RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 — 1974 Kareem-Abdul Jabbar

Moderators: penbeast0, PaulieWal, Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ, trex_8063

trelos6
Senior
Posts: 539
And1: 221
Joined: Jun 17, 2022
Location: Sydney

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#141 » by trelos6 » Thu Jul 17, 2025 11:14 am

Elpolo_14 wrote:
Wait Jokic playoff only 20 PPG per 75 ? By Databallr Jokic is 28.6 PPG per 75 in his championship run.

Wouldn't Lebron PS rTS be +5.6 rTS ( Bron was 58.5TS% vs PS average 52.9 TS% )

MJ PS rTS be +5.3 rTS ( MJ was 60.0 TS% vs PS average 54.7 TS% )

Or the rTS PS are comparing to the regular season TS average instead? ( If that the case would rTS% Adj. To defense faced Be more compelling to use to see which defense they were facing? )


Jokic is wrong. Looks like he was 29 pp75.

PS rTS were based off RS TS average. It’s close enough. For sure, defense faced needs to be taken into context. Eg. This year, Jokic went up against Clips and Thunder, 2 great defensive teams. So his % took a big hit.
Djoker
Starter
Posts: 2,110
And1: 1,817
Joined: Sep 12, 2015
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#142 » by Djoker » Thu Jul 17, 2025 12:56 pm

trelos6 wrote:
Elpolo_14 wrote:
Wait Jokic playoff only 20 PPG per 75 ? By Databallr Jokic is 28.6 PPG per 75 in his championship run.

Wouldn't Lebron PS rTS be +5.6 rTS ( Bron was 58.5TS% vs PS average 52.9 TS% )

MJ PS rTS be +5.3 rTS ( MJ was 60.0 TS% vs PS average 54.7 TS% )

Or the rTS PS are comparing to the regular season TS average instead? ( If that the case would rTS% Adj. To defense faced Be more compelling to use to see which defense they were facing? )


Jokic is wrong. Looks like he was 29 pp75.

PS rTS were based off RS TS average. It’s close enough. For sure, defense faced needs to be taken into context. Eg. This year, Jokic went up against Clips and Thunder, 2 great defensive teams. So his % took a big hit.


Good work!

PS rTS should probably be relative to opponent. That's usually how people do the numbers.
Top10alltime
Sophomore
Posts: 129
And1: 69
Joined: Jan 04, 2025
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#143 » by Top10alltime » Thu Jul 17, 2025 1:15 pm

Elpolo_14 wrote:I thought there would be more Vote/Argumentation for WILT Chamberlain ( 64 / 67 ) to be in the podium more frequently in this second thread or the next thread.
Personally he a player I was debating among the top 3-6 myself.


I personally agree with you here. He is in my top 4, I was debating him with shaq and duncan (can see him in my top 3-5).

With his all time defensive ability generate by his Physicality+Athlétisme relative to his Pier in the 60s to be a dominant interior defender ( might care too much about foul to be fully committed there ) can be Impactful against mobile wing - Strong Center. Also a great transition game both end of the floor due to his Speed + motion on the recovery.
Was anchor all time playoff defense in 67 too when he wasn't focus on scoring to the point he doesn't have enough energy to put Elite effort on


All of this it seemed he was better in 63-64 than 66-67. I don't see 67's case defensively but you are right on this.

He becomes an elite offensive player in these year Which I don't think he was in his early career. The ascension as a passer playmaker in 67 really benefits his teammates/team just by him being more willing as a passer and paying more attention to the court. Help develope aspect in offense that make him all time great. And he still was a positive scorer in the rim / post / paint


I don't see how there is lots of difference between 64 and 67 for playmaking outside of being more willing as a passer.

