Retro Player of the Year 2005-06 UPDATE — Dwyane Wade

[One_and_Done]

I don’t really care what Wade’s PER or plus minus was.

Just looking at his raw playoff numbers though, nothing about this is suggestive of something historic. He posted 36-7-7 per 100 across the playoffs, with a 577 TS%. Those are very good numbers, but they’re not incredible. They’re not even close to Wade’s best numbers. Wade averaged 42pp100 in both the 09 and 10 playoffs. In 2010 his playoff line was 42-7-9 per 100 on 562 TS%. That was a much stronger playoff performance, it’s just the team around him was much worse.

Wade played 2 horrible playoff foes in the first 2 rounds. He beat a genuine contender Pistons team, and also beat the Mavs which was impressive. The thing is, the Mavs played very badly. If the Mavs had played like that v.s the Spurs or Suns, they would never have beaten those teams to begin with. The outcome was rightly regarded as a huge choke job by the Mavs. That’s why it’s not helpful to compare the Mavs to the Spurs and Suns and say “well, they were a similar quality of opponent”. Yes, they were when not choking. Unfortunately for whatever reason, the Mavs just underperformed v.s the Heat. Whether you want to attribute some of that to refs or whatever is up to you.

I also think the Heat just matched up much worse against the Spurs and especially the Suns. Shaq and Walker were just not suited to games against the Suns, especially Shaq. The fast paced style was impossible for old-Shaq to handle. Not that RS games are everything, but in the 2 Suns games that year the Heat limited Shaq to 23 and 32 minutes. I remember watching those games (both of which the Suns won by a landslide) and it was very obvious that Shaq’s lack of mobility was killing them. The final scores aren’t representative of how badly the Suns were blowing them out before they took the gas off. They led at halftime in those games by 72-50 and 66-47.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

My first thought regarding this season is that I'd like to give Shaq some love. I cannot honestly make a Top 5 case for him given all the other players in contention, but I DO think he was Top 10, and I think even that puts me in the minority, as it feels like people around here are often dismissive of his role on the 2006 Heat.

For one thing, he was still the #11 RAPM in the league(4.85, pretty evenly distributed between O-RAPM and D-RAPM). For another, his RS on/off was +5.3, not so much lower than his +6.1 from the previous season in which many of you were happy to make him Top 5.

His box numbers shrink a bit from 2005 to 2006, but that's mainly because he was playing fewer minutes(30.6 vs 34.1 the year before). PER 100, there's not much difference - 35.4/16.1/4.2 assists/3.6 blocks on 58.3% TS in 05 vs 34.3/15.7/3.3 assists/3.0 blocks on 58.6% TS in 06.

But more than any of that, there is a legitimate impact signal this season. Shaq played 59 games this season. In those 59 games, the Heat were 42-17, .712, a 58-win pace(the Heat won 59 games IRL). Shaq missed 23 games; now, two of those games were the final two games of the season where both he and Wade were sat out and they were both predictably losses, so I'm not going to count those, but in the 21 games where Wade played and Shaq didn't, the Heat were 10-11, .476, a 39-win pace.

I have not looked at strength-of-schedule, and I'm not trying to make a Shaq>Wade argument for 2006, but I think the WOWY W/L, taken with the RAPM rank, illustrates that Shaq was still a genuine impact guy in 2006 even if he wasn't Top 5 anymore.

I know he gets a bad rap for the playoffs, where he had a -8.6 on/off and shot poorly(even for him) from the FT line. But even there, it's a series-by-series thing.

He played well against Chicago, averaging 19.8/10.8 along with 2.1 blocks on 58.1% TS. This included a 30/20 performance in the closeout Game 6 on the road.

He didn't play that great against the Nets, still putting up 18.6 and 7.2 but with his efficiency dropping down to 53.8% TS.

He bounced back and played very well in the ECF vs Detroit, averaging 21.7/10.5 along with 2.3 blocks on 61.8% TS, against the Wallaces, no less. This included a 28/16 on 14 shots(85.7% FG) performance in the closeout Game 6.

Obviously Wade carried the team in the Finals, and Shaq's numbers in that series don't look very good overall, but even then, take note of the following:

In Game 3, he recorded 16/11 on 9 shots(66.7% FG) in a 2 point win.
In the famous Game 5, he recorded 18/12 on 12 shots(66.7% FG) in a 1 point win.
In the championship-clinching Game 6, he did not score much, but he did grab 12 boards, 3 of them offensive, in a 3 point win.

Given those numbers in three of their four wins which were all decided by three points or less, it is difficult to imagine the Heat pulling that title off without Shaq, even with Wade being the alpha.

