saw +9 psrs improvement from 96 which had a much better, could actually play the most minutes on his team, iteration of Drob. +8 psrs improvement from 2000 ignoring the Suns being a playoff tomato can. Speaking of which

2000 - Calling a 1.2 ppg loss to a 5 SRS team cooked by fodder is wild exaggeration.

Did you miss the "playoff" in playoff fodder?

Here are the incredible accomplishments of the Jason Kidd suns.

2000:
-> only team to fail to take 2 games from the 2000 Lakers who they lost to by 9 and [/b]10[/] more points than the +6 trailblazers and the +4 pacers. They lost by +0.4 less than the +3 Kings losing by about 5 more points than everyone else who played the Lakers on average. Just going off the Laker's regular season rating they were at +0.8 psrs.
1999
-> swept by the 6 point blazers by 10-points, putting them at -4 psrs. Blazers lose in the conference finals
2001
-> 1-3, 7 point losss vs the +6 putting them at -1 PSRS. Swept by the Lakers the next round.
2002

What does one call a team that never wins a playoff series (or gets within a win of winning one), never crosses +1 PSRS, and averages a negative PSRS. Fodder. David Robinson lost to fodder. Maybe that -3.6 on/off playoff anchor was actually important or something.

Duncan goes 6-3 without Robinson this year, 1-0 next year, and 2-0 in 2000. Robinson goes 5-3 without Tim Duncan (and then 1-3 in the playoffs). "Robinson was the real mvp" is not what I'm seeing here.

Very convenient for you to pick between SRS and W/L for WOWY depending on which suits you best. Say, what's the SRS change for 98 Robinson? And 00 Duncan too since you brought him up?

98 Spurs without Robinson:
+4.5
99 Spurs without Robinson:
+8.0
00 Spurs without Robinson:
+9

00 Spurs without Duncan:
+ 6.5

Will be nice and just use the regular-season rating vs the Suns since playoff opponents are generally > regular seaosn ones:
+ 4

Still not favorable for Drob.

But hey, since many people apparently love the "player who averaged 6-12 more minutes than everyone else on his team on his prime and kept seeing co-stars look way better in on/off than any other approach is not actually the driver of his team" take, I'm going to go track this bill-russell-type defense Robinson must be exerting. If Robinson isn't torching Duncan in Rim-load I'm done with y'all.

"I'm done with yall" is such a weird attitude to have but you do you I guess. You can block me already if you want.

I'm sorry, wasn't this you?
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2390527&start=80
In your shoes, I'd stick to the hoops.

[penbeast0]

The argument is that "staggering" hurts Duncan more, though also yeah, why would a coach play a less valuable player 8 or 9 more minutes? Are they trying to lose?...

If you think of it as "Why would a coach play a healthy outstanding young player more minutes than the franchise player who is coming back from a possibly career ending knee injury?" it makes more sense.

[OhayoKD]

The argument is that "staggering" hurts Duncan more, though also yeah, why would a coach play a less valuable player 8 or 9 more minutes? Are they trying to lose?...

If you think of it as "Why would a coach play a healthy outstanding young player more minutes than the franchise player who is coming back from a possibly career ending knee injury?" it makes more sense.

That makes sense for 98 and the minutes gap shrunk in the playoffs. Not 99 though

[Djoker]

VOTING POST

POY

1. Michael Jordan - 1st Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. MVP. Finals MVP. Slowly declining but still a force to be reckoned with. Kept the Bulls well above water (+6.4 SRS) in 38 games without Pippen and when Pip started struggling in the PS, he picked up the load and led an aging Bulls team to a great season and a title. It sometimes gets lost in the shuffle because of how great the 1996 and 1997 Bulls teams were but the 1998 Bulls were still really good. Sansterre's list has them #19 on his list for instance. Averaged 28.7/5.8/3.5 on 53.3 %TS (+0.9 rTS) in the RS then 32.4/5.1/3.5 on 54.5 %TS (+2.4 rTS) in the PS.

2. Karl Malone - 1st Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. Could have easily been RS MVP and played well in the PS leading a strong PS run by the Jazz. Utah had a historic offense led by Malone as Stockton became more of a role player and missed games with injury as well. Averaged 27.0/10.3/3.9 on 59.7 %TS (+7.3 rTS) in the RS then 26.3/10.9/3.4 on 53.4 %TS (+2.6 rTS)S in the PS.

3. Shaquille O'Neal - 1st Team All-NBA. Very dominant season only hurt by missing a lot of games. When on the court, Shaq was arguably the best player in the world even over MJ. Great in impact stats as well as box score. The only thing that can legitimately be held against him other than the missed games is the defensive ineptitude he showed against Utah. His very talented Lakers got wiped off the floor by Utah's P&R, one of the worst beatdowns of a 60+ win team ever, and that isn't a good look. Averaged 28.3/11.4/2.4 on 58.7 %TS (+6.3 rTS) in the RS then 30.5/10.2/2.9 on 60.4 %TS (+8.7 rTS) in the PS.