Personally, I see 64 as his peak. I can see 67 depending on how high you think he improved as a playmaker, but I just don't see it..
penbeast0
Senior Mod - NBA Player Comparisons
Senior Mod - NBA Player Comparisons
Posts: 30,154
And1: 9,772
Joined: Aug 14, 2004
Location: South Florida
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#144 » by penbeast0 » Thu Jul 17, 2025 1:59 pm

I have some issues with Wilt's defense which I think gets overrated at times. The main one is he liked to camp under the basket, centers like Clyde Lovellette or Willis Reed would get free midrange shots or his teammates would have to help out on them. Clearly not as big an issue as it would be in an era where big men worked on their outside shooting more than their post games, but still an issue. As a minor issue, he like to swat balls into the stands on his blocks for highlight reel intimidation. Commentators at the time used to comment on how Russell would soft block shots, directing them to teammates if he had the angle, but possibly getting a change of possession while Wilt would just allow the offense to reset. Wilt probably blocked more than Russell though from the best available evidence (Harvey Pollack).
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
kcktiny
Pro Prospect
Posts: 849
And1: 626
Joined: Aug 14, 2012

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#145 » by kcktiny » Thu Jul 17, 2025 3:29 pm

According to Harvey Pollack:

1967 playoffs - 15 g, 718 min, 48 min/g, 21.7 pts/g, 29.1 reb/g, 9.0 ast/g, 9.2 bs/g (that's a rate of 577 bs/3000min)

1968 playoffs - 13 g, 631 min, 49 min/g, 23.7 pts/g, 24.7 reb/g, 6.5 ast/g, 9.7 bs/g (599 bs/3000min)

1969 playoffs - 18 g, 832 min, 46 min/g, 13.9 pts/g, 24.7 reb/g, 2.6 ast/g, 8.5 bs/g (552 bs/3000min)

1971 playoffs - 12 g, 554 min, 46 min/g, 18.3 pts/g, 20.2 reb/g, 4.4 ast/g, 6.0 bs/g (390 bs/3000min)

1973 playoffs - 17 g, 801 min, 47 min/g, 10.4 pts/g, 22.5 reb/g, 3.5 ast/g, 6.9 bs/g (438 bs/3000min)

Top10alltime
Sophomore
Posts: 129
And1: 69
Joined: Jan 04, 2025
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#146 » by Top10alltime » Thu Jul 17, 2025 4:09 pm

penbeast0 wrote:I have some issues with Wilt's defense which I think gets overrated at times. The main one is he liked to camp under the basket, centers like Clyde Lovellette or Willis Reed would get free midrange shots or his teammates would have to help out on them. Clearly not as big an issue as it would be in an era where big men worked on their outside shooting more than their post games, but still an issue.


That was later in his LA years. I didn't see this happening in his arguable peak years (64 and 67).
Doctor MJ
Senior Mod
Senior Mod
Posts: 53,025
And1: 21,995
Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Location: Cali
     

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#147 » by Doctor MJ » Thu Jul 17, 2025 4:31 pm

BusywithBball wrote:I think you have learned some people discuss outside of Realgm thread. I was not aware that is not allowed? You do not help my opinion of Jordan when you call me cheat because I don’t agree with you.


So, I want to chime in on this specifically as a participant rather than a Moderator as my title implies.

Discussions about a RealGM project outside of RealGM have always been considered acceptable, but there is an expectations that you're not substituting those outside discussions for RealGM discussions, because the primary goal of projects like these is to essentially talk through the journey so others can learn from it.

This then to say, if a conversation elsewhere changes your mind on something, rule of thumb, talk here about what you were thinking before and why you changed your mind, because your moments of learning are what we're hoping to capture.

Does this make sense?

It's always tricky because there's absolutely an expectation that we all (myself included) get overly fixated on the actual rankings & ratings that come out of these projects - which is a good argument for taking other routes to further your learning about basketball - but nothing crystalizes the collective focus like projects that force us to choose A vs B.

Incidentally, I find the fact that Peaks projects are generally harder than Career projects for us (again, myself included) to be extremely telling. We all (posters, players, journalists, whoever) have a tendency to essentially "seal up" the actual basketball play into quantized chunks of achievement, and then evaluate Career in a more top down way which tends to result in a kind of "if it's close, go by longevity" tiebreaking method that smooths out disagreements over the actual basketball. A Peak project doesn't allow us that way out of conflict, nor does it allow us to hide the limitations in knowledge and understanding about the game itself, and so generally have more of what I'll call "agonization" per spot in a Peak project than a Career project, and we can't go as far (as I learned the hard way when I rank an iteration of this project with the goal of merely getting to 50 rather than 100, and iirc we didn't even get to 40).

