FrodoBaggins wrote:Players with high-end offensive impact possess a combination of scoring and playmaking at volume. They can score points themselves and also create scoring opportunities for teammates. This can be considered a general rule or principle, true from the beginning of the NBA until right now.
But how rigid are the parameters?
We get a potpourri of archetypes when looking at the players considered the best offensively in NBA history. On a general level, these individuals show differing levels of scoring volume and playmaking volume. On a more granular inspection, we'd see different time of possessions, play-type usage, and movement/ground covered.
I don't have access to Box Creation stats, so here's a basic scoring-playmaking comparison of oft-mentioned offensive greats:
Harden: 24.1 ppg (25.7 per 75) --- 7.2 apg (7.73 per 75), 34.2 AST% --- [3.57 points per assist per 75]
Luka: 28.6 ppg (30.1 per 75) --- 8.2 apg (8.63 per 75), 41.6 AST% --- [3.49 points per assist per 75]
LeBron: 27.0 ppg (27.5 per 75) --- 7.1 apg (7.5 per 75), 36.5 AST% --- [3.67 points per assist per 75]
Steph: 24.7 ppg (26.55 per 75) --- 6.4 apg (6.83 per 75), 30.8 AST% --- [3.89 points per assist per 75]
Magic: 19.5 ppg (19.05 per 75) --- 11.2 apg (10.88 per 75), 40.9 AST% --- [1.75 points per assist per 75]
Nash: 14.3 ppg (17.48 per 75) --- 8.5 apg (10.35 per 75), 41.5 AST% --- [1.69 points per assist per 75]
Paul: 17.0 ppg (19.35 per 75) --- 9.2 apg (10.5 per 75), 44.1 AST% --- [1.84 points per assist per 75]
MJ: 30.1 ppg (30.3 per 75) --- 5.3 apg (5.25 per 75), 24.9 AST% --- [5.77 points per assist per 75]
Kareem: 24.6 ppg (22.43 per 75) --- 3.6 apg (3.38 per 75), 14.6 AST% --- [6.64 points per assist per 75]
Shaq: 23.7 ppg (26.4 per 75) --- 2.5 apg (2.78 per 75), 13.9 AST% --- [9.5 points per assist per 75]
Dirk: 20.7 ppg (23.93 per 75) --- 2.4 apg (2.78 per 75), 12.6 AST% --- [8.6 points per assist per 75]
Jokic: 21.8 ppg (25.28 per 75) --- 7.2 apg (8.4 per 75), 37.2 AST% --- [3.01 points per assist per 75]
Bird: 24.3 ppg (22.73 per 75) --- 6.3 apg (5.93 per 75), 24.7 AST% --- [3.83 points per assist per 75]
Obviously, era and how long they've been playing/where they're at in their careers affect the numbers. But it's more about the ratio of scoring to playmaking.
So, we've got playmaking-slanted guards (Magic, Paul, Nash), heliocentric guards (Luka, Harden), an off-ball/on-ball shooter-scorer-playmaking guard (Curry), a scoring-slanted guard (MJ), point-forwards (LeBron, Bird), a face-up/shooting PF/C (Dirk), post-up centers (Shaq, Kareem), and a point-center with post-up skills that can shoot (Jokic).
Quite the variety, and I couldn't be bothered adding Reggie, Oscar, Barkley, KD, and others.
From Shaq's 9.5 points per assist per 75 to Nash's 1.69 points per assist per 75. It's quite the range of scoring-to-playmaking ratio. It seems most put Nash, Magic, and MJ at the top, followed by Curry, LeBron, Shaq, and Jokic. And between those, the offensive archetype varies considerably.
The salient point, I guess I'm trying to make, is that high-end offensive impact comes in a variety of forms. I'm always a little confused when certain posters try to apply rigid rules to their debate, analysis, and conclusions. Suggesting a player must create this much for teammates, or individually score this much, to have a certain level of offensive impact. Some players are such dominant scorers that it compensates for comparatively lacking playmaking. Some players create so many scoring opportunities for teammates that it doesn't matter if their individual scoring lacks volume.
Shai's all-in-one offensive metrics aren't that far off from Jokic, and he's scoring and playmaking at a similar ratio to MJ and Kobe. An iso, scoring-slanted guard dominating offensively in the heliocentric era of the LeBron's, Luka's, Trae's, and Harden's. Hell, KAT's ORAPM is 7th all-time (+5.8) in Jeremias Englemann's 29-year career RAPM database, just behind CP3 (+6.0) and above Nash (+5.7). Towns' archetype is Dirk-like.
Interesting questions as usual from our resident Hobbit!