4. Gary Payton - 1st Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. Seattle had a sixth straight dominant season in a row despite trading Kemp and Payton was the big reason why. He is entering his prime where he combined really good offense with elite defense. Him finishing 2nd in DPOY as a guard may be a bit of stretch but it shows how highly people taught of his defense. The Sonics lost to the Lakers (had no answer for Shaq) but Payton played well in that series and all season long. Averaged 19.2/4.6/8.3 on 54.4 %TS (+2.0 rTS) in the RS then 24.0/3.4/7.0 on 58.5 %TS (+6.6 rTS) in the PS.

5. Tim Duncan - 1st Team All-NBA. 2nd Team All-Defense. This guy ain't your typical rook. 4 years in college made him a polished player coming into the league. He was a force on both ends of the floor and took the mantle of the team from Robinson. At this stage, Robinson was probably the more impactful defender (as he would be in 1999 as well) but Duncan was already a superior offensive hub and played more minutes. Averaged 21.1/11.9/2.7 on 57.7 %TS (+5.3 rTS) in the RS then 20.7/9.0/1.9 on 55.9 %TS (+3.9 rTS) in the PS.

HM:

David Robinson - 2nd Team All-NBA. 2nd Team All-Defense. Reduced minutes following injury.

Reggie MIller - 3rd Team All-NBA. Unimpressive RS as well as PS numbers down despite a nice ECF run.

OPOY

1. Michael Jordan

2. Karl Malone

3. Shaquille O'Neal

DPOY

1. Dikembe Mutombo - DPOY. Incredible rim protector.

2. David Robinson - Anchored the #2 defense. Only limited by minutes played.

3. Patrick Ewing - Anchored the #4 defense. Declined on offense but still a great rim protector.

HM: Tim Duncan

[LA Bird]

The argument is that "staggering" hurts Duncan more, though also yeah, why would a coach play a less valuable player 8 or 9 more minutes? Are they trying to lose?

If the staggering is hurting a player because he couldn't sustain his performance in the additional minutes, why should he be rewarded for playing more? This just sounds like an excuse for the higher minute player.

A more valuable player could play less for various reasons such as health, lineup fit, or simply suboptimal coaching. Whether you think any of that is true for 98 Robinson is up to you but the arguments are there for a lesser mpg player to be more valuable.

The Spurs went 6-3 minus Drob over actual games and performed 7-points better than their duncan-less iteration against the Suns. As was brought up by aenigma at the top of this page.

I like how you name drop AEnigma as if it makes the data more authoritative. You said the 6-3 already and I pointed out how you are switching between W/L and SRS when it's convenient for you. Also, AEnigma didn't say anything about your Suns argument so I'll address that part later.

Care to explain how that happened with -3.1 Tim Duncan as their minutes lead in 98?

I missed the part where anyone said anything about Duncan being a -3.1 player.

Also interesting you don't mention that in the regular-season, Duncan's on/off doubled Drob's. All these things you thought were mentioning in 1997 conveniently stopped becoming mention-worthy when it was time to start a Drob>Duncan movement.

1996 - I voted Robinson even lower than you that season already.

And that Robinson was much better than this one. What is your point?

Since you didn't get the connection, let me spell it out for you

1996 Robinson had great regular season on/off.
His impact didn't translate in the playoffs loss against the Jazz.
I penalized him in my ranking because of playoffs.

1998 Duncan had great regular season on/off.
His impact didn't translate in the playoffs loss against the Jazz.
I penalized him in my ranking because of playoffs.

I am judging them based on their actual performances, not on what different versions of them did in other seasons.

Because in-spite of that on-court rating

In other words, ignoring what actually happened on court because it does not match your pre-conceived notions of the player...

Did you miss the "playoff" in playoff fodder?

No. But somebody definitely missed the fact that the 00 Suns was different from the 99/01 Suns because of a key roster difference. Guess it's very hard to spot a player who led the team in playoffs minutes, points, scoring efficiency, stocks, was second in assists, and had a 6.5 SRS WOWY in the regular season.

Duncan goes 6-3 without Robinson this year, 1-0 next year, and 2-0 in 2000. Robinson goes 5-3 without Tim Duncan (and then 1-3 in the playoffs). "Robinson was the real mvp" is not what I'm seeing here.

Very convenient for you to pick between SRS and W/L for WOWY depending on which suits you best. Say, what's the SRS change for 98 Robinson? And 00 Duncan too since you brought him up?

