Retro Player of the Year 2000-01 UPDATE — Shaq/Duncan

[tone wone]

I hope you don't have LeBron anywhere close to POY in 2018.

well there's beatdowns, and then there's beatdowns. lebron did take a pretty good whoopin' in the finals, but it was "only" by a net rating of 16 and he was carrying a +1.0 team to the finals.

the 2018 warriors had the following series net ratings (opponent regular season net rating + series net rating)
Round 1: +12.4
Round 2: +9.4
Round 3: +18.2
Round 4: +17.0

So lebron was quite the highest and was only a little above the other series average of +13.3

now the 2001 lakers:
Round 1: +20.8
Round 2: +14.6
Round 3: +33.2 (!!)
Round 4: +12.1

that +33 is double the other series average of +15.8. is there another +33 by any team in history? probably, but it must be a short list. it's almost certainly the worst net ratings (-24.6) by a +8 team in history. it really might be the greatest beatdown in playoff history. directly by the guy challenging for the POY. who also basically swept all the box score stats (#1 PER/#2 WS48/#1 BPM in regular season, #1 PER/#1 WS48 in playoffs). sweeping the box score stats while your team basically sweeps the playoffs should be an ironclad POY season by any standard. unless the other challenger just massively outplays you in a series losing effort. or keeps what should be a lopsided series real close. neither of which happened.

and making it a little even more out of line, it's not even like this is 2002/3 duncan being compared to arguably peak shaq. it's not even 2004/5 duncan. it's a DOWN YEAR from duncan. all his numbers are worse than 2000 and much worse than they would be in his amazing 2002-2005 peak. considering the previous project apparently didn't have a single vote for duncan (i just started reading this project's thread and someone said that), this is a massive shift in favor of a down year from someone who lost by maybe the wildest margin of all time. 2018 lebron has a good argument for best regular season player and no one would call his playoffs a "down year".

Has there been an explanation for why the 2001 Lakers did dramatically better in the post-season than the 2000+2002 Lakers? Like 9+ SRS better?

1. Team defense. Probably Shaq's best most active run.
2. Near outlier run offensivley from Kobe.
3. Luck

[70sFan]

Was it Duncan's fault that the Spurs shot 20% from three, while the Lakers shot 45%? Was it Duncan's fault when he scored 40 points on 67 TS%, but his teammates managed to make 12 shots?

[One_and_Done]

As covered in this thread, Duncan had the worst guard rotation for a conference finals team I think I've ever seen in recent decades.

[f4p]

I mean, Duncan got this mostly because he was the best RS player and he certainly had a better argument than LeBron in 2018 for RS MVP.

I didn't vote for Duncan and wouldn't do that,

if you didn't vote for duncan, then i guess this is just a general response to the vote. i can't see duncan as the best in the regular season through anything but the most rose-colored glasses.

he's 9th in PER, 9th in WS48, and 15th in BPM. shaq is 1st/2nd/1st and missed 1st by 0.001 in WS48 (more on that later). even if you don't like the box score, this is just bad by duncan in relation to his other prime seasons. in the 11 seasons from 2000 to 2010, it's:

2nd worst in PER (2006)
3rd worst in WS48 (2006 & 2009)
Worst in BPM

so it's either his worst or 2nd worst regular season of his whole prime. that seems a tough hill to climb to get us to "best in league in the regular season" unless his other seasons were considered leaps and bounds better than everyone else.

ok, duncan had a +12.5 on/off. that's really good. but shaq even clears him here at +15.6. i think sometimes people treat the 2001 lakers like they won 45 games. they won 56 and won their last 8. the spurs did win 58, but it's also not like shaq had a great teammate and duncan had nothing. if not for duncan playing 9 more minutes per game than robinson, it's tough to see him as obviously clear of robinson, much less everyone else in the league.

robinson is at 23.7 PER to duncan's 23.8.
robinson is at 0.246 WS48 to duncan's 0.200. that mark by robinson literally leads the league and is the reason shaq was 0.001 away from a sweep.
robinson is at 5.2 BPM to duncan's 4.7.