Anyway, my perspective on the original point:

When you're in a project in a particular community,
Learn anywhere you can,
Share what you learned in the community

Or even more succinctly:

Learn globally
Share locally
Getting ready for the RealGM 100 on the PC Board

Come join the WNBA Board if you're a fan!
KembaWalker
RealGM
Posts: 11,923
And1: 13,546
Joined: Dec 22, 2011
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#148 » by KembaWalker » Thu Jul 17, 2025 5:03 pm

there is a very large difference between expanding the voter pool to increase the depth and volume of enlightening conversations versus recruiting alt accounts that dont participate anywhere else on the site to ballot stuff so that literally one guy (everyone knows who) can gloat about getting the outcome that makes him happy
Image
Doctor MJ
Senior Mod
Senior Mod
Posts: 53,025
And1: 21,995
Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Location: Cali
     

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#149 » by Doctor MJ » Thu Jul 17, 2025 5:05 pm

f4p wrote:And I don't know who said anything about cheating.


So I'm just going to say, such cheating is ABSOLUTELY a major concern here and I think we're naive to think it's never happened in these projects. It's just to easy to achieve for us to expect to always stop it.

Going on another philosophical tangent:

Perhaps the most profound concept I've learned on my basketball analytics journey (oddly, given that sport is not normally where I'm exposed to such things for the first time) is Goodhart's Law, which has nothing at all to do with the Sport of Squeaking Sneakers we all love so much.

It's typically paraphrased as "When the measure becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure."

The original wording was:

Charles Goodhart, economist, 1975 wrote:Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.


Basically, when people start becoming focus on affecting the data itself, more than they care about the phenomenon the data was intended to capture, they're generally capable of finding ways to affect the data without having an analogous affect on the phenomenon itself.

I would say that this is a special case of the warning:

The Map is Not the Territory

In this context, what it means is becoming more emotionally attached to seeing the rankings match your personal preference than you care about actually seeing what others think and learning from them.

And I would suggest that we have ALL had moments like this, it's really just a question of whether each of us sees it as a problem or not.

I do, so I try to check myself and take a step back as needed. Those who've been around here a long time know that I have had gaps of sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months where I disappear, and while real life is generally a major factor in such cases, so are emotions. This stuff is a hobby for me, and so if it's taking me into darker places, it's a distraction from real life and what I'm trying to do with it.

And yeah, this is also me saying to folks: If anyone is cheating in this project, I think they need to take a step back and question why. Why spend sustained personal time and energy over a long duration trying to steer a community project away from its intended purpose? If they have an answer that satisfies them, well, then I expect they'll keep doing it, but for me, it just lacks meaning, so I try to snap out of it.
Getting ready for the RealGM 100 on the PC Board

Come join the WNBA Board if you're a fan!
Doctor MJ
Senior Mod
Senior Mod
Posts: 53,025
And1: 21,995
Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Location: Cali
     

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#150 » by Doctor MJ » Thu Jul 17, 2025 5:15 pm

KembaWalker wrote:there is a very large difference between expanding the voter pool to increase the depth and volume of enlightening conversations versus recruiting alt accounts that dont participate anywhere else on the site to ballot stuff so that literally one guy (everyone knows who) can gloat about getting the outcome that makes him happy


Well, that's much more succinctly put than what I said.

For anyone that's unclear after my ponderous tome, what Kemba is saying is very much the concern when we worry about new posters. We want new people always, but as was first pointed out in 1993 by cartoonist and prophet Peter Steiner...

Image

The lack of direct visual information in traditional internet social media has meant that such concerns have just always been a part of these projects, and always will.
Getting ready for the RealGM 100 on the PC Board

Come join the WNBA Board if you're a fan!
Doctor MJ
Senior Mod
Senior Mod
Posts: 53,025
And1: 21,995
Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Location: Cali
     

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#151 » by Doctor MJ » Thu Jul 17, 2025 7:16 pm

Elpolo_14 wrote:I thought there would be more Vote/Argumentation for WILT Chamberlain ( 64 / 67 ) to be in the podium more frequently in this second thread or the next thread.
Personally he a player I was debating among the top 3-6 myself.