For all of these reasons, I believe that while he is not Top 5 this season, he is Top 10('d say between 7 and 9), and should be given his flowers for that. I don't believe I would make even a Top 10 argument for him for any season beyond this one, but it is a common thought around here that Shaq's time as an impact player ended after 2005; I say it ended after 2006.

I'll post thoughts on my Top 5 later.

[lessthanjake]

I don’t really care what Wade’s PER or plus minus was.

But it’s you who said that Wade didn’t have a statistical argument to even be 6th in MVP voting. He absolutely did.

Just looking at his raw playoff numbers though, nothing about this is suggestive of something historic. He posted 36-7-7 per 100 across the playoffs, with a 577 TS%. Those are very good numbers, but they’re not incredible. They’re not even close to Wade’s best numbers. Wade averaged 42pp100 in both the 09 and 10 playoffs. In 2010 his playoff line was 42-7-9 per 100 on 562 TS%. That was a much stronger playoff performance, it’s just the team around him was much worse.

You are pointing to stats in the 2009 and 2010 playoffs in which Wade played one round. That’s obviously not comparable to an entire title run. It shows Wade was capable of playing great in other years too, but his performance in those playoffs is not directly comparable to 2006, nor is anyone else’s performance in a one-round playoff run. You can’t say an entire title run isn’t historic because that player (or anyone else) put up better numbers in a single series. I think you know that. Obviously players fairly commonly put up single-series numbers that would be very historic if that player did it for an entire title run. They rarely sustain it. Pointing out such instances doesn’t make Wade’s 2006 playoffs less historic than it clearly was.

Also, you’re missing a whole boatload of context here, including the quality of the teams he faced and the fact that his best series were against the toughest teams he faced. Against the Pistons, Wade put up per-game numbers of 27/6/5, with a massive rTS% of +17%! Against the Mavs, Wade up put per-game numbers of 35/8/4 with a +5% rTS%. These are incredibly strong series. And that’s especially true in a context in which that era’s Pistons were generally especially good defensively in the playoffs, and the rest of the Heat were struggling mightily offensively in the series against the Mavs. Wade went supernova against one of the greatest defensive teams ever and then carried his team offensively in the Finals. This is incredibly impressive. Most years do not have someone doing something as monumental in the playoffs. And that’s not even getting into the fact that, in the second round, Wade put up great per-game numbers of 28/7/6 on +7% rTS%—against a strong defensive team that the Heat were actually only slight favorites against (the odds going into that series were -190 for the Heat and +160 for the Nets). In the first round, he only put up 25/7/5 on +2% rTS%, which brings the overall playoff numbers down some, but obviously that was just the first round as big favorites—he ramped things up in the most important series.

Wade played 2 horrible playoff foes in the first 2 rounds. He beat a genuine contender Pistons team, and also beat the Mavs which was impressive. The thing is, the Mavs played very badly. If the Mavs had played like that v.s the Spurs or Suns, they would never have beaten those teams to begin with. The outcome was rightly regarded as a huge choke job by the Mavs. That’s why it’s not helpful to compare the Mavs to the Spurs and Suns and say “well, they were a similar quality of opponent”. Yes, they were when not choking. Unfortunately for whatever reason, the Mavs just underperformed v.s the Heat. Whether you want to attribute some of that to refs or whatever is up to you.

The Nets were not a great opponent, but they definitely weren’t “horrible.” Indeed, as noted above, the Heat were actually only slight favorites against them. And Wade had a great series. It’s not the most important thing, since obviously the Pistons and Mavs were at a different level from the Nets, but it was definitely a really good performance from Wade in a series that people definitely thought at the time was loseable.

As for the Mavs playing “very badly” and people saying it was a “huge choke job,” the reason people say it was a choke job is not really that the Mavs played badly. It’s that the Mavs were up 2-0 and then lost the series. If you reordered the games of the series such that the Mavs were never ahead like that, then I don’t think people would say they choked. The Mavs lost a close series that was an extreme defensive grind-fest, and they lost because, even in a series like that, Wade was actually able to still score at a high volume with good efficiency. As for why the Mavs lost after going up 2-0, you suggest that that is “attribute[d] . . . to refs,” but in the context it’s fairly obvious that that’s actually you attributing it to Wade carrying the Heat. Which is the whole point here!

I also think the Heat just matched up much worse against the Spurs and especially the Suns. Shaq and Walker were just not suited to games against the Suns, especially Shaq. The fast paced style was impossible for old-Shaq to handle. Not that RS games are everything, but in the 2 Suns games that year the Heat limited Shaq to 23 and 32 minutes. I remember watching those games (both of which the Suns won by a landslide) and it was very obvious that Shaq’s lack of mobility was killing them. The final scores aren’t representative of how badly the Suns were blowing them out before they took the gas off. They led at halftime in those games by 72-50 and 66-47.