robinson actually beats duncan in on court plus/minus at +12.5 to +11.4 though duncan does win on/off +12.5 to +8.9.

in the playoffs:

robinson is at 24.5 PER to duncan's 25.4.
robinson is at 0.207 WS48 to duncan's 0.173.
robinson is at 6.5 BPM to duncan's 6.9.

so basically a tie, give or take. robinson also wins on court plus/minus 8.4 to 5.9 though, with terrible off minutes for both of them, duncan wins on/off +38.8 to +24.9, though it is impressive that spurs had such a bad "off" for so many more minutes with robinson off.

and just to compare robinson to kobe in the regular season, if people think winning 2 more games was an epic feat for duncan vs shaq who had tons of help:
PER: 23.7 to 24.5
WS48: 0.246 to 0.196
BPM: 5.2 to 4.8
On/Off: 8.9 vs 8.8

more minutes for kobe obviously but duncan basically got a slightly better kobe for 30 minutes and then shaq got 11 minutes i guess with kobe vs whoever on the spurs. a slightly better bargain for shaq but robinson was still really, really good.

[f4p]

Wow, how many other POYs lost a playoff series by over 20 ppg. Congrats to Timmy.

I hope you don't have LeBron anywhere close to POY in 2018.

To illustrate this further, I just looked at every single 4-0 sweep in the entire history of the NBA. There were only *three* series in NBA history where a team either had as bad of a PPG margin as the 2001 Spurs did against the Lakers (-22.2) *or* had as bad of a net rating per 100 possessions as the 2001 Spurs did (-24.6). Those were (1) the 2019 Bucks vs. Pistons series, where the Bucks had a +23.8 PPG margin and a +23.5 net rating; (2) the 2016 Spurs vs. Grizzlies series, where the Spurs had a +22.0 PPG margin and a +24.7 net rating; and (3) the 2010 Magic v. Hawks series, where the Magic had a +25.3 PPG margin and a +29.4 net rating. Only that last one is actually worse on both fronts.

wow, i was thinking of that atlanta series, but didn't realize it was literally the worst MOV ever. so i guess orlando got about a +34 from that series, which would presumably be the record since it's hard to imagine a non-sweep seeing a team winning a game and still losing by more than 25 on average.

[lessthanjake]

I hope you don't have LeBron anywhere close to POY in 2018.

To illustrate this further, I just looked at every single 4-0 sweep in the entire history of the NBA. There were only *three* series in NBA history where a team either had as bad of a PPG margin as the 2001 Spurs did against the Lakers (-22.2) *or* had as bad of a net rating per 100 possessions as the 2001 Spurs did (-24.6). Those were (1) the 2019 Bucks vs. Pistons series, where the Bucks had a +23.8 PPG margin and a +23.5 net rating; (2) the 2016 Spurs vs. Grizzlies series, where the Spurs had a +22.0 PPG margin and a +24.7 net rating; and (3) the 2010 Magic v. Hawks series, where the Magic had a +25.3 PPG margin and a +29.4 net rating. Only that last one is actually worse on both fronts.

wow, i was thinking of that atlanta series, but didn't realize it was literally the worst MOV ever. so i guess orlando got about a +34 from that series, which would presumably be the record since it's hard to imagine a non-sweep seeing a team winning a game and still losing by more than 25 on average.

Yeah, I think that’s right. It’s theoretically possible that there’s a 4-1 series lurking somewhere that has an even worse average MOV, but it’s unlikely. And, if it did exist, I still don’t think I’d consider it a bigger beatdown, since actually winning a game is a very salient fact for those purposes. That said, the other caveat is that I only looked at best-of-7 series. I imagine there’s some 3-0 series that were even worse—the smaller sample of games makes wild margins more likely.