With his all time defensive ability generate by his Physicality+Athlétisme relative to his Pier in the 60s to be a dominant interior defender ( might care too much about foul to be fully committed there ) can be Impactful against mobile wing - Strong Center. Also a great transition game both end of the floor due to his Speed + motion on the recovery.
Was anchor all time playoff defense in 67 too when he wasn't focus on scoring to the point he doesn't have enough energy to put Elite effort on Defense.

He becomes an elite offensive player in these year Which I don't think he was in his early career. The ascension as a passer playmaker in 67 really benefits his teammates/team just by him being more willing as a passer and paying more attention to the court. Help develope aspect in offense that make him all time great. And he still was a positive scorer in the rim / post / paint

His development both end of the floor in the mid late 60s while still maintaining GOAT tier glass cleaner and Possession extender on the Offensive Rebounding really make me wonder If I personally put him too low in my peak list


Good push. 1967 Wilt is definitely in my own personal list of contenders right now, and as I've said before, I definitely consider Wilt's peak to be the highest peak other than Russell from his own era and before.

Whenever Wilt was focused on defense, he was great, and 1967 was such a season (as was 1964).

Coach Hannum's 1967 change in offensive strategy to make Wilt a passing pivot seems to have worked incredibly well with the team recording the best ever ORtg to that point in NBA history. (And while I give Hannum a ton of credit here, I don't look at player vs coach impact as a zero-sum thing.)

I would say at the time it was almost certainly consider as the crowning moment proving Wilt at his best was better than Russell.

Yet, I've been voting 1964 Russell, and not 1967 Wilt, so what's going on there?

I'll say one quick Russell thing, but we're talking Wilt here, so that'll be what I focus on:

I think what Russell led in 1964 was something that went way beyond court itself, with the retirement of Cousy, and the elevation of Russell's primary partner in crime since college, KC Jones, to starter status. While I don't want to give all the credit to Russell for making Cousy's retirement the rare case where a dynasty achieves addition by subtraction, he became the clear cut leader of the team in this season (literally became Team Captain), and that leadership I think was central to why the Celtics as a whole actually took a step forward after losing the player that some at the time insisted was the GOAT.

I don't mean to imply that that leadership didn't have clear on-court effects - it was central, along with the elevation of Jones, to taking the best defense in the world, and ramping it up even further. But I also think zooming in on moments when great leaders were able to emerge as culture-definers is meaningful and useful.

Okay, over to my cautiousness with 1967 Wilt:

General rule: When the offense chooses a strategy that goes counter to what defenses are set up for, then to the extent the offense is equally capable of implementing both strategies, the offense will do better because they are in effect playing against a worse defense.

Micro-example: When a player known to be score-first passes in a situation he typically shoots, the opponent probably isn't guarding optimally for the pass, and thus the play will have a greater chance at success, all other things held equal.

I would suggest that the success of 1967 76er offense needs to be seen to some degree benefitting from defenses just being too afraid of Wilt as a scorer to commit to scheming to defend the pivot passing model.

Now, if we take this as a fact, it does not necessarily imply that we should be less impressed with Wilt that year, because frankly, offensive schemes and players are always trying to attack defenses where they are most vulnerable, and their success in doing that isn't something I think it makes sense to normalize for on principle.

However there is the question of how we should think of sustainability when we consider Peak. A focus on a single season makes sense as a definition for Peak is natural based on how the basketball world defines meaning, but if a shift in offensive strategy only lead to massive offensive improvement in one season, and then it goes back mostly to where it was before - which is what our estimates of 1960s ORtg tell us - then I think we have to consider whether opposing defenses came back more committed to dealing with Hannum's strategy than they'd been the prior season, and once they did, the 76er offensive effectiveness went back down to the good-but-not-great levels where it had primarily lived through Wilt's career to that point.

Of course the precise truth of what all affected what and by how much is something we'll never have certainty on, but I have a reluctance for celebrating an inherently temporary competitive advantage.