98 Spurs without Robinson:
+4.5
99 Spurs without Robinson:
+8.0
00 Spurs without Robinson:
+9

00 Spurs without Duncan:
+ 6.5

Will be nice and just use the regular-season rating vs the Suns since playoff opponents are generally > regular seaosn ones:
+ 4

Still not favorable for Drob.

That was actually a rhetorical question but it's fine since you don't have the WOWY spreadsheet apparently.
The answer is a 4.4 dropoff without 98 Robinson and a 0.3 dropoff without 00 Duncan with controls for starters.

I'm sorry, wasn't this you?
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2390527&start=80
In your shoes, I'd stick to the hoops.

Yeah, that's me. And? I said it's weird for you to rage quit on a basketball discussion because you think you are right so you dig up an old thread of me not rage quitting the project on non-basketball disagreements? What's the relevance here? I would redirect your line back to you:

You're throwing rubbish and hoping something sticks.

[OhayoKD]

The argument is that "staggering" hurts Duncan more, though also yeah, why would a coach play a less valuable player 8 or 9 more minutes? Are they trying to lose?

If the staggering is hurting a player because he couldn't sustain his performance in the additional minutes, why should he be rewarded for playing more? This just sounds like an excuse for the higher minute player.

The staggering is hurting the player because you're not looking at "performance" you're looking at micro snippets of "team performance". Duncan spends more time with worse players.

That extremely unusual minute disparity mantained for every prime Duncan year with Drob, and then every prime season with Manu both of whom have had various variants of this "performance" related argument pushed against one of the commonest common denominators to dominate the game. And both of these co-stars look much better using these tiny "performances" than full games of "performance" even when they're the 5th or 6th mpg player.

The Spurs went 6-3 minus Drob over actual games and performed 7-points better than their duncan-less iteration against the Suns. As was brought up by aenigma at the top of this page.

I like how you name drop AEnigma as if it makes the data more authoritative. You said the 6-3 already and I pointed out how you are switching between W/L and SRS when it's convenient for you. Also, AEnigma didn't say anything about your Suns argument so I'll address that part later.

Curious interpretation. You said "there was no counter" Enigma offered your counter, but yes, I was trying to sic the authority of Aenigma on you. Last I checked, I've never advocated for treating posters differently because they're "respected".

Care to explain how that happened with -3.1 Tim Duncan as their minutes lead in 98?

I missed the part where anyone said anything about Duncan being a -3.1 player.

That is what he is according to the "performance" you're looking at.

Also interesting you don't mention that in the regular-season, Duncan's on/off doubled Drob's. All these things you thought were mentioning in 1997 conveniently stopped becoming mention-worthy when it was time to start a Drob>Duncan movement.

1996 - I voted Robinson even lower than you that season already.

And that Robinson was much better than this one. What is your point?

Since you didn't get the connection, let me spell it out for you

1996 Robinson had great regular season on/off.
His impact didn't translate in the playoffs loss against the Jazz.
I penalized him in my ranking because of playoffs.

So if his on/off was great while the Jazz blew him out by 10 points you wouldn't have penalized him?

1998 Duncan had great regular season on/off.
His impact didn't translate in the playoffs loss against the Jazz.
I penalized him in my ranking because of playoffs.

I am judging them based on their actual performances, not on what different versions of them did in other seasons.

No, you're judging him on a proxy for "actual performance" while ignoring that proxy is contradicted by other proxies for "actual performance" which happen to be using the full 48 minutes that championships and playoff series are won from. In 25 years, not you, nor anyone has bothered to show an aspect of performance and the frequency of said aspect you think Drob performed so much and so well it's apparently debatable when Duncan is averaging 8-9 more minutes en route to a 15-2 championship on a team prime Drob couldn't lead anywhere in 1996.

But I look forward to you looking at "actual performances" to judge Manu's playoff performance as equivalent to Duncan's in 2003, and Magic's performance in the 1991 finals as 8 times better than Micheal Jordan's.

If that's your approach, you do you, but I'm going to look at the actual performance for the aspect everyone cites to explain their trust. And if I don't find a big disparity I'm done dealing with "drob was the real MVP" bs again.

Because in-spite of that on-court rating

In other words, ignoring what actually happened on court because it does not match your pre-conceived notions of the player...

I'm sorry, did the Spurs going +11 and 15-2 in 1999 not happen on the court or something?

Did you miss the "playoff" in playoff fodder?

No. But somebody definitely missed the fact that the 00 Suns was different from the 99/01 Suns because of a key roster difference. Guess it's very hard to spot a player who led the team in playoffs minutes, points, scoring efficiency, stocks, was second in assists, and had a 6.5 SRS WOWY in the regular season.