[f4p]

To illustrate this further, I just looked at every single 4-0 sweep in the entire history of the NBA. There were only *three* series in NBA history where a team either had as bad of a PPG margin as the 2001 Spurs did against the Lakers (-22.2) *or* had as bad of a net rating per 100 possessions as the 2001 Spurs did (-24.6). Those were (1) the 2019 Bucks vs. Pistons series, where the Bucks had a +23.8 PPG margin and a +23.5 net rating; (2) the 2016 Spurs vs. Grizzlies series, where the Spurs had a +22.0 PPG margin and a +24.7 net rating; and (3) the 2010 Magic v. Hawks series, where the Magic had a +25.3 PPG margin and a +29.4 net rating. Only that last one is actually worse on both fronts.

wow, i was thinking of that atlanta series, but didn't realize it was literally the worst MOV ever. so i guess orlando got about a +34 from that series, which would presumably be the record since it's hard to imagine a non-sweep seeing a team winning a game and still losing by more than 25 on average.

Yeah, I think that’s right. It’s theoretically possible that there’s a 4-1 series lurking somewhere that has an even worse average MOV, but it’s unlikely. And, if it did exist, I still don’t think I’d consider it a bigger beatdown, since actually winning a game is a very salient fact for those purposes. That said, the other caveat is that I only looked at best-of-7 series. I imagine there’s some 3-0 series that were even worse—the smaller sample of games makes wild margins more likely.

there's actually a series where a team won 2 games and got outscored by 18.7 ppg. and won the series! because they won their 2 games by exactly 1 point and lost the other game by 58 points, which isn't just a bad loss, but literally the largest margin of victory in playoff history.

[lessthanjake]

I mean, Duncan got this mostly because he was the best RS player and he certainly had a better argument than LeBron in 2018 for RS MVP.

I didn't vote for Duncan and wouldn't do that, but I disagree that he can't compete because of 4 games in which his team was dominated. It's another matter had he played horribly in that series, but it's not the case - Duncan didn't play that badly to explain the massive letdown the Spurs had.

I think if your team is given objectively one of the top few worst beatdowns in a best-of-7 series in NBA history, then it is safe to say that their star player did not play well. I’ve not watched the series anytime recently. And the scoring efficiency in the series looks okay from Duncan, but I bet if we rewatched the series we’d find that there were serious problems, such as his defense being subpar, missing passing reads, having bad turnovers, failing to clean the defensive glass as much as he should, etc. This is such an outlier of a series in the entire annals of NBA history that it’s unimaginable to me that it could’ve happened if Duncan was even remotely good. Of course, as I’ve said in this thread, it’s also such an outlier of a series that it doesn’t happen without his supporting cast doing badly. Everyone on the Spurs needed to be pretty bad for them to get utterly annihilated so badly that only one team in NBA history has ever clearly been destroyed worse in a 7-game series!

[tone wone]

wow, i was thinking of that atlanta series, but didn't realize it was literally the worst MOV ever. so i guess orlando got about a +34 from that series, which would presumably be the record since it's hard to imagine a non-sweep seeing a team winning a game and still losing by more than 25 on average.

Yeah, I think that’s right. It’s theoretically possible that there’s a 4-1 series lurking somewhere that has an even worse average MOV, but it’s unlikely. And, if it did exist, I still don’t think I’d consider it a bigger beatdown, since actually winning a game is a very salient fact for those purposes. That said, the other caveat is that I only looked at best-of-7 series. I imagine there’s some 3-0 series that were even worse—the smaller sample of games makes wild margins more likely.

there's actually a series where a team won 2 games and got outscored by 18.7 ppg. and won the series! because they won their 2 games by exactly 1 point and lost the other game by 58 points, which isn't just a bad loss, but literally the largest margin of victory in playoff history.

2017 ECFs is notable. 4-1 CLE outscoring BOS by 89pts across 5gms (17.8). 23ppg margin in the 4 wins

[70sFan]

I mean, Duncan got this mostly because he was the best RS player and he certainly had a better argument than LeBron in 2018 for RS MVP.