Now a couple ways people might push back on this:

1. Isn't the fact that the 76ers made it through the playoffs that year proof that responding to the new offense wasn't a simple matter? And well, I wouldn't call it a "proof" but it's definitely a lot more convincing than mere regular season success.

2. Given that I just emphasized in my arguments for Curry in my 3rd ballot spot that I was focused on separation from contemporaries, and so the adaptations that had come to be by the 2020s which make a good case for, say, Jokic to be a more capable player for this era were not held against MVP era Steph, why would then hold something analogous 1967 Wilt?

Here I'd say that there's a distinction between the competition getting better generally vs getting better matchup up against you. With Curry I emphasized how he has a 5-year RS RAPM that outclasses anyone in the PBP era. I would say that you don't get that if are able to figure you out. And Wilt was someone who I think very much was able to be figured out, and while it didn't stop him from being awesome by all typical standards - and the concept of RAPM doesn't even really make sense for him because he played so many MPG - I don't think he was having consistent outlier impact the same way.

Okay, reflecting right now, I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't share a couple more things that weigh on me:

a. I don't actually think Wilt was that great of a passer. I think great passers don't get tunnel vision as they work their scoring bag, and the reason why Hannum needed to change Wilt's role was because defenses were able to count on him not recognizing the gaps they left open as they committed everything to stopping the team's standard attack of getting the ball to Wilt on the interior, and then letting him go to work.

The fact that I just don't think Wilt was ever a great passer to me says any offensive scheme that focused on him playing as a passing pivot had a limited shelf life in any era of basketball, and if teams back then had access to the analytics we do now, they've have adapted quicker and it may well have kept the 76ers from winning that lone title.

b. While my separation-from-contemporaries focus tends to have me focused on rORtg & rDRtg more so than absolute ORtg & DRtg, I do think we should keep certain things about the absolutes in mind.

The 1967 76er offense was a massive improvement on prior Wilt offenses not because it's absolute ORtg was impressive by later standards, but just because offenses back then were just in general not as effective against opposing defense.

While I'm always looking to emphasize that the game was different before the 3 came in and got embraced, this doesn't explain the league average ORtg just generally going up as a matter of course from the start of the NBA through the '70s. While the '70s themselves might be dismissed by some as a product inflation as a result of ABA competition & NBA expansion, I think that's a distraction from a more general truth offense has mostly just been getting more and more effective against defense as the sport matures.

This then to say that I think it's important not to visualize the 1967 offense (or any other offense from the deep past) running circles around opposing defenses, because in reality, those defenses were having great success per possession relative to what any of us are used to seeing.

None of this means you can't choose to largely normalize that away in your assessment, but I think it does answer the question of:

How did a pivot passing offense built around a not-great passer outperform all other offenses? Because the other offenses had kinks in the joints really holding them back compared to what we're used to seeing offenses do.

And it matters to me in part because I'm pretty skeptical that with Wilt's passing limitations it would really make sense to play him in that role in later eras. I could see Wilt playing something of a Giannis helio role - not saying you couldn't helio Wilt - but literally playing pass-first? I think that was pretty crazy it ever worked, and I don't think Hannum would have tried anything so drastic if he had a player who could just consider all possible actions and make the right basketball play.

Okay, I'll end there and brace for rebuttals. I'll reiterate that despite my criticisms I see Wilt as a very strong candidate.
Getting ready for the RealGM 100 on the PC Board

Come join the WNBA Board if you're a fan!
penbeast0
Senior Mod - NBA Player Comparisons
Senior Mod - NBA Player Comparisons
Posts: 30,154
And1: 9,772
Joined: Aug 14, 2004
Location: South Florida
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#152 » by penbeast0 » Thu Jul 17, 2025 7:32 pm

Top10alltime wrote:
penbeast0 wrote:I have some issues with Wilt's defense which I think gets overrated at times. The main one is he liked to camp under the basket, centers like Clyde Lovellette or Willis Reed would get free midrange shots or his teammates would have to help out on them. Clearly not as big an issue as it would be in an era where big men worked on their outside shooting more than their post games, but still an issue.


That was later in his LA years. I didn't see this happening in his arguable peak years (64 and 67).