Maybe a little harder to spot than the Suns missing their actual best player and fellow impact darling Jason Kidd for basically the whole series? Jason Kidd and Penny played all the games vs the Lakers by the way, where they performed at a +0.9 SRS and like a flat out negative srs team relative to everyone else who played the Lakers. How exactly is the Jason-Kidd less version of that team not fodder?

Yeah I'll take the guy who turns that into 15-2. You go take the "actual" on-court rating champ.

Very convenient for you to pick between SRS and W/L for WOWY depending on which suits you best. Say, what's the SRS change for 98 Robinson? And 00 Duncan too since you brought him up?

98 Spurs without Robinson:
+4.5
99 Spurs without Robinson:
+8.0
00 Spurs without Robinson:
+9

00 Spurs without Duncan:
+ 6.5

Will be nice and just use the regular-season rating vs the Suns since playoff opponents are generally > regular seaosn ones:
+ 4

Still not favorable for Drob.

That was actually a rhetorical question but it's fine since you don't have the WOWY spreadsheet apparently.
The answer is a 4.4 dropoff without 98 Robinson and a 0.3 dropoff without 00 Duncan with controls for starters.

What spreadsheet are you talking about. What controls. Is this some Ben Taylor thing?

[

I'm sorry, wasn't this you?
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2390527&start=80
In your shoes, I'd stick to the hoops.

Yeah, that's me. And? I said it's weird for you to rage quit on a basketball discussion because you think you are right so you dig up an old thread of me not rage quitting the project on non-basketball disagreements? What's the relevance here? I would redirect your line back to you

There's nothing weird about disengaging with people arguing a take. Throwing baseless accusations at someone because ontop of actually looking at performance they have the talent to make **** fun? Now that's weird.

[OhayoKD]

Anyway since I have tracking to finish for 1999 so let me vote.

Voting Post

1. Tim Duncan

-> Biggest catalyst for a 36-win and 11-point turnaround. Most impressive signal to me since 96 MJ or peak RS Drob.
-> Replication giant, different systems, co-stars, blah blah blah.
-> Bigger prime delta in temrs of team wins or net-rating than Magic, MJ, or Hakeem. Shaq might edge him there but Shaq loses to Duncan in RAPM in a much more favorable context for that metric in general and I think Duncan played the best vs Utah of any of the big 3. Honestly even in terms of pure impact Duncan is limited by drob being his teammate.
-> Averaging 5 more minutes than anyone in the rs, 3 more minutes than anyone in the playoff, and that gap just is going to grow and grow
-> Turns it up for the latter half of the season kind of like Kareem in 70.

Was thinking Shaq first initially but I've been convinced by some voters here it would be inconsistent with my previous reasoning/votes which have been very high on paint-protectors and lots of good stuff has been shown about Shaq's defensive limitations this series.

2. Shaq

A pretty natural one pick as the league's best creator and scorer. Misses a bunch of games but those don't affect championship probability too much based on the only studies i've seen on the matter. Yeah his defense is dubious but he's better at the thing the #1 favorite for this thread is the best at this year, creates more and probably has an edge in cold-impact despite sub-optimal conditions. I could probably convinced to put him 1. Maybe if I get an explanation of this WOWY with starter control thing. His team does do pretty well without him and the previous year signals were kind of terrible looking for him. Though he's going to look like a monster impact over full games (not so much over RAPM) in a couple years.

Seems like you have to go really hard on his defense to place him lower but I don't feel comfortable penalizing Shaq so much for a series of struggling as a defensive anchor, a role Jordan would have no hope of filling. It matters against the Duncans and the Kareems and to an extent the Pippen and the Lebrons. It matters a bit vs Jordan but not so much I'm going to ignore him being the league's best creator and for that year, scorer.

3. Micheal Jordan

Looks top 2 or top 3 in impact. Impressive team result without Pippen and wins a third title albiet with the benefit of refs miscounting shot clocks. I think his defense here was better than some of his pre-retirement years. Pretty reasonable MVP pick to me though Duncan and Malone have decent enough cases. And yeah, I don't have much issue with anyone voting him 1st.

4. Karl Malone

Takes out 1 and 2 and easily could have taken out 3. I could also see him going as high as 1.

5. Kevin Garnett

Forgot he existed. Like his skillset better than Miller and nearly upsets the Super Sonics. Going from 4th to 1st in minutes coincides with a 4-point SRS boost and a 14-win improvement in 97 and improves a bit across the board as the Timberwolves win 45. Nothing demands a top 5 vote here, but I'll give him benefit of the doubt in lieu of a strong opponent.

DPOY

5. b]Reggie Miller[/b]

Led the true 2nd best playoff team with help I'm amateurly assessing as good but not exceptional.