I didn't vote for Duncan and wouldn't do that, but I disagree that he can't compete because of 4 games in which his team was dominated. It's another matter had he played horribly in that series, but it's not the case - Duncan didn't play that badly to explain the massive letdown the Spurs had.

I think if your team is given objectively one of the top few worst beatdowns in a best-of-7 series in NBA history, then it is safe to say that their star player did not play well. I’ve not watched the series anytime recently. And the scoring efficiency in the series looks okay from Duncan, but I bet if we rewatched the series we’d find that there were serious problems, such as his defense being subpar, missing passing reads, having bad turnovers, failing to clean the defensive glass as much as he should, etc. This is such an outlier of a series in the entire annals of NBA history that it’s unimaginable to me that it could’ve happened if Duncan was even remotely good. Of course, as I’ve said in this thread, it’s also such an outlier of a series that it doesn’t happen without his supporting cast doing badly. Everyone on the Spurs needed to be pretty bad for them to get utterly annihilated so badly that only one team in NBA history has ever clearly been destroyed worse in a 7-game series!

I mean, you're free to rewatch these games. I haven't watched it in a while (I tracked Shaq games like 3 years ago) but I don't remember Duncan being horrible in these games. Especially not in the one in which he scored half of his team's points.

Maybe it's a good idea to rewatch the series, though I have a lot of basketball work to do before and very little time for basketball. I'd be pleased to see anyone doing some work on that series.

[OhayoKD]

I mean, Duncan got this mostly because he was the best RS player and he certainly had a better argument than LeBron in 2018 for RS MVP.

I didn't vote for Duncan and wouldn't do that,

if you didn't vote for duncan, then i guess this is just a general response to the vote. i can't see duncan as the best in the regular season through anything but the most rose-colored glasses.
the spurs did win 58, but it's also not like shaq had a great teammate and duncan had nothing. i

Duncan's team won more and posted the higher SRS. For there to be an actual argument for Shaq in the regular-season you need to convincingly argue Shaq had more help. Personally, I think pushing a 35 year old sub-30 minute rim-protector who thus far hasn't looked like a significantly higher usage rim-protector than rookie/sophmore Duncan when he was 1-2 years younger:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2425267
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2430970

pretty much doubles as a concession you are not genuinely capable of arguing for Shaq having less help...in which case those made-up formula outputs you posted really do not mean anything.

Duncan vs Shaq is only a debate for this year because of the playoffs during which Duncan outplayed Shaq offensively in 2 (the most important 2 at that) of their 4 head to head games while Kobe played like the real POY decimating San Antonio's guards. The times they met-up before and after that (1999, 2002) Duncan straight up dominated Shaq, outright outscoring him.

Duncan is a flat-out better player and therefore can be better than Shaq in down-years. Hinging your newest Timmy takedown on 29-minute David Robinson speaks for itself.

[f4p]

I mean, Duncan got this mostly because he was the best RS player and he certainly had a better argument than LeBron in 2018 for RS MVP.

I didn't vote for Duncan and wouldn't do that,

if you didn't vote for duncan, then i guess this is just a general response to the vote. i can't see duncan as the best in the regular season through anything but the most rose-colored glasses.
the spurs did win 58, but it's also not like shaq had a great teammate and duncan had nothing. i

Duncan's team won more and posted the higher SRS. For there to be an actual argument for Shaq in the regular-season you need to convincingly argue Shaq had more help. Personally, I think pushing a 35 year old sub-30 minute rim-protector who thus far hasn't looked like a significantly higher usage rim-protector than rookie/sophmore Duncan when he was 1-2 years younger:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2425267
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2430970

pretty much doubles as a concession you are not genuinely capable of arguing for Shaq having less help...in which case those made-up formula outputs you posted really do not mean anything.

Yeah, they're completely made up. The best players just weirdly always have the higher numbers. Must be a coincidence. And of course Shaq didn't exactly just sort of beat Duncan, he crushed him by 25% to 50% in these stats. That's a whole lot of margin to account for any possible "made up-ness" in the numbers. At some point "the box score means nothing" protestations start to mean nothing.