Not speaking specifically to 64 (one reason I don't vote in the peaks projects is because I find it hard to disentangle one year's impact from careers), but quotes by peers in Terry Pluto's Tall Tales specifically referenced Clyde Lovellette as Wilt's most hated opponent for just this reason (and presumably, though I don't remember anyone saying it, for being the white HOF basketball star at Kansas that Wilt faced comparisons to). Lovellette was an early stretch 5 type and his last All-Star season was 61 (injured half the year in 62 and after that, a backup in Boston to Bill Russell by 64 so not playing much). So definitely something peers were talking about in Wilt's early years. I saw it with Reed and even Unseld who liked to go out and shoot a flat footed jumper from above the foul line in his Wilt's late years but I wasn't watching yet in 64.

Not saying Wilt is wrong in this necessarily. Russell was a freak athlete in terms of being able to challenge out away from the rim and still get back and protect. Wilt's rim protection and his defensive rebounding may be significantly more valuable than his on the floor defense on a scorer; none of those guys was amazing as a jump shooter. So, it could be a coaching scheme tradeoff based on the needs of the team. But it was something that was talked about.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
tsherkin
Forum Mod - Raptors
Forum Mod - Raptors
Posts: 90,852
And1: 30,594
Joined: Oct 14, 2003
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#153 » by tsherkin » Thu Jul 17, 2025 8:30 pm

KembaWalker wrote:there is a very large difference between expanding the voter pool to increase the depth and volume of enlightening conversations versus recruiting alt accounts that dont participate anywhere else on the site to ballot stuff so that literally one guy (everyone knows who) can gloat about getting the outcome that makes him happy


I'm going to delicately remind you that such accusations are not a small thing, and that I am personally familiar with many of these new posters because I share one of the spaces outside RealGM with them. I can conclusively tell you that certain guys are very definitely not alternate accounts or bots or whatever other fresh accusation there is.

So as far as guys like Paulluxx9000, metta-tonne, Reardonwd, LeoClark, emn_101, Chip, and Ollie Coraline... I'd very much appreciate if people would stop spreading random misinformation about them simply because they are newer posters whose opinions often don't align with others. It's rude, and very much not welcome at all.

Further, it would be MOST appropriate to keep such sniping out of the discussion threads, and confined to the actual project general discussion thread, as it is with anything other than voting and discussion posts. That is the point of that thread, after all.

Cheers.
KembaWalker
RealGM
Posts: 11,923
And1: 13,546
Joined: Dec 22, 2011
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#154 » by KembaWalker » Thu Jul 17, 2025 8:35 pm

tsherkin wrote:
KembaWalker wrote:there is a very large difference between expanding the voter pool to increase the depth and volume of enlightening conversations versus recruiting alt accounts that dont participate anywhere else on the site to ballot stuff so that literally one guy (everyone knows who) can gloat about getting the outcome that makes him happy


I'm going to delicately remind you that such accusations are not a small thing, and that I am personally familiar with many of these new posters because I share one of the spaces outside RealGM with them. I can conclusively tell you that certain guys are very definitely not alternate accounts or bots or whatever other fresh accusation there is.

So as far as guys like Paulluxx9000, metta-tonne, Reardonwd, LeoClark, emn_101, Chip, and Ollie Coraline... I'd very much appreciate if people would stop spreading random misinformation about them simply because they are newer posters whose opinions often don't align with others. It's rude, and very much not welcome at all.

Further, it would be MOST appropriate to keep such sniping out of the discussion threads, and confined to the actual project general discussion thread, as it is with anything other than voting and discussion posts. That is the point of that thread, after all.

Cheers.


yes, i'm more than aware that you and many of the mods are in on it, i get warnings from them all the time, so does everyone else who points it out.
Image
tsherkin
Forum Mod - Raptors
Forum Mod - Raptors
Posts: 90,852
And1: 30,594
Joined: Oct 14, 2003
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#155 » by tsherkin » Thu Jul 17, 2025 8:37 pm

KembaWalker wrote:yes, i'm more than aware that you and many of the mods are in on it, i get warnings from them all the time, so does everyone else who points it out.


