#1 Offenses in the League Since 1955

[bledredwine]

Yeah 2009 was most certainly Billups as the best offensive player. There's more to offense than scoring yourself.

Absolutely not.

No real statistical argument for Melo being better offensively than Billups in 2009. You'd have to make a case. (Please don't make the case based on PPG or vibes.)

Billups was a pretty transformational floor general in his late prime.

Wrong. 09 playoffs Melo PER- 24.3, Chauncey - 22.0,

That’s a stat that should favor Chauncey too.

And if you actually watched, you’d know that Melo was even the better defender against LA.

Melo gets too much hate and it’s from the same guys who like to hate Kobe.

[dhsilv2]

Absolutely not.

The nuggets needed both as OG15 said above, but yes Billups was the more important offensive player for that team. There's a reason their offense improved so much from the AI trade for Billups.

Even in that Laker's series you cited, the won game 4 on Billups play and won game 2 because both had excellent games.

For you as well-

2008-09 playoffs

Melo - 24.3 PER

Chauncey - 22.0

Melo was the more dominant player and really showed up. He also did a fantastic job
guarding Kobe after not being much of a defender.

PER includes blocks, steals and rebounds and has a bias for forwards which is why John's VALUE added metrics consider lower PER's among guards of equal value to higher values for forwards.

OBPM 5.8 vs 4.5 favoring Billups. It was most certainly Billups who was driving their offense that year, but of course the two worked together. Billups made Melo a better player which is the job of a great point guard.

[bledredwine]

The nuggets needed both as OG15 said above, but yes Billups was the more important offensive player for that team. There's a reason their offense improved so much from the AI trade for Billups.

Even in that Laker's series you cited, the won game 4 on Billups play and won game 2 because both had excellent games.

For you as well-

2008-09 playoffs

Melo - 24.3 PER

Chauncey - 22.0

Melo was the more dominant player and really showed up. He also did a fantastic job
guarding Kobe after not being much of a defender.

PER includes blocks, steals and rebounds and has a bias for forwards which is why John's VALUE added metrics consider lower PER's among guards of equal value to higher values for forwards.

OBPM 5.8 vs 4.5 favoring Billups. It was most certainly Billups who was driving their offense that year, but of course the two worked together. Billups made Melo a better player which is the job of a great point guard.

Why would you not include assists? PER heavily favors point players and then centers. I followed many many games that season and not once did I hear “Chauncey Billups and the nuggets” This is revisionist history.

[cpower]

Maybe, but not in the year they nearly beat LAL to go to the finals. I was a big fan of that team. Melo was on fire and also crushed it in the playoffs, nearly beating LA. No question he was their best player that year. 2009? I forgot.

He was also the most clutch player that year by a significant margin. I'm not saying you're wrong about that particular year... but we've got to put respect on prime Melo's name.

does not matter, no amount of clutch basket can save his iso ball style. In 2011 he was -1.2 Ortg in RS and -26 Ortg in PS.singlehandily suffocated the offense.

2008-09 playoffs

Melo - 24.3 PER

Chauncey - 22.0

Melo was the more dominant player and really showed up. He also did a fantastic job
guarding Kobe after not being much of a defender.

you missed the efficiency
Billups - 66%TS 6.1 BPM
Melo - 56%TS 5 BPM

[dhsilv2]

For you as well-

2008-09 playoffs

Melo - 24.3 PER

Chauncey - 22.0

Melo was the more dominant player and really showed up. He also did a fantastic job
guarding Kobe after not being much of a defender.

PER includes blocks, steals and rebounds and has a bias for forwards which is why John's VALUE added metrics consider lower PER's among guards of equal value to higher values for forwards.

OBPM 5.8 vs 4.5 favoring Billups. It was most certainly Billups who was driving their offense that year, but of course the two worked together. Billups made Melo a better player which is the job of a great point guard.

Why would you not include assists? PER heavily favors point players and then centers. I followed nearly every game that season and not once did I hear “Chauncey Billios and the nuggets”

I didn't ignore assists. I said PER includes things like steals and blocks and rebounds (defensive obviously is what I was talking about) which aren't offense based. You can in general say PER is an offensive biased metric but it is not a pure offensive metric.

PER actually when relooking seems to think small forwards are shooting guards are weaker vs power forwards so I'll retract my statement as melo was listed as a small forward despite my general view he played more a like a power forward.

But just to add another metric OWS 2.8 vs 1.9 also favoring Billups. So the two box metrics we have that are pure offensive metrics both show a strong edge here for Billups in the playoffs.

https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_2009.html

Just to throw this out, here's xRAPM for 2009 as well, now this is season and not pure playoffs biased but it paints a stronger picture and it follows my point that Billups made Melo a better player. Which again, I'm not saying this to knock Melo. It's more about how excellent Billups was in 2009. He was a legit 2nd tier MVP type player that year. We've had worse guys win MVP imo. Especially when talking offense.

[cpower]

For you as well-

2008-09 playoffs

Melo - 24.3 PER

Chauncey - 22.0

Melo was the more dominant player and really showed up. He also did a fantastic job
guarding Kobe after not being much of a defender.