And of course, going back to that sub 30 minute (29.6, lol) player. Robinson had more win shares than Kobe whole playing 400 fewer minutes. So I was actually wrong in thinking Shaq got the better of it. The spurs could literally fill in those 400 minutes with a G-league player (which they didn't) and still be coming out ahead. And Robinson's pre-Duncan career should make it pretty clear that his regular season numbers did indeed translate to a whole lot of regular season wins.

Certainly not every player who has ever won 2 more games than someone else was automatically the better player.

Duncan vs Shaq is only a debate for this year because of the playoffs during which Duncan outplayed Shaq offensively in 2 (the most important 2 at that) of their 4 head to head games

Luckily shaq didn't treat games 3 and 4 in 2004 as pointless because the Lakers were the ones down 2-0. They just went ahead and won the series (why are you guys making me say nice things about the early 2000s Lakers!).


[/Quote]while Kobe played like the real POY decimating San Antonio's guards. The times they met-up before and after that (1999, 2002) Duncan straight up dominated Shaq, outright outscoring him.

Duncan is a flat-out better player and therefore can be better than Shaq in down-years. Hinging your newest Timmy takedown on 29-minute David Robinson speaks for itself.[/quote]

Tim Duncan in maybe his worst prime year can be better than Shaq in maybe his best or at worst second best? That's about a 99.9 percentile outlier positive view of the Duncan vs Shaq comparison.

[70sFan]

Yeah, they're completely made up. The best players just weirdly always have the higher numbers. Must be a coincidence. And of course Shaq didn't exactly just sort of beat Duncan, he crushed him by 25% to 50% in these stats. That's a whole lot of margin to account for any possible "made up-ness" in the numbers. At some point "the box score means nothing" protestations start to mean nothing.

They are made up, though it doesn't mean they are useless. They are highly influenced by offensive production though and nobody denies that Shaq is a better offensive player than Duncan.

And of course, going back to that sub 30 minute (29.6, lol) player. Robinson had more win shares than Kobe whole playing 400 fewer minutes. So I was actually wrong in thinking Shaq got the better of it. The spurs could literally fill in those 400 minutes with a G-league player (which they didn't) and still be coming out ahead.

Yeah, that's not how win shares work...

And Robinson's pre-Duncan career should make it pretty clear that his regular season numbers did indeed translate to a whole lot of regular season wins.

Sure, but Robinson's pre-Duncan career was completely different than 35 years old Robinson.

Are we really arguing about who was better in 2001 between Kobe and Robinson?

[f4p]

Yeah, they're completely made up. The best players just weirdly always have the higher numbers. Must be a coincidence. And of course Shaq didn't exactly just sort of beat Duncan, he crushed him by 25% to 50% in these stats. That's a whole lot of margin to account for any possible "made up-ness" in the numbers. At some point "the box score means nothing" protestations start to mean nothing.

They are made up, though it doesn't mean they are useless. They are highly influenced by offensive production though and nobody denies that Shaq is a better offensive player than Duncan.

they are made up in the sense that every all-in-one stat we use is made-up. RAPM is someone's formula for taking into account a billion lineups, some of which barely cross over. with all sorts of prior adjustments, etc. and then plenty of things people like to quote are combinations of made up RAPM and made up box score metrics.

the box score numbers make use of very non-made-up box score stats. unless we're going to pretend like scoring points and grabbing rebounds and blocking shots are not usually done by the people capable of doing them, i would say the box score tells us a lot, especially if the differences are massive and not miniscule (i mean the only thing the Top 100 project liked as much as box score production was "ringz"). also, it's not really clear the box score doesn't end up rewarding defense (Ohayo will tell you it likes blocks and steals way too much). it might not reward no-stats all stars like battier, but hakeem and duncan are 2 of the best ever in PER, especially in the playoffs. if there's a bias, it again is not on the order of the difference between 2001 shaq and 2001 duncan.