OPOY

1. Shaq
2. Michael Jordan
3. Reggie Miller

DPOY

1. Deke Mutombo
2. Tim Duncan
3. Kevin Garnett

[One_and_Done]

Someone above asked if Reggie Miller really had a good support cast. The answer is yes, far better than most of the guys being discussed here. 3 all-star calibre bigs in Smits and the Davis brothers, Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson, Derrick McKey, young Jalen Rose, etc. Their stats don't jump out at you because they were an ensemble cast playing reduced roles for the sake of winning (and because they played a grindingly slow pace of 87.9), but these were really good players.

You get a better idea of what these guys were doing if you look at a per100 possession basis.

Rik Smits led the team in scoring per100, with 32pp100, 13rp100, 3ap100, while playing good D. Mark Jackson led the league in ap100, while putting up 15, 16 & 7 p100. Mullin put up 23, 6 & 5 p100, with a 607 TS%. The Davis brothers were primarily defensive studs, but put up 20-14 & 16-15 p100. Jalen Rose was 25-6-5 p100. Even McKey, who was primarily a defensive stud at the 3, looks good per 100 at 15-9-4.

[AEnigma]

For right now... I'm going with
1.. Michael Jordan
2. Karl Malone
3. David Robinson
4. Tim Duncan
5. Shaquille O'Neal

Robinson over Duncan for right now as well. Duncan probably was better offensively but Robinson was the better defender. Can see both arguments on who was the best player on the Spurs

Shaq probably would have been top 3 based on regular season and playoffs but he missed a lot of games

Reminder that you need more reasoning than this for the ballot to be counted.

[lessthanjake]

I would also have Jordan as the POY, but I think you are somewhat underrating Jordan's supporting cast that season. It was still one of the 5 best in the league. Like I don't really see why Jordan's supporting cast was appreciably worse than Reggie Miller's this season

Just to clarify, I think Jordan’s supporting cast in the regular season was good when Pippen was healthy. Of course, they won at a 67-win pace when that was the case, so what happened with a good supporting cast was still highly impressive for Jordan. I do not think that the supporting cast without Pippen was good. Rodman was on his last legs that year, and while guys like Harper and Kukoc were quality players, that was not a good supporting cast without Pippen. I think the best we could say about it is that it was a group that could play solidly good defense but was really inept offensively. Obviously Jordan was good enough offensively that things worked out well despite that in those games without Pippen, but I think that’s a real credit to Jordan. The supporting cast in the playoffs was somewhere in the middle. Pippen was there, but Rodman had declined even further, and Pippen broke down at the end. The supporting cast in the playoffs was still pretty good overall, but I don’t think it was a situation we’d really expect to see a championship out of (unless perhaps they had a lot of luck in who they faced, which they didn’t have)—especially given the organizational turmoil that was also occurring.

Great post.

Just want to add that in 44 games with Pippen, the Bulls had a +8.4 SRS which is 63 Pythagorean Wins. The 67-win pace you mentioned is based on wins and losses. Either way, the Bulls with Pippen were 2 SRS points better which isn't nothing but +6.4 SRS without him is still really strong carrying by MJ. I do think the Bulls cast minus Pip is still fantastic on defense with Rodman/Harper and a good system but on offense, they really needed someone to carry that roster in a big way.

Thanks for providing the SRS with Pippen—I was relying on your SRS numbers for the without-Pippen games and was too lazy to calculate the SRS with Pippen myself.

[lessthanjake]

No, you're judging him on a proxy for "actual performance" while ignoring that proxy is contradicted by other proxies for "actual performance" which happen to be using the full 48 minutes that championships and playoff series are won from. In 25 years, not you, nor anyone has bothered to show an aspect of performance and the frequency of said aspect you think Drob performed so much and so well it's apparently debatable when Duncan is averaging 8-9 more minutes en route to a 15-2 championship on a team prime Drob couldn't lead anywhere in 1996.

I don’t really have strong views either way on this discussion, but I find it a bit curious that you’re acting like the 1996 Spurs and 1999 Spurs were the same team.

Besides David Robinson, the only players there were on both teams were Sean Elliott, Avery Johnson, and Will Perdue. And Perdue hardly counts since he was a major rotation player in 1996 and barely played in 1999, so it’s really just Sean Elliott and Avery Johnson. These are not particularly similar teams, so the bolded just seems like a really misleading simplification to me. And, of course, that’s not even getting into the obvious fact that, in 1999, Duncan’s supporting cast included David Robinson, while Robinson did not have a 1999 clone of himself in his 1996 supporting cast. It’s definitely easier to lead a team to a title when you have David Robinson in your supporting cast, compared to when you’re David Robinson and don’t have David Robinson in your supporting cast. And I don’t see how we can draw any meaningful conclusion about either player based on what David Robinson did without himself in his supporting cast and what Tim Duncan did with David Robinson in his supporting cast and a team that otherwise only had two overlapping players with Robinson’s team.