You may be right that the Heat wouldn’t have matched up as well against the Suns. We’ll never know for sure. I don’t think there’s much of any reason to say that about the Spurs though, and you don’t even attempt to. As for the Suns, it’s certainly not the case that the Suns were the best team in the West. The actual team that the Heat beat in the Finals was a better team than the Suns. Even if the Heat would’ve matched up badly against the Suns, they were not lucky not to face the Suns, since the Suns were quite unlikely to be able to actually make the Finals, given that that would’ve required them to beat either the Spurs or Mavs—both of whom were definitely better teams, especially with Kurt Thomas injured (which made the Suns much worse defensively). I don’t see why it is particularly meaningful to say that the Heat could’ve potentially faced a less good opponent in the Finals who they nevertheless might’ve matched up less well against and could’ve therefore lost to. We could always speculate that worse teams might’ve matched up better with the title-winning team than the losing finalist did. But that team didn’t make the Finals, and in this case the losing finalist was a big favorite against the team you’re trying to suggest the Heat were lucky not to face. The Heat faced the better team and won. Maybe a worse team could’ve beaten them, but they beat the better team instead. I’m also fairly confident that if the Suns *had* beaten the Mavericks in the conference finals and the Heat had still won the Finals, you’d just be saying that Wade was lucky that the Suns upset the Mavericks.

[One_and_Done]

I said (and meant) that Wade did not have a statistical argument for being the best player that year, not the 6th best player.

[lessthanjake]

I said (and meant) that Wade did not have a statistical argument for being the best player that year, not the 6th best player.

Ah, I misunderstood you. That is a much more defensible claim. That said, let’s look at the top 5 of the various measures I talked about:

BPM
1. LeBron
2. Dirk
3. Garnett
4. Wade
5. Kobe

PER
1. Dirk
2. LeBron
3. Kobe
4. Wade
5. Garnett

WS per 48
1. Dirk
2. Billups
3. Garnett
4. Wade
5. Ginobili

BasketballDatabase RAPM
1. Metta World Peace
2. Wade
3. Rasheed Wallace
4. Tayshaun Prince
5. Boris Diaw

NBArapm 2-year RAPM (2006 & 2007)
1. LeBron
2. Wade
3. Ginobili
4. Duncan
5. Nash

GitLab RAPM
1. Wade
2. Kobe
3. Rasheed Wallace
4. Dirk
5. Ginobili

New EPM
1. Ginobili
2. Dirk
3. Wade
4. Garnett
5. Duncan

Old EPM
1. Dirk
2. Garnett
3. Ginobili
4. Billups
5. Wade

Wade is only in 1st in one of those measures, but there’s actually no one that is consistently ahead of him. Dirk is the only one that really looks ahead of Wade in most stuff, but Wade is still ahead of Dirk in RAPM measures. Overall, there’s not really anyone with a clear-cut statistical case for #1, and Wade is definitely amongst the small number of guys that’s got an argument for it (and there’s really not a statistical argument for your pick, FWIW). When you combine that with winning the title with an incredible playoff run, it seems to me like he’s the obvious pick for POY.

[Homer38]

I don’t really care what Wade’s PER or plus minus was.

Just looking at his raw playoff numbers though, nothing about this is suggestive of something historic. He posted 36-7-7 per 100 across the playoffs, with a 577 TS%. Those are very good numbers, but they’re not incredible. They’re not even close to Wade’s best numbers. Wade averaged 42pp100 in both the 09 and 10 playoffs. In 2010 his playoff line was 42-7-9 per 100 on 562 TS%. That was a much stronger playoff performance, it’s just the team around him was much worse.

Wade played 2 horrible playoff foes in the first 2 rounds. He beat a genuine contender Pistons team, and also beat the Mavs which was impressive. The thing is, the Mavs played very badly. If the Mavs had played like that v.s the Spurs or Suns, they would never have beaten those teams to begin with. The outcome was rightly regarded as a huge choke job by the Mavs. That’s why it’s not helpful to compare the Mavs to the Spurs and Suns and say “well, they were a similar quality of opponent”. Yes, they were when not choking. Unfortunately for whatever reason, the Mavs just underperformed v.s the Heat. Whether you want to attribute some of that to refs or whatever is up to you.

I also think the Heat just matched up much worse against the Spurs and especially the Suns. Shaq and Walker were just not suited to games against the Suns, especially Shaq. The fast paced style was impossible for old-Shaq to handle. Not that RS games are everything, but in the 2 Suns games that year the Heat limited Shaq to 23 and 32 minutes. I remember watching those games (both of which the Suns won by a landslide) and it was very obvious that Shaq’s lack of mobility was killing them. The final scores aren’t representative of how badly the Suns were blowing them out before they took the gas off. They led at halftime in those games by 72-50 and 66-47.