And of course, going back to that sub 30 minute (29.6, lol) player. Robinson had more win shares than Kobe whole playing 400 fewer minutes. So I was actually wrong in thinking Shaq got the better of it. The spurs could literally fill in those 400 minutes with a G-league player (which they didn't) and still be coming out ahead.

Yeah, that's not how win shares work...

if we're working from the idea that the metric is doing what it proposes to do (accounting for wins created by a player) and not that it is meaningless, i'm pretty sure that's exactly how it works. david robinson added more "wins" to his team than kobe (this is cumulative, not per 48). and there were still 400 more minutes for someone else to create wins in the minutes drob didn't play that kobe did. since basically no one ever has negative win shares, then taking win shares at face value means drob + 400 minutes of anybody created more wins in the 2001 regular season than kobe. whether you want to believe win shares is another matter.

And Robinson's pre-Duncan career should make it pretty clear that his regular season numbers did indeed translate to a whole lot of regular season wins.

Sure, but Robinson's pre-Duncan career was completely different than 35 years old Robinson.

well sure. but pre-Duncan Robinson (not to be confused with the era before Miami Heat great Duncan Robinson) was putting up much much better numbers. and winning 55 to 60 regular season games with no real second star. in other words, he was seemingly impacting winning about as much as the numbers would indicate, at least in the regular season. and certainly at a far higher level than any kobe season. so i don't see why drob still putting up 80% of those numbers would suddenly fall way below kobe, who certainly was not at his regular season peak, even if he obviously added much more help in the playoffs, with maybe his best playoffs ever.

Are we really arguing about who was better in 2001 between Kobe and Robinson?

in the 2001 regular season? yeah, i would think we would. let's not pretend all of a sudden everyone here just thinks kobe is impacting wins like crazy . or that they are low on david robinson. especially since we're talking 80 games of drob and 68 games of kobe, which as mentioned reduces their minutes difference to give kobe only about a 15% advantage in minutes. do i think 2001 david robinson was probably 15% more valuable (especially in the pre three point era) than regular season kobe? probably. or certainly within the margin of error to discuss it.

[OhayoKD]

if you didn't vote for duncan, then i guess this is just a general response to the vote. i can't see duncan as the best in the regular season through anything but the most rose-colored glasses.
the spurs did win 58, but it's also not like shaq had a great teammate and duncan had nothing. i

Duncan's team won more and posted the higher SRS. For there to be an actual argument for Shaq in the regular-season you need to convincingly argue Shaq had more help. Personally, I think pushing a 35 year old sub-30 minute rim-protector who thus far hasn't looked like a significantly higher usage rim-protector than rookie/sophmore Duncan when he was 1-2 years younger:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2425267
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2430970

pretty much doubles as a concession you are not genuinely capable of arguing for Shaq having less help...in which case those made-up formula outputs you posted really do not mean anything.

Yeah, they're completely made up. The best players just weirdly always have the higher numbers.

You know I was going to respond to what you were saying but I really really need to share this new advanced stat I've found. It's called "F4Ps/40". Let me take you through the formula. First we use a couple numbers which usually the best players have more of:

PPs/40 poss (primary protections) and PPG/40 poss (points per game). Then we multiply the first by 72 points and the second by 0.3 points (early rapm tests suggests this is a positively correlative combination!).

Here's an example of how it works.

Jordan so far is averaging 2.4 PPs/40 Possessions and itmakesnodifferenceforthisthoughtexercise # of points

Oakley is averaging 13.5 PPs/40 possessions and itmakesnodifferenceforthisthoughtexercise # of points

therefore Jordan scores 173 F4Ps/40 while Oakley scores 965 F4Ps/40.

That's a whole lot of margin to account for any "made up-ness" in those numbers. I think only through the most rose-colored glasses we could assume Jordan is a better player than Oakley. (Seriously, why are you guys making me stick up for a Knick!)

Certainly not every player who has ever won 2 more games than someone else was automatically the better player.