[Cavsfansince84]

Someone above asked if Reggie Miller really had a good support cast. The answer is yes, far better than most of the guys being discussed here. 3 all-star calibre bigs in Smits and the Davis brothers, Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson, Derrick McKey, young Jalen Rose, etc. Their stats don't jump out at you because they were an ensemble cast playing reduced roles for the sake of winning (and because they played a grindingly slow pace of 87.9), but these were really good players.

You get a better idea of what these guys were doing if you look at a per100 possession basis.

Rik Smits led the team in scoring per100, with 32pp100, 13rp100, 3ap100, while playing good D. Mark Jackson led the league in ap100, while putting up 15, 16 & 7 p100. Mullin put up 23, 6 & 5 p100, with a 607 TS%. The Davis brothers were primarily defensive studs, but put up 20-14 & 16-15 p100. Jalen Rose was 25-6-5 p100. Even McKey, who was primarily a defensive stud at the 3, looks good per 100 at 15-9-4.

I think its pretty well known that the Pacers had a lot of depth to make up for lack of star power in that 98-00 period. How else does a team with Reggie Miller and a few other borderline all stars in different years come the closest any team came to knocking off one of the title Bulls teams, 2 ecf and another finals? So I think its more just figuring out how much credit Reggie deserves in the context of the project. Also worth noting that 98 was the only year in that 3 year run where the Pacers actually were a strong defensive team(5th). By 99 they slip to 24th in DRtg and in 00 13th while the offense goes from 4th to 1st/1st(obviously more relevant for the 99-00 threads). So even if we can mention that in 98 the Pacer had a lot of defensive studs they still had a top 5 offense which Reggie gets much of the credit for(3rd in the league in ows that year). The other thing that jumps out about those teams is how healthy they were. Their top 7 players barely ever missed games from 98-00.

[AEnigma]

I can think of multiple reasons that the Spurs went from a -13.8 net rating against the Jazz in 1996 to a -0.2 net rating against the Jazz in 1998 (yes, the latter is skewed by a blowout win for the Spurs, but including the wins helps the 1996 team here). For example, Robinson played an extra four minutes per game; we do not have postseason plus/minus data for the 1996 series, so perhaps Robinson was outscoring the Jazz by 3.4 per minute and would have matched the 1998 team simply by playing more. Or alternatively, perhaps 1998 Robinson was actually a much better postseason player than 1996 Robinson. Not how it looked to my eye, but if someone wants to argue that, they should definitely do so. Maybe the Jazz were substantially worse. Again, not my assessment, but would love to see that argument made. Maybe the Spurs’ bench was significantly better in 1998. Maybe Jaren Jackson was secretly an all-NBA wing. Maybe Tim Duncan just fulfilled a structurally useful role, and being replaced with someone like Vin Baker still would have let the team keep the series close.

However, for some reason, no one has really cared to argue any of that, which leaves us with the default conclusion that the primary change in the two results — and the 15-2 dominant title run next year — was the specific presence of Tim Duncan.

[konr0167]

1. Shaq

Best offense and obviously is tough to score on straight up. Gets cooked on defense by Utah a bit. Ig you could say Duncan’s WOWY is better but that’s a messy signal and I don’t think Duncan’s at the spot I can ignore Shaq averaging 30 efficiently and obv creating a shitton with his gravity.

2. Jordan

Basically he wins. Bulls also are pretty good without Pippen. Idk That’s kind of it.


3. Duncan

Biggest part of a 36 win turnaround and kind of like rookie Kareem gets alot better in the second half. I think by like impact and playoff performance Duncan is probably better than MJ and he plays better vs the Jazz but his offense is kind of ugly in the last two losses and MJ does win so it’s tough for me. You could prob argue him vs Shaq just of the WOWY but that’s a stretch ngl.


Malone

ig malone deserves credit for not being as bad as usual in the playoffs. bulls jazz series is pretty much even outside of that one outlier game and probably wins if the refs don’t mess up game 6.


5. Gary Payton

Best player on a 61 win team. That’s pretty much it. Good D and passing. okay scorer.

[DirtyDez]

Anyway since I have tracking to finish for 1999 so let me vote.

Voting Post

1. Tim Duncan

-> Biggest catalyst for a 36-win and 11-point turnaround. Most impressive signal to me since 96 MJ or peak RS Drob.
-> Replication giant, different systems, co-stars, blah blah blah.
-> Bigger prime delta in temrs of team wins or net-rating than Magic, MJ, or Hakeem. Shaq might edge him there but Shaq loses to Duncan in RAPM in a much more favorable context for that metric in general and I think Duncan played the best vs Utah of any of the big 3. Honestly even in terms of pure impact Duncan is limited by drob being his teammate.
-> Averaging 5 more minutes than anyone in the rs, 3 more minutes than anyone in the playoff, and that gap just is going to grow and grow
-> Turns it up for the latter half of the season kind of like Kareem in 70.