The heat were awful vs suns that year in the regular season but it was also the case against the mavs too

[One_and_Done]

I said (and meant) that Wade did not have a statistical argument for being the best player that year, not the 6th best player.

Ah, I misunderstood you. That is a much more defensible claim. That said, let’s look at the top 5 of the various measures I talked about:

BPM
1. LeBron
2. Dirk
3. Garnett
4. Wade
5. Kobe

PER
1. Dirk
2. LeBron
3. Kobe
4. Wade
5. Garnett

WS per 48
1. Dirk
2. Billups
3. Garnett
4. Wade
5. Ginobili

BasketballDatabase RAPM
1. Metta World Peace
2. Wade
3. Rasheed Wallace
4. Tayshaun Prince
5. Boris Diaw

NBArapm 2-year RAPM (2006 & 2007)
1. LeBron
2. Wade
3. Ginobili
4. Duncan
5. Nash

GitLab RAPM
1. Wade
2. Kobe
3. Rasheed Wallace
4. Dirk
5. Ginobili

New EPM
1. Ginobili
2. Dirk
3. Wade
4. Garnett
5. Duncan

Old EPM
1. Dirk
2. Garnett
3. Ginobili
4. Billups
5. Wade

Wade is only in 1st in one of those measures, but there’s actually no one that is consistently ahead of him. Dirk is the only one that really looks ahead of Wade in most stuff, but Wade is still ahead of Dirk in RAPM measures. Overall, there’s not really anyone with a clear-cut statistical case for #1, and Wade is definitely amongst the small number of guys that’s got an argument for it (and there’s really not a statistical argument for your pick, FWIW). When you combine that with winning the title with an incredible playoff run, it seems to me like he’s the obvious pick for POY.

To reiterate; these are not statistical arguments that I personally care terribly much about. However, if you are a stats person I don't think there is a consistent path to putting Wade 1st that would also square with people's votes in other threads.

To me, I see a guy who:
1) wasn't perceived as even close to the best player after the RS (6th in MVP, all-NBA 2nd team).
2) benefitted greatly from a weak conference
3) had a great playoffs, but not an all-time playoffs

Even if you think Wade was the best PS player, and I think that's dubious (Duncan and Lebron both look better on raw numbers, they just lost earlier due to their team letting them down), he wasn't the best PS player by enough to overcome his RS disadvantage.

I personally don't think he was #1 in either the RS or PS. If Lebron was on his team, or had a comparable support cast, he'd have won the title.

[lessthanjake]

I said (and meant) that Wade did not have a statistical argument for being the best player that year, not the 6th best player.

Ah, I misunderstood you. That is a much more defensible claim. That said, let’s look at the top 5 of the various measures I talked about:

BPM
1. LeBron
2. Dirk
3. Garnett
4. Wade
5. Kobe

PER
1. Dirk
2. LeBron
3. Kobe
4. Wade
5. Garnett

WS per 48
1. Dirk
2. Billups
3. Garnett
4. Wade
5. Ginobili

BasketballDatabase RAPM
1. Metta World Peace
2. Wade
3. Rasheed Wallace
4. Tayshaun Prince
5. Boris Diaw

NBArapm 2-year RAPM (2006 & 2007)
1. LeBron
2. Wade
3. Ginobili
4. Duncan
5. Nash

GitLab RAPM
1. Wade
2. Kobe
3. Rasheed Wallace
4. Dirk
5. Ginobili

New EPM
1. Ginobili
2. Dirk
3. Wade
4. Garnett
5. Duncan

Old EPM
1. Dirk
2. Garnett
3. Ginobili
4. Billups
5. Wade

Wade is only in 1st in one of those measures, but there’s actually no one that is consistently ahead of him. Dirk is the only one that really looks ahead of Wade in most stuff, but Wade is still ahead of Dirk in RAPM measures. Overall, there’s not really anyone with a clear-cut statistical case for #1, and Wade is definitely amongst the small number of guys that’s got an argument for it (and there’s really not a statistical argument for your pick, FWIW). When you combine that with winning the title with an incredible playoff run, it seems to me like he’s the obvious pick for POY.

To reiterate; these are not statistical arguments that I personally care terribly much about. However, if you are a stats person I don't think there is a consistent path to putting Wade 1st that would also square with people's votes in other threads.

To me, I see a guy who:
1) wasn't perceived as even close to the best player after the RS (6th in MVP, all-NBA 2nd team).
2) benefitted greatly from a weak conference
3) had a great playoffs, but not an all-time playoffs

Even if you think Wade was the best PS player, and I think that's dubious (Duncan and Lebron both look better on raw numbers, they just lost earlier due to their team letting them down), he wasn't the best PS player by enough to overcome his RS disadvantage.