They probably are if they had less help. Which you know you can't seriously argue which is why you completely ducked the basketball portion of my post:

Spoiler:

Duncan's team won more and posted the higher SRS. For there to be an actual argument for Shaq in the regular-season you need to convincingly argue Shaq had more help. Personally, I think pushing a 35 year old sub-30 minute rim-protector who thus far hasn't looked like a significantly higher usage rim-protector than rookie/sophmore Duncan when he was 1-2 years younger:
viewtopic.php?t=2425267
viewtopic.php?t=2430970

Unfortunately for us, Duncan naively played every game in his 2 best regular seasons and didn't have the good sense to retire for a season, miss 60 games in another one, or get drafted to a team where David Robinson wasn't in street clothes waiting for the opportunity to carry him. Fortunately for us we do have another way to compare these players without deliberately using formulas that ignore every time Shaq is blownby, allows an easy 2 with poor positioning while reducing the contributions of arguably the league's best defender to the tiny fraction of possessions he happens to touch the ball.

And what would you know, despite playing with a teammate who has way more overlap and a coach with zero-track record of the impact Phil Jackson has showcased in Chicago. Duncan consistently looks better or much better:
https://www.thespax.com/nba/quantifying-the-nbas-greatest-five-year-peaks-since-1997/

Maybe instead of insisting we should call round things flat because "the best players have higher numbers", you can find me a game in 2001 or 2000 or 1999 where rim-protecting specialist David Robinson is a significantly higher-used paint-protector than Tim Duncan. Though something tells me by the time you've gone through enough footage to find that, you'd realise how absolutely asinine it was to argue that geriatric David Robinson was a better teammate than prime Kobe Bryant.

[therealbig3]

I mean, I know Shaq gets the lion's share of credit for the 3-peat Lakers, while Kobe gets relegated to being second option, but I think in 01 specifically, there's a really strong case to be made that Kobe was their best player during that playoff run.

For example, the Lakers actually did better offensively in those playoffs (by a lot) in the Kobe on/Shaq off minutes than vice versa. Shaq's on/off in those playoffs was actually a negative, and that was because the Lakers played a lot worse offensively with him on the court. Small sample size noise, strategy, rotations, sure, but it's not pointing to Shaq being massively better than Kobe, especially on offense. In fact, I'd say it's because Kobe was able to carry the Lakers offense with Shaq off the court, and in fact drive them to higher levels when he was the focal point, for whatever reason, that made that Lakers team so unbeatable. It's pretty consistent with guards generally being more capable of running high level offenses than big men, especially a big man that does need high level guard play in order to maximize his impact (Penny, Kobe, Wade).

If you want to argue that Shaq was defensively a force in a way Kobe wasn't, and therefore was still the better player, I won't debate that, but defense was never Shaq's calling card in terms of his greatness. He's pretty clearly the weakest defensive player compared to the other GOAT-level bigs (Kareem, Hakeem, Duncan, Russell, Wilt, Garnett). Jokic is really the only other one that is putting himself in that conversation on the basis of amazing offense and average defense. And this was a time when Kobe was a very strong defensive wing.

IDK, food for thought. FWIW, I don't think Duncan played well at all, I actually don't think either him or Shaq did. Kobe was the one that dominated and led the Lakers to the impressive sweep. I think Shaq tends to be treated as the clearly better player at this time because:

1. he was clearly the best player the year prior and the Lakers won
2. the Lakers won in impressive fashion throughout the playoffs and went on to win the title again
3. him being the best got further reinforced with their win in 2002 and the completion of the 3-peat, which makes most people look back at this overall stretch as Shaq's era, without really taking a look at how he did individually as much

I think it's perfectly fine to pick Duncan. I think he definitely struggled against the Lakers front line (he never did well going up against Shaq, and they had Horace Grant to stifle him as well), but he has always been a significantly better defender. Shaq when he's not dominating offensively, loses a ton of value compared to other all-time bigs, because his defense is so weak compared to theirs. Yeah he's a rim protector and an intimidating presence, but even with effort, he's a liability in terms of PnR, defending shooters, switching, court coverage, transition defense, etc. He was somewhat lucky to be in an era where these weaknesses weren't targeted the way they would relentlessly be in other eras.