Was thinking Shaq first initially but I've been convinced by some voters here it would be inconsistent with my previous reasoning/votes which have been very high on paint-protectors and lots of good stuff has been shown about Shaq's defensive limitations this series.

2. Shaq

A pretty natural one pick as the league's best creator and scorer. Misses a bunch of games but those don't affect championship probability too much based on the only studies i've seen on the matter. Yeah his defense is dubious but he's better at the thing the #1 favorite for this thread is the best at this year, creates more and probably has an edge in cold-impact despite sub-optimal conditions. I could probably convinced to put him 1. Maybe if I get an explanation of this WOWY with starter control thing. His team does do pretty well without him and the previous year signals were kind of terrible looking for him. Though he's going to look like a monster impact over full games (not so much over RAPM) in a couple years.

Seems like you have to go really hard on his defense to place him lower but I don't feel comfortable penalizing Shaq so much for a series of struggling as a defensive anchor, a role Jordan would have no hope of filling. It matters against the Duncans and the Kareems and to an extent the Pippen and the Lebrons. It matters a bit vs Jordan but not so much I'm going to ignore him being the league's best creator and for that year, scorer.

3. Micheal Jordan

Looks top 2 or top 3 in impact. Impressive team result without Pippen and wins a third title albiet with the benefit of refs miscounting shot clocks. I think his defense here was better than some of his pre-retirement years. Pretty reasonable MVP pick to me though Duncan and Malone have decent enough cases. And yeah, I don't have much issue with anyone voting him 1st.

4. Karl Malone

Takes out 1 and 2 and easily could have taken out 3. I could also see him going as high as 1.

5. Reggie Miller

Led the true 2nd best playoff team with help I'm amateurly assessing as good but not exceptional.

Spurs flamed out in the playoffs going 4-5 and losing in 5 games to the team MJ/Bulls beat.

Shaq was on the most talented team in the league in 98’ and got swept by the team MJ/Bulls beat. #1 in net rating despite missing 22 games and the Lakers 15-7 in games he missed. He was NOT the reason they lost to Utah but I’m talking about hardware when it comes down to nitpicking the top-3.

[Special_Puppy]

Someone above asked if Reggie Miller really had a good support cast. The answer is yes, far better than most of the guys being discussed here. 3 all-star calibre bigs in Smits and the Davis brothers, Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson, Derrick McKey, young Jalen Rose, etc. Their stats don't jump out at you because they were an ensemble cast playing reduced roles for the sake of winning (and because they played a grindingly slow pace of 87.9), but these were really good players.

You get a better idea of what these guys were doing if you look at a per100 possession basis.

Rik Smits led the team in scoring per100, with 32pp100, 13rp100, 3ap100, while playing good D. Mark Jackson led the league in ap100, while putting up 15, 16 & 7 p100. Mullin put up 23, 6 & 5 p100, with a 607 TS%. The Davis brothers were primarily defensive studs, but put up 20-14 & 16-15 p100. Jalen Rose was 25-6-5 p100. Even McKey, who was primarily a defensive stud at the 3, looks good per 100 at 15-9-4.

Oh I 100% agree that Miller had an excellent supporting cast. I'm just not sure that Jordan's was meaningfully worse

[Djoker]

For right now... I'm going with
1.. Michael Jordan
2. Karl Malone
3. David Robinson
4. Tim Duncan
5. Shaquille O'Neal

Robinson over Duncan for right now as well. Duncan probably was better offensively but Robinson was the better defender. Can see both arguments on who was the best player on the Spurs

Shaq probably would have been top 3 based on regular season and playoffs but he missed a lot of games

Reminder that you need more reasoning than this for the ballot to be counted.

I agree he should write more but Jordan #1 Malone #2 is very straightforward and intuitive that needs little justification. And his post did give rationale for the order of the other three spots.

[AEnigma]

For right now... I'm going with
1.. Michael Jordan
2. Karl Malone
3. David Robinson
4. Tim Duncan
5. Shaquille O'Neal

Robinson over Duncan for right now as well. Duncan probably was better offensively but Robinson was the better defender. Can see both arguments on who was the best player on the Spurs

Shaq probably would have been top 3 based on regular season and playoffs but he missed a lot of games

Reminder that you need more reasoning than this for the ballot to be counted.

I agree he should write more but Jordan #1 Malone #2 is very straightforward and intuitive that needs little justification. And his post did give rationale for the order of the other three spots.