I personally don't think he was #1 in either the RS or PS. If Lebron was on his team, or had a comparable support cast, he'd have won the title.

To address those three points:

1. He wasn’t perceived as the best player after the RS, but we now know that stats tell us he had an argument for being the best player and that he was perceived to have a claim to be the best player after the playoffs were finished. So why should we care about what perception was at a particular snapshot in time in which people had less information than they do now? Especially when the NBA community really doesn’t like sticking the best-player label on someone quickly, before he’s proven himself in the playoffs. It’s really not a surprise that a fairly-unproven 24-year-old who had not ever even made the Finals was not considered the best player in the world before he won a title.

2. I think you can make an argument that his team benefited from being in the Eastern Conference in terms of their regular season record. But in the playoffs there’s really not much of an argument that that’s the case. Again, the Pistons were the title favorites, and the Heat had to play them on their way to the Finals. This really isn’t a year where the “weak conference” argument makes much sense.

3. I can’t really conceive of how you think he didn’t have an all-time playoffs. I’ve provided a lot of data so far in this thread, and I’d just refer back to it, and reiterate that Wade went supernova against one of the greatest defenses in history and then absolutely carried his team offensively in the Finals. And that’s after having a great series against a really good defense in the second round. It was an all-time playoffs.

As for him not being “the best PS player by enough to overcome his RS disadvantage,” it’s not even clear who you are asserting he had a RS disadvantage against. The stats don’t really paint him as having a clear disadvantage against anyone. I think the argument for him having a RS disadvantage would be to index very heavily on team results, but that seems like a really curious thing to do when you’re ultimately trying to argue against someone who won the title. Like, I think it goes without saying that having a disadvantage that is merely evidenced by your team having a worse regular season record is probably overcome by having a playoff advantage that leads to your team winning the title!

Finally, as for this hypothetical about LeBron, who knows. LeBron wasn’t on the Heat and didn’t win the title. We vote for POY based on what actually happened in reality, not some hypothetical we might want to speculate about in order to justify voting for our personally favored players.

[One_and_Done]

The Mavs TS% in the playoffs was 553 v.s Memphis, 559 v.s the Spurs, 534 v.s the Suns… and 513 v.s the Heat. Am I supposed to credit this drop to the lockdown D of Antoine Walker, White Chocolate, and old man Shaq, or would it be more reasonable to assume the Mavs just played worse and missed a lot of shots they would normally hit? Similarly, their turnover % is much higher v.s the Heat, and their Ortg was only 99.3 in the finals (as against 111.8 in the RS, and 115.5, 113.8 and 113.5 in the first 3 rounds. I find it hard to chalk this up to the awesome D of the Heat, when 3 of their starters were not great defenders (2 were outright bad), and the other 2 were Wade and Haslem (neither of whom are exactly lock down guys). I could go on. To me it looks like the Mavs just crapped the bed, which is how it felt in real time watching it.

[Homer38]

The what if doesn't matter in this project....what happened is what matters

[One_and_Done]

The what if doesn't matter in this project....what happened is what matters

Agreed. And what happened was the Mavs choked.

[Homer38]

The Mavs TS% in the playoffs was 553 v.s Memphis, 559 v.s the Spurs, 534 v.s the Suns… and 513 v.s the Heat. Am I supposed to credit this drop to the lockdown D of Antoine Walker, White Chocolate, and old man Shaq, or would it be more reasonable to assume the Mavs just played worse and missed a lot of shots they would normally hit? Similarly, their turnover % is much higher v.s the Heat, and their Ortg was only 99.3 in the finals (as against 111.8 in the RS, and 115.5, 113.8 and 113.5 in the first 3 rounds. I find it hard to chalk this up to the awesome D of the Heat, when 3 of their starters were not great defenders (2 were outright bad), and the other 2 were Wade and Haslem (neither of whom are exactly lock down guys). I could go on. To me it looks like the Mavs just crapped the bed, which is how it felt in real time watching it.

The heat still need Wade to have a all-time finals to win this title.He had help on defense but none on offense.He was also special vs Pistons

[Homer38]

The what if doesn't matter in this project....what happened is what matters

Agreed. And what happened was the Mavs choked.

And Wade was legendary in this finals with no help on offense

[lessthanjake]

The Mavs TS% in the playoffs was 553 v.s Memphis, 559 v.s the Spurs, 534 v.s the Suns… and 513 v.s the Heat. Am I supposed to credit this drop to the lockdown D of Antoine Walker, White Chocolate, and old man Shaq, or would it be more reasonable to assume the Mavs just played worse and missed a lot of shots they would normally hit? Similarly, their turnover % is much higher v.s the Heat, and their Ortg was only 99.3 in the finals (as against 111.8 in the RS, and 115.5, 113.8 and 113.5 in the first 3 rounds. I find it hard to chalk this up to the awesome D of the Heat, when 3 of their starters were not great defenders (2 were outright bad), and the other 2 were Wade and Haslem (neither of whom are exactly lock down guys). I could go on. To me it looks like the Mavs just crapped the bed, which is how it felt in real time watching it.