Generally I'd just agree that when we seek to put rigid boxes around how competitive success can come about in basketball (and so many other things), we're proven wrong.
I think for me Nash will always be the example of this because when the Suns started doing their think in '04-05, I did not understand it and at first refused to believe that a guy who looks like Nash and puts up the box score he did could be the most valuable player in the league...but he was. So that involved me letting go certain assumptions about what I thought I knew about the game, and it happened to coincide with the rest of the basketball world about to go through the same ordeal.
This then to say that I expect such things will keep happening, even if will typically be more subtle.
On Shai, let's say right from the jump that there's been an irrational bias against elevating him to where he deserves that's fascinating specifically because the reality is, when he plays he looks roughly like a classic Jordanian superstar. I'd chalk it up at least partially to the trend of the basketball world having this "Impossible 'til Inevitable" mindset where cynicism gives way to religiosity with a chip, and so I expect it to flip pretty hard if the Thunder win the title with Shai winning MVP, WCF MVP & F MVP.
I'd say part of the deal though has everything to do with Shai being a late bloomer in the same draft class as Luka & Trae. People jumped on the bandwagons of those guys early, and while Trae's faded from prominence, Luka's done enough to keep people on his train. People then naturally compare Shai to Luka, and find fault with Shai specifically in the areas where he's weak compared to Luka.
Add on top of that that Shai's MVP competition has been Jokic, who shares with Luka the rep for being a genius at passing, and it continues to be the knock on him that leads people to seek out other knocks. If Shai's not a genius how's he so successful? Free throw merchant! Not saying he doesn't manipulate the refs of course, just that he's far from alone at this, and all those other guys aren't putting up numbers like he does, so obviously you can't explain away what makes him special just by that criticism.
I tend to see Shai's specific outlier genius to have to do with his "slither". He's the best in the world the way he operates inside the 3-point line as a scorer due to his ability to stop & start with exceptional balance and touch. He's not the best passer in the world, but if his other advantages are big enough, he can be more valuable than the best passers, and I'd say there's a great case that this is just what he's done this year.
Re: ORAPM & KAT. Well here I think we need to start by drilling down into the epochs of KAT's career. According to nbrarapm, based on their 2 & 3 year numbers, it appears KAT peaked - both offense & overall - from around '19-20 to '21-22. What was the context at that time? KAT was on bad to mediocre teams that were generally mediocre on offense.
What was KAT's On-Court ORtg in those years:
'19-20: 113.9 (#1 team ORtg 115.9)
'20-21: 114.6 (#1 team ORtg 117.3)
'21-22: 116.9 (#1 team ORtg 116.2)
So, obviously I'm comparing his on-court to the best teams, that's good by all reasonable standards, and I like to specifically not when a player's on-court - either ORtg, DRtg, or Net - is above the best in the league. I call that TAO for "times above one".
For KAT, we've seen him achieve 2 TAOs in his career.
For comparison, here's the leaderboard we have for the PBP era for Offensive TAOs:
1. Steve Nash 12
2. Shaquille O'Neal 8
3. Kevin Durant 7
(tie) LeBron James 7
(tie) Dirk Nowitzki 7
(tie) Chris Paul 7
And just among current players:
1. Kevin Durant 7
(tie) LeBron James 7
(tie) Chris Paul 7
4. James Harden 6
(tie) Nikola Jokic 6
6. Steph Curry 5
7. Draymond Green 4
(tie) Kyrie Irving 4
(tie) Damian Lillard 4
10. Devin Booker 3
(tie) DeAndre Jordan 3
(tie) Kawhi Leonard 3
(tie) Jamal Murray 3
(tie) Russell Westbrook 3
(tie) Klay Thompson 2
Alright so, all of this doesn't necessarily mean any particular thing, but it's just something I look at when I'm thinking about exactly how awesome a team is doing (offense/defense/overall) when a player is on the court.
If a guy has high RAPM numbers, but isn't living in the TAO space, I may have questions about whether the guy in question can really keep scaling his impact as his teammates get better and the schemes get more sophisticated.
This relates to my concerns about KAT. I have concerns about KAT's decision making and passivity on offense compared to top tier offensive players, and of course, they aren't unrelated to his problems on defense.
Is it possible I'm being closed minded in thinking that in the moment intelligence and feel are necessary to reach that tippy top tier regardless of what the ORAPM says? Yes...but then I would also note, I think these are considerably bigger concerns than they were in earlier times, and I'd point to the finals we're watching right now to see how engaged players on contenders really need to be right now. Frankly, I think a lot of veterans playing right now are ill-equipped to join these finals teams, and I wonder how many of them realize it.