PER includes blocks, steals and rebounds and has a bias for forwards which is why John's VALUE added metrics consider lower PER's among guards of equal value to higher values for forwards.

OBPM 5.8 vs 4.5 favoring Billups. It was most certainly Billups who was driving their offense that year, but of course the two worked together. Billups made Melo a better player which is the job of a great point guard.

Why would you not include assists? PER heavily favors point players and then centers. I followed many many games that season and not once did I hear “Chauncey Billups and the nuggets” This is revisionist history.

it's not.. there are certain players that get media narrative on their side all the time and not necessarily reflective of their basketball ability ... Melo is one of them. we had a top 100 list last year and Melo was not a part of it, Billups is #66...and now you know why.

[dhsilv2]

PER includes blocks, steals and rebounds and has a bias for forwards which is why John's VALUE added metrics consider lower PER's among guards of equal value to higher values for forwards.

OBPM 5.8 vs 4.5 favoring Billups. It was most certainly Billups who was driving their offense that year, but of course the two worked together. Billups made Melo a better player which is the job of a great point guard.

Why would you not include assists? PER heavily favors point players and then centers. I followed many many games that season and not once did I hear “Chauncey Billups and the nuggets” This is revisionist history.

it's not.. there are certain players that get media narrative on their side all the time and not necessarily reflective of their basketball ability ... Melo is one of them. we had a top 100 list last year and Melo was not a part of it, Billups is #66...and now you know why.

To be fair if Melo's whole career was like his 2009 playoff run, he'd be on that list.

[cupcakesnake]

not sure what that (+xx) mean, above league average? but anyhow, Nash Dirks team dominant at that. Wild to remember that team had Nash and Dirk to spam pick and rolls, at a time, we didn't knew what we had in Nash yet.

What's crazier is that they didn't spam pick & rolls. Don Nelson loved to variety in his offense, so sometimes Nash would be standing in the corner so Finley or Van Exel could do stuff with the ball (or later: Antoine and Antawn). Can't argue with the regular season results, but I wish Nelson was less of a tinkerer come playoff time and more of a spammer.

[zimpy27]

Only thing I don't like about relative O rating is that it's not scaling to the average and simply just looks for the difference to average.

Like Celtics 23-24 were +7.9 rOrting but if you account for the fact that it's easier to score above average if the average is higher then it was +6.9.

Meanwhile the Mavs 01-02 were +7.7 rOrting but if you scale to average then they were at +7.4.

[Doctor MJ]

This list contains the #1 offense (by rORtg) of every season since the shot clock so 1955.

I like analyses like this because they really give us a window for reliably outlier performances.

I'll add a parallel analysis here for the +/- era:

Who had the best On-Court ORtg among big minute players who played most the games.

Using 30 MPG as the cutoff (arbitrary) and using the 65/82 fraction rule from the NBA (also arbitrary), here's what we get starting from '96-97:

'96-97: Jeff Hornacek (Uta) 115.9
'97-98: Jeff Hornacek (Uta) 113.5
'98-99: Shaquille O'Neal (LAL) 109.7
'99-00: Karl Malone (Uta) 109.4
'00-01: Shaquille O'Neal (LAL) 111.0
'01-02: Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) 112.8
'02-03: Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) 112.2
'03-04: Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) 112.1
'04-05: Steve Nash (Phx) 118.6
'05-06: Steve Nash (Phx) 112.3
'06-07: Steve Nash (Phx) 116.7
'07-08: Steve Nash (Phx) 116.3
'08-09: Steve Nash (Phx) 114.9
'09-10: Steve Nash (Phx) 116.1
'10-11: Dwyane Wade (Mia) 112.8
'11-12: James Harden (OKC) 113.3
'12-13: Chris Paul (LAC) 114.3
'13-14: DeAndre Jordan (LAC) 113.0
'14-15: Blake Griffin (LAC) 116.9
'15-16: Steph Curry (GS) 117.5
'16-17: Steph Curry (GS) 120.9
'17-18: Eric Gordon (Hou) 116.4
'18-19: Steph Curry (GS) 119.5
'19-20: Luka Doncic (Dal) 116.7
'20-21: Nikola Jokic (Den) 120.2
'21-22: Jrue Holiday (Mil) 118.2
'22-23: Nikola Jokic (Den) 124.2
'23-24: Tyrese Haliburton (Ind) 122.4
'24-25: Nikola Jokic (Den) 125.7 (so far)

[Bornstellar]

That 2012 Spurs team was so fun to watch. Should have been in the Finals vs Miami but the refs had their orders

[Djoker]

...

I like that. Added relative numbers in parentheses.