I think this is silly. Every series is different. The Finals were a real defensive grind. Both teams had easily their worst ORTG of the playoffs in that series. Some series are just like that, and it really doesn’t mean that everyone’s just playing badly. If you want to use raw offensive stats to say that the Mavericks played badly, then you should say the same thing about the Heat supporting cast. Indeed, it’s actually more justified with the Heat, where you had things like Shaq making 29% of his FTs—something that is actually essentially independent of the series being a grind. Or perhaps you should look at how the Heat supporting cast did offensively and say that the Mavericks played amazing defense and give them credit for that. Indeed, they held the Heat offense to a substantially worse ORTG than even that incredible Pistons defense did! The actual reality is that both teams played great defense and it was difficult to score, and the Heat won because Wade was the one guy who still really couldn’t be stopped.

[One_and_Done]

The Mavs TS% in the playoffs was 553 v.s Memphis, 559 v.s the Spurs, 534 v.s the Suns… and 513 v.s the Heat. Am I supposed to credit this drop to the lockdown D of Antoine Walker, White Chocolate, and old man Shaq, or would it be more reasonable to assume the Mavs just played worse and missed a lot of shots they would normally hit? Similarly, their turnover % is much higher v.s the Heat, and their Ortg was only 99.3 in the finals (as against 111.8 in the RS, and 115.5, 113.8 and 113.5 in the first 3 rounds. I find it hard to chalk this up to the awesome D of the Heat, when 3 of their starters were not great defenders (2 were outright bad), and the other 2 were Wade and Haslem (neither of whom are exactly lock down guys). I could go on. To me it looks like the Mavs just crapped the bed, which is how it felt in real time watching it.

The heat still need Wade to have a all-time finals to win this title.He had help on defense but none on offense.He was also special vs Pistons

What exactly is “all-time” about Wade’s playoffs? He put up 36.3/7.5/7.3 per 100 on 593 TS%. Contrast that with Duncan who put up 37.1/15.1/4.7 on 625 TS%, while being the best defensive player in the league. Even Lebron, who put up 37.1/9.7/7 on 557 TS%, looks at least as impressive given the complete absence of supporting talent around him. Nash was posting 26.5/13.3/4.8 per 100 on 632 TS%, with a 120 Ortg. Even Dirk’s overall playoffs looks much better; 38.1/12.9/4 on 589 TS% (and a 123 Ortg in 2006!). He choked in the finals, but over the balance of the whole PS Dirk actually performed better.

You say Wade “had help” on D, but as I noted I don’t even think the Heat had particular good defensive players in 06. It looks like the Mavs just didn’t hit the shots they would normally make, because they choked.

[jjgp111292]

In the previous round, Miami held Detroit's offense to nearly 11 points per100 worse than they were in the regular season, so I don't understand why you're so dismissive of the idea that Miami's defense played no part in Dallas' collapse. In fact, just from watching that series I'd say it was a pretty big factor, especially in games 4 and 6.

[Hook_Em]

The Mavs TS% in the playoffs was 553 v.s Memphis, 559 v.s the Spurs, 534 v.s the Suns… and 513 v.s the Heat. Am I supposed to credit this drop to the lockdown D of Antoine Walker, White Chocolate, and old man Shaq, or would it be more reasonable to assume the Mavs just played worse and missed a lot of shots they would normally hit? Similarly, their turnover % is much higher v.s the Heat, and their Ortg was only 99.3 in the finals (as against 111.8 in the RS, and 115.5, 113.8 and 113.5 in the first 3 rounds. I find it hard to chalk this up to the awesome D of the Heat, when 3 of their starters were not great defenders (2 were outright bad), and the other 2 were Wade and Haslem (neither of whom are exactly lock down guys). I could go on. To me it looks like the Mavs just crapped the bed, which is how it felt in real time watching it.

The heat still need Wade to have a all-time finals to win this title.He had help on defense but none on offense.He was also special vs Pistons

What exactly is “all-time” about Wade’s playoffs? He put up 36.3/7.5/7.3 per 100 on 593 TS%. Contrast that with Duncan who put up 37.1/15.1/4.7 on 625 TS%, while being the best defensive player in the league. Even Lebron, who put up 37.1/9.7/7 on 557 TS%, looks at least as impressive given the complete absence of supporting talent around him. Nash was posting 26.5/13.3/4.8 per 100 on 632 TS%, with a 120 Ortg. Even Dirk’s overall playoffs looks much better; 38.1/12.9/4 on 589 TS% (and a 123 Ortg in 2006!). He choked in the finals, but over the balance of the whole PS Dirk actually performed better.