Not how it works, and this is not the first time I have asked for expanded explanations.

[Djoker]

Reminder that you need more reasoning than this for the ballot to be counted.

I agree he should write more but Jordan #1 Malone #2 is very straightforward and intuitive that needs little justification. And his post did give rationale for the order of the other three spots.

Not how it works, and this is not the first time I have asked for expanded explanations.

How what works? Narigo's post was unusually short but I actually got the rationale behind why he ranks the players that way. A lengthier explanation would be better but it's not just a vote.

And.. I don't think it's a general pattern with this poster to not provide rationale.

[LA Bird]

The staggering is hurting the player because you're not looking at "performance" you're looking at micro snippets of "team performance". Duncan spends more time with worse players.

1. Per 48 adjustment already accounts for the minute difference.
2. Robinson's and Duncan's backups were named and you failed to show the latter being better.
3. Opponent strength was accounted for with proportion of Malone time.

There is nothing to discuss if you ignore everything I say.

That extremely unusual minute disparity mantained for every prime Duncan year with Drob, and then every prime season with Manu both of whom have had various variants of this "performance" related argument pushed against one of the commonest common denominators to dominate the game. And both of these co-stars look much better using these tiny "performances" than full games of "performance" even when they're the 5th or 6th mpg player.

An argument which could be convincing if you had any supporting evidence. But, you didn't provide any.

Curious interpretation. You said "there was no counter" Enigma offered your counter, but yes, I was trying to sic the authority of Aenigma on you. Last I checked, I've never advocated for treating posters differently because they're "respected".

My post talked about playoffs.
My numbers are about playoffs.
Your "counter" is regular season.

Spot the difference.

That is what he is according to the "performance" you're looking at.

Worthless strawman until you point out comparable claims I've made.

So if his on/off was great while the Jazz blew him out by 10 points you wouldn't have penalized him?

If the Spurs won in Robinson's minutes and only lost because they got blown out when he sat, why not? This is no different than not penalizing a player beyond missed time for barely missing the playoffs if they go something like 0-15 without him.

No, you're judging him on a proxy for "actual performance" while ignoring that proxy is contradicted by other proxies for "actual performance" which happen to be using the full 48 minutes that championships and playoff series are won from.

What is "proxy" about a player's on court team performance? If a player fouls out with his team down 20 in G7 and they go on a run to win without him, should he be judged moreso on his on-court +/- or the final W which came with him sitting on the bench? The answer is obvious. And before you go on about teammate and opponent lineup quality, refer back to the beginning of this post.

In 25 years, not you, nor anyone has bothered to show an aspect of performance and the frequency of said aspect you think Drob performed so much and so well

Assuming you are referring to specific tracking data, no. But in 25 years, no one has bothered to show an aspect of performance and the frequency of said aspect where Duncan was better than Robinson either. Or for Shaq over Mourning. Or for practically any player combination in any season to any significant degree. If one day such tracking data becomes universally available and it points to Duncan being better, then I am open to supporting Duncan instead. But until then, pointing out no such data exists for Robinson over Duncan is a moot point.

But I look forward to you looking at "actual performances" to judge Manu's playoff performance as equivalent to Duncan's in 2003, and Magic's performance in the 1991 finals as 8 times better than Micheal Jordan's.

The old pick any player with good +/- to debunk it argument. Basic mud slinging tactic from a decade ago.
And I'm pretty sure Magic's on-court net wasn't 8 times better than Jordan's but you love strawmans I guess.

I'm sorry, did the Spurs going +11 and 15-2 in 1999 not happen on the court or something?

Did Robinson going +20 not happen on the court or something? You hype the +11 figure like it had nothing to do with him.

Maybe a little harder to spot than the Suns missing their actual best player and fellow impact darling Jason Kidd for basically the whole series? Jason Kidd and Penny played all the games vs the Lakers by the way, where they performed at a +0.9 SRS and like a flat out negative srs team relative to everyone else who played the Lakers. How exactly is the Jason-Kidd less version of that team not fodder?

The same Kidd who you just trashed is now super valuable again when it suits your argument. Convenient

What spreadsheet are you talking about. What controls. Is this some Ben Taylor thing?

Yes. And upon checking your post history, you've even cited the spreadsheet before yourself when voting for Hakeem. Acting like you never heard of it when the numbers aren't favorable to your preferred player

There's nothing weird about disengaging with people arguing a take. Throwing baseless accusations at someone because ontop of actually looking at performance they have the talent to make **** fun? Now that's weird.

This the friend who still can't post on this forum themselves after three months because of ... computer issues and a dead phone? That's the reason you are still using? Maybe we need to add a baller vow: in exchange for being a grain master, OhayoKD's best friend will have no access to the internet the rest of their life and can only vote through proxy.