'96-97: Jeff Hornacek (Uta) 115.9 (+9.2)
'97-98: Jeff Hornacek (Uta) 113.5 (+8.5)
'98-99: Shaquille O'Neal (LAL) 109.7 (+7.5)
'99-00: Karl Malone (Uta) 109.4 (+5.3)
'00-01: Shaquille O'Neal (LAL) 111.0 (+8.0)
'01-02: Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) 112.8 (+8.3)
'02-03: Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) 112.2 (+8.6)
'03-04: Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) 112.1 (+9.2)
'04-05: Steve Nash (Phx) 118.6 (+12.5)
'05-06: Steve Nash (Phx) 112.3 (+6.1)
'06-07: Steve Nash (Phx) 116.7 (+10.2)
'07-08: Steve Nash (Phx) 116.3 (+8.8)
'08-09: Steve Nash (Phx) 114.9 (+6.6)
'09-10: Steve Nash (Phx) 116.1 (+8.5)
'10-11: Dwyane Wade (Mia) 112.8 (+5.5)
'11-12: James Harden (OKC) 113.3 (+8.7)
'12-13: Chris Paul (LAC) 114.3 (+8.4)
'13-14: DeAndre Jordan (LAC) 113.0 (+6.3)
'14-15: Blake Griffin (LAC) 116.9 (+11.3)
'15-16: Steph Curry (GS) 117.5 (+11.1)
'16-17: Steph Curry (GS) 120.9 (+12.1)
'17-18: Eric Gordon (Hou) 116.4 (+7.8)
'18-19: Steph Curry (GS) 119.5 (+9.1)
'19-20: Luka Doncic (Dal) 116.7 (+6.1)
'20-21: Nikola Jokic (Den) 120.2 (+7.9)
'21-22: Jrue Holiday (Mil) 118.2 (+6.2)
'22-23: Nikola Jokic (Den) 124.2 (+9.4)
'23-24: Tyrese Haliburton (Ind) 122.4 (+7.1)
'24-25: Nikola Jokic (Den) 125.7 (+11.6)

This year's Jokic so far 3rd on the list behind only 2005 Nash and 2017 Curry.

[ballzboyee]

Magic = GOAT.

Well, he had a lot of help. In the '86 season, for example, Magic was 3rd in the MVP voting, Kareem was 5th, and Worthy was 12th. It's not as if Giannis or Jokic, to cite two examples, ever had teammates at the level.

Sure, but all greats had hall of fame help. Magic is the best all-around offensive player I have ever seen. Maybe not as complete as other GOAT candidates, but his offensive genius was other worldly. I'd draft him over Jordan or Lebron. Even without Kareem or Worthy he's still producing elite offenses during that era.

[Mr Puddles]

Lots of Steve Nash led offenses. Very smart of Mark Cuban to let him walk to Phoenix.

Didn't pay 65 mil for 6 years of Steve Nash, only to turn around that same off-season and pay 73 mil for 7 seasons of Eric Dampier.

[Onlytimewilltel]

Lots of Steve Nash led offenses. Very smart of Mark Cuban to let him walk to Phoenix.

Didn't pay 65 mil for 6 years of Steve Nash, only to turn around that same off-season and pay 73 mil for 7 seasons of Eric Dampier.

Clearly the right decision, Nash was small and white, Dampier was …. big..

[Djoker]

Fun Fact: KD is the only star to have a #1 offense on three different teams: 2013 Thunder, 2017/2019 Warriors, 2021 Nets.

[Doctor MJ]

Fun Fact: KD is the only star to have a #1 offense on three different teams: 2013 Thunder, 2017/2019 Warriors, 2021 Nets.

And yet, he never had the highest On-Court ORtg, which speaks to what incredible talent he's been able to play with in city after city.

[Doctor MJ]

not sure what that (+xx) mean, above league average? but anyhow, Nash Dirks team dominant at that. Wild to remember that team had Nash and Dirk to spam pick and rolls, at a time, we didn't knew what we had in Nash yet.

What's crazier is that they didn't spam pick & rolls. Don Nelson loved to variety in his offense, so sometimes Nash would be standing in the corner so Finley or Van Exel could do stuff with the ball (or later: Antoine and Antawn). Can't argue with the regular season results, but I wish Nelson was less of a tinkerer come playoff time and more of a spammer.

Yup, the sad truth about Nelson's coaching. He had a great coaching career by all normal standards, but he wasn't a guy who saw the best way that no one else saw and bet everything on it. He was instead someone who was in love with trying different things, sometimes stumbled on something amazing, but would follow that up with something in the other direction.

In fairness to Nelson, he absolutely didn't want Dallas to let Nash go, so that's not on him...

but prior to that point the franchise had added a slew of volume scorers whose addition meant marginalizing Nash, which made it harder to justify to ownership why Nash should be kept. And again, maybe that should be blamed on Cuban entirely, it fits with how Nelson tended to work and I'm not aware of him blaming Cuban for the acquisition of Van Exel, Walker & Jamison the way he did with letting Nash go.

[lessthanjake]

Just want to note that I think there’s some disagreement on what team was the #1 offense in certain years, because different websites have different ways to measure how many possessions there were.

So, for instance, on Basketball-Reference, the 2006 Mavs had the highest ORTG in the NBA, barely ahead of the Suns. But on PBPStats, that is flipped, with the Suns being barely ahead of the Mavs. Not sure off the top of my head if there’s any other instances of this.

[NZB2323]

2022 Gobert should get more credit. Their whole offense was built on him screening and rim running.