[lessthanjake]

For what it’s worth, it’s not just Win Shares that would tell us 2001 Robinson was a similarly or more impactful player than 2001 Kobe. RAPM tells us the same thing.

For instance, if we look at the NBArapm website, we can look at any time horizon and see Robinson looking substantially more impactful. For example, if we look at three-year RAPM from 2000-2002, Robinson is at +4.2, while Kobe is at +2.7. If we look at two-year RAPM, Robinson is at +4.3 for 2000 to 2001, and is at +3.9 for 2001 to 2002. Kobe’s numbers there are both +3.3. This measure includes playoffs so it’s not perfect as a measure of just RS impact, but it does tell us a story.

Of course, those numbers are not one-year RAPM, and while one-year RAPM is very noisy, it might be relevant to look at when discussing one year in particular. So let’s look at TheBasketballDatabase’s one-year RAPM in 2001. That has Robinson at +3.48 in 2001 (which was 9th in the NBA), while it has Kobe at +3.38 (which was 11th in the NBA). Engelmann’s PI RAPM has Robinson at +4.0 and Kobe at +4.1. The GitLab RAPM has Robinson at +3.4536 and Kobe at +2.1984. There’s probably some other form of one-year RAPM for 2001 that’s out there, but those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

Meanwhile, in terms of Box-RAPM hybrid models, Real Plus Minus had Robinson at +5.84, while Kobe was at +4.69. They had an estimated WINS version of the stat, and that had Robinson at 13.43 and Kobe at 14.29 (it also had Shaq at 19.82 wins added, and Duncan at 17.57). DPM also exists for 2001, and while it isn’t really meant for these retrospective purposes, FWIW it had 2001 Kobe at +3.2 and 2001 Robinson at +4.8.

On balance, I’d say the data suggests that 2001 Robinson was more impactful than 2001 Kobe, but when we account for Kobe having more minutes, it probably ends up looking pretty similar in terms of RS impact.

[therealbig3]

RAPM isn't a player ranking tool though, Robinson was a really good player, but was an older veteran on a team that limited his minutes, and was clearly more of a defensive specialist at that point.

Still an outstanding player, but in that specific role, he had a certain level of impact. Kobe in his role was doing it for more minutes and was clearly more of an offensive focal point. In many ways he was the Pippen not just because he was a more secondary option in the triangle, but because he was actually running the offense. And he did a great job at that. Robinson was better in his role than Kobe's in his, but it was a more limited role, clearly.

Also to be fair, Kobe missed 14 games, Robinson missed 2 games. Very easy argument to make that if Kobe also played 80 games, the Lakers probably clear 60 wins and the point about Duncan leading his team to more wins despite less help is irrelevant, because it wouldn't have been the case.

[Primedeion]

2001 RAPM (RS+PS):
Bryant: 4.39 (#3 in the league)
Shaq: 4.37 (#4 in the league)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/11181n4avq5wefk/AABLySVPmcZXb0uiGPEk53fpa/2001.txt?dl=0

Kobe should have been in the top 2. Best postseason performer/player on the best postseason ever, and phenomenal in the RS.

[One_and_Done]

2001 RAPM (RS+PS):
Bryant: 4.39 (#3 in the league)
Shaq: 4.37 (#4 in the league)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/11181n4avq5wefk/AABLySVPmcZXb0uiGPEk53fpa/2001.txt?dl=0

Kobe should have been in the top 2. Best postseason performer/player on the best postseason ever, and phenomenal in the RS.

1) Kobe is 3rd in RAPM. If that's the metric we should use, why does he deserve to be top 2 based on it?
2) Where would Kobe rank in RAPM other years?

This feels like an extremely selective use of a stat.