You say Wade “had help” on D, but as I noted I don’t even think the Heat had particular good defensive players in 06. It looks like the Mavs just didn’t hit the shots they would normally make, because they choked.

Wade had a subpar first rd series for whatever reason but was “all time” when it mattered. The Nets, Pistons and Mavs were top-5 in DEF rating that year and he dominated those series.

[lessthanjake]

The Mavs TS% in the playoffs was 553 v.s Memphis, 559 v.s the Spurs, 534 v.s the Suns… and 513 v.s the Heat. Am I supposed to credit this drop to the lockdown D of Antoine Walker, White Chocolate, and old man Shaq, or would it be more reasonable to assume the Mavs just played worse and missed a lot of shots they would normally hit? Similarly, their turnover % is much higher v.s the Heat, and their Ortg was only 99.3 in the finals (as against 111.8 in the RS, and 115.5, 113.8 and 113.5 in the first 3 rounds. I find it hard to chalk this up to the awesome D of the Heat, when 3 of their starters were not great defenders (2 were outright bad), and the other 2 were Wade and Haslem (neither of whom are exactly lock down guys). I could go on. To me it looks like the Mavs just crapped the bed, which is how it felt in real time watching it.

The heat still need Wade to have a all-time finals to win this title.He had help on defense but none on offense.He was also special vs Pistons

What exactly is “all-time” about Wade’s playoffs? He put up 36.3/7.5/7.3 per 100 on 593 TS%. Contrast that with Duncan who put up 37.1/15.1/4.7 on 625 TS%, while being the best defensive player in the league. Even Lebron, who put up 37.1/9.7/7 on 557 TS%, looks at least as impressive given the complete absence of supporting talent around him. Nash was posting 26.5/13.3/4.8 per 100 on 632 TS%, with a 120 Ortg. Even Dirk’s overall playoffs looks much better; 38.1/12.9/4 on 589 TS% (and a 123 Ortg in 2006!). He choked in the finals, but over the balance of the whole PS Dirk actually performed better.

You say Wade “had help” on D, but as I noted I don’t even think the Heat had particular good defensive players in 06. It looks like the Mavs just didn’t hit the shots they would normally make, because they choked.

If you want to use statistics, how about looking at playoff EPM? That certainly encompasses more than the raw box stats you’re looking at and is a better and more fulsome way of looking at things statistically. Wade’s playoff EPM in 2006 was +7.3, while Duncan’s was +5.4. For reference, starting at 2002 (the first year we have this data), that +7.3 EPM is ahead of all but 8 individual playoff runs. And some of those were in relatively early playoff exits or a player who got injured in the playoffs. The only players since 2001 that had a higher playoff EPM than 2006 Wade while actually making the Finals were: 2003 Duncan, 2012 LeBron, 2016 LeBron, 2017 LeBron, and 2017 Steph. In other words, that leaves us with only the very best Finals runs of the top few players of the last 25 years. So yeah, I’d say it was a pretty all-time great playoffs statistically. And even that EPM probably undersells it, because Wade’s performances got better against the better opponents (which is obviously ideal), while the stat obviously weights every series the same.

[One_and_Done]

The heat still need Wade to have a all-time finals to win this title.He had help on defense but none on offense.He was also special vs Pistons

What exactly is “all-time” about Wade’s playoffs? He put up 36.3/7.5/7.3 per 100 on 593 TS%. Contrast that with Duncan who put up 37.1/15.1/4.7 on 625 TS%, while being the best defensive player in the league. Even Lebron, who put up 37.1/9.7/7 on 557 TS%, looks at least as impressive given the complete absence of supporting talent around him. Nash was posting 26.5/13.3/4.8 per 100 on 632 TS%, with a 120 Ortg. Even Dirk’s overall playoffs looks much better; 38.1/12.9/4 on 589 TS% (and a 123 Ortg in 2006!). He choked in the finals, but over the balance of the whole PS Dirk actually performed better.

You say Wade “had help” on D, but as I noted I don’t even think the Heat had particular good defensive players in 06. It looks like the Mavs just didn’t hit the shots they would normally make, because they choked.

If you want to use statistics, how about looking at playoff EPM? That certainly encompasses more than the raw box stats you’re looking at and is a better and more fulsome way of looking at things statistically. Wade’s playoff EPM in 2006 was +7.3, while Duncan’s was +5.4. For reference, starting at 2002 (the first year we have this data), that +7.3 EPM is ahead of all but 8 individual playoff runs. And some of those were in relatively early playoff exits or a player who got injured in the playoffs. The only players since 2001 that had a higher playoff EPM than 2006 Wade while actually making the Finals were: 2003 Duncan, 2012 LeBron, 2016 LeBron, 2017 LeBron, and 2017 Steph. In other words, that leaves us with only the very best Finals runs of the top few players of the last 25 years. So yeah, I’d say it was a pretty all-time great playoffs statistically. And even that EPM probably undersells it, because Wade’s performances got better against the better opponents (which is obviously ideal), while the stat obviously weights every series the same.

Obviously I don't care about EPM, but let's assume for a second I did, or that others should be swayed by it; Wade isn't #1 it playoff EPM for 06 is he. I suspect he's not, both because we discussed it above and because you just caveated his EPM as being high 'for players who made the finals'. That's obviously a huge qualifier, because some of the greatest playoff performances of all-time came with a guy not making the finals (through no fault of his own). It just looks like winning bias to me, on a fluke title team.

[lessthanjake]

What exactly is “all-time” about Wade’s playoffs? He put up 36.3/7.5/7.3 per 100 on 593 TS%. Contrast that with Duncan who put up 37.1/15.1/4.7 on 625 TS%, while being the best defensive player in the league. Even Lebron, who put up 37.1/9.7/7 on 557 TS%, looks at least as impressive given the complete absence of supporting talent around him. Nash was posting 26.5/13.3/4.8 per 100 on 632 TS%, with a 120 Ortg. Even Dirk’s overall playoffs looks much better; 38.1/12.9/4 on 589 TS% (and a 123 Ortg in 2006!). He choked in the finals, but over the balance of the whole PS Dirk actually performed better.

You say Wade “had help” on D, but as I noted I don’t even think the Heat had particular good defensive players in 06. It looks like the Mavs just didn’t hit the shots they would normally make, because they choked.

If you want to use statistics, how about looking at playoff EPM? That certainly encompasses more than the raw box stats you’re looking at and is a better and more fulsome way of looking at things statistically. Wade’s playoff EPM in 2006 was +7.3, while Duncan’s was +5.4. For reference, starting at 2002 (the first year we have this data), that +7.3 EPM is ahead of all but 8 individual playoff runs. And some of those were in relatively early playoff exits or a player who got injured in the playoffs. The only players since 2001 that had a higher playoff EPM than 2006 Wade while actually making the Finals were: 2003 Duncan, 2012 LeBron, 2016 LeBron, 2017 LeBron, and 2017 Steph. In other words, that leaves us with only the very best Finals runs of the top few players of the last 25 years. So yeah, I’d say it was a pretty all-time great playoffs statistically. And even that EPM probably undersells it, because Wade’s performances got better against the better opponents (which is obviously ideal), while the stat obviously weights every series the same.

Obviously I don't care about EPM, but let's assume for a second I did, or that others should be swayed by it; Wade isn't #1 it playoff EPM for 06 is he. I know he's not, both because we discussed it above and because you just caveated his EPM as being high 'for players who made the finals'. That's obviously a huge qualifier, because some of the greatest playoff performances of all-time came with a guy not making the finals (through no fault of his own). It just looks like winning bias to me, on a fluke title team.

His playoff EPM was easily the highest of anyone in 2006. And, as I explained, across all years, there are only 8 individual playoff runs above it. I listed the only 5 of them that actually involved going to the Finals—since obviously actually making it deep into the playoffs is of massive importance when labeling whether an individual playoff run was “all-time” or not. That leaves 3 more that were ahead of him. Those were 2009 LeBron, 2017 Kawhi, and 2019 Jokic. Obviously it’d be completely ridiculous to put 2017 Kawhi above 2006 Wade, since 2017 Kawhi got injured in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Jokic lost in the second round in 2019, so I think roughly 0% of human beings on the planet would put that above Wade’s 2006 playoffs. That leaves LeBron’s 2009, where he was great in a run that ended in the conference finals. I don’t think many people besides the biggest LeBron fans would say that that is more of an “all-time” playoff run than Wade’s 2006 run, even if there’s definitely a strong argument that LeBron was playing better individually—since making (and winning) the Finals is of massive importance in making something an all-time playoff run. But even if you included that and added it to the other five I listed, we’re really still just looking at the only runs ahead of 2006 Wade being the best playoff runs of the top few players of the last 25 years. So yeah, I’d say the idea that it was an all-time playoff run definitely checks out statistically. And, again, that’s not even getting into the fact that he upped his game in the playoffs against the better opponents, so the stat undersells how great it was.

I also don’t see how you think EPM has a “winning bias.” The whole point of objective stats like this is that they *don’t* have human biases like that. And as for the team being a “fluke title team,” again, a big reason they were a fluke winner is that Wade played so incredibly well in the playoffs.