I would very much like you to especially consider the part about not derailing this thread any further, which is the last I'll say on the subject for now.
KembaWalker
RealGM
Posts: 11,923
And1: 13,546
Joined: Dec 22, 2011
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#156 » by KembaWalker » Thu Jul 17, 2025 8:43 pm

tsherkin wrote:
KembaWalker wrote:yes, i'm more than aware that you and many of the mods are in on it, i get warnings from them all the time, so does everyone else who points it out.


I would very much like you to especially consider the part about not derailing this thread any further, which is the last I'll say on the subject for now.


you're quoting my posts to get my attention and engage, i didn't quote anyones with the intention of starting a side conversation simply a stand alone comment. you're derailing, as usual, and i'll surely be the one copping the warning or suspension or whatever, as usual. stop quoting me and telling me not to respond, thats baiting
Image
One_and_Done
General Manager
Posts: 8,702
And1: 5,453
Joined: Jun 03, 2023

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#157 » by One_and_Done » Thu Jul 17, 2025 9:07 pm

I haven't heard much of an argument against Duncan yet. To me he is the clear choice here.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
tsherkin
Forum Mod - Raptors
Forum Mod - Raptors
Posts: 90,852
And1: 30,594
Joined: Oct 14, 2003
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#158 » by tsherkin » Thu Jul 17, 2025 9:16 pm

One_and_Done wrote:I haven't heard much of an argument against Duncan yet. To me he is the clear choice here.


Duncan's an interesting one. What makes him your selection over someone like Kareem, who was a very good defender and a considerably better scorer, and smashed accolades over Duncan as well? Or to that point, Olajuwon? Who was similar defensively, and not distant offensively either, and with major playoff success and accolades?

Or to that point, what separates Duncan from Wilt?

And Duncan versus Shaq, peak to peak? There's a large pro-Duncan gap on D even though Shaq was All-D in those years, but Shaq smashes offensively.
70sFan
RealGM
Posts: 29,667
And1: 24,987
Joined: Aug 11, 2015
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#159 » by 70sFan » Thu Jul 17, 2025 10:02 pm

When Doc starts a discussion about Wilt, I just have to give my 2 cents :D

Doctor MJ wrote:However there is the question of how we should think of sustainability when we consider Peak. A focus on a single season makes sense as a definition for Peak is natural based on how the basketball world defines meaning, but if a shift in offensive strategy only lead to massive offensive improvement in one season, and then it goes back mostly to where it was before - which is what our estimates of 1960s ORtg tell us - then I think we have to consider whether opposing defenses came back more committed to dealing with Hannum's strategy than they'd been the prior season, and once they did, the 76er offensive effectiveness went back down to the good-but-not-great levels where it had primarily lived through Wilt's career to that point.

So, I would like to push this back again with the estimates I did on 1967/68 season here:

viewtopic.php?t=2159841

Just a few quotes from this post:

When I looked at gamelogs, I realized that Sixers scored far less in the first 30 games compared to the rest of the season. Here are the numbers:

First 30 games: 117.7 Tm, 111.1 Opp
Last 52 games: 125.4 Tm, 115.6 Opp

I suggested that Sixers slowdown in 1967/68 season was strongly related to Wilt's poor beginning of the season, but it had little to do with his assist hunting or the rest of the league realizing how to guard Sixers offense. Let's take a look at Wilt's numbers in the first 30 games and the last 52 games of the season:

First 30 games: 19.0 ppg, 24.1 rpg, 7.0 apg on 52.4 FG%, 34.7 FT% and 49.1 TS%
Last 52 games: 27.4 ppg, 23.6 rpg, 9.5 apg on 62.8 FG%, 39.7 FT% and 59.0 TS%


Ignoring the error, it gives us basically no difference in pace between these two periods. Using these pace estimates, we can get Sixers ratings in both periods:

Full season: 98.3 ORtg, 91.4 DRtg
First 30 games: 94.9 ORtg, 89.6 DRtg
Last 52 games: 100.2 ORtg, 92.4 DRtg

(...) calculating relative ratings:

Full season: +1.0 rORtg, -5.3 rDRtg
First 30 games opponent ratings: -2.3 rORtg, -7.0 DRtg
Last 50 games opponent ratings: +2.9 ORtg, -4.4 DRtg

The difference in full seasons numbers are caused by different methodology - basketball reference use league average to get relative numbers. I used the difference in average opponent ratings and Sixers ratings. As you can see, Sixers were excellent both offensively and defensively in the majority of the season. Now, if I actually use basketball reference definition of relative ratings and not the one I used, the numbers would look this way:

Full season: +1.5 rORtg, -5.4 rDRtg
First 30 games opponent ratings: -1.9 rORtg, -7.2 DRtg
Last 50 games opponent ratings: +3.4 ORtg, -4.4 DRtg


Bonus!

I also did the same thing to the last 2 months of the season for the Sixers. It was the time when Wilt averaged staggering 11 apg. Some people accused him of being a statspadder and they implied that Sixers offense didn't reach their potential because of that. Let's see what my calculations show:

Last 29 games:

Pace: 125.03
ORtg: 101.7, +4.3
DRtg: 92.0, -4.3


As you can see, no visible reason to believe that Wilt high assist numbers hurt Sixers offense, quite the contrary in fact.


So yeah, the Sixers didn't literally reach +5,4 number they had the season before, but they were still above 100 ORtg for the vast majority of the season and it was the end of the season - not the beginning - when the Sixers peaked offensively with basically identical raw numbers to 1967 ones. It could be a coincidence that it happened just with the period of Wilt's insane playmaking numbers, but it certainly doesn't support that the league adjusted to the Sixers offense, because Philly got BETTER with time, not worse.

Unless you think the first 30 games of the season was more representative to the league adjustment than the last 50 games, I think it's hard to justify this theory. Of course, there is another possiblity - my estimations could just be completely wrong, but even raw numbers support the increase in offensive efficiency.


a. I don't actually think Wilt was that great of a passer. I think great passers don't get tunnel vision as they work their scoring bag, and the reason why Hannum needed to change Wilt's role was because defenses were able to count on him not recognizing the gaps they left open as they committed everything to stopping the team's standard attack of getting the ball to Wilt on the interior, and then letting him go to work.

The fact that I just don't think Wilt was ever a great passer to me says any offensive scheme that focused on him playing as a passing pivot had a limited shelf life in any era of basketball, and if teams back then had access to the analytics we do now, they've have adapted quicker and it may well have kept the 76ers from winning that lone title.

I often hear your criticism of Wilt's passing, so I wonder how you'd rate him among the other high volume scorers and creators at the center. Of course he's below Jokic, but how would you stack up him with Kareem, Walton, Moses, Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Duncan, Embiid? That would help me understand your point of view a little better, so I'd appreciate that!
User avatar
AEnigma
Assistant Coach
Posts: 4,094
And1: 5,931
Joined: Jul 24, 2022
 

Re: RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #2 

Post#160 » by AEnigma » Thu Jul 17, 2025 10:31 pm

Pertinent part of last thread’s ballot quoted below:
Spoiler:
AEnigma wrote:So for peaks I tend to mildly separate bigs and perimetre players. Basketball for me is a sport which intuitively favours height. There tend to be skill tradeoffs, but a 6’9”+ player has more capacity to become a decent to good passer/dribbler/shooter than a guard has to become a decent to good rim protector at any real volume. Where that can be messy is that this advantage tends to carry over to what we tend to assess as “replacement players”. There are plenty of circumstantial exceptions based on team construction, but typically I would expect a replacement-level big to maintain more latent basketball value than a replacement-level guard. And I think this can ring intuitively true in a peaks project when you look at the players sampled: there are comfortably more 6’9”+ players, even though the population is a lot smaller.

Now, the other side of this is that bigs become both harder to evaluate relative to each other… and less likely to clearly separate themselves from the pack. I think back to 1992, when Magic’s forced retirement propelled Clyde Drexler into the spotlight as Jordan’s new top perimetre rival. Drexler has never appeared in one of these projects or come especially close. And while Barkley in 1993 was a more legitimate contender, he peaked at #23 in 2012 and has slid with every iteration; as of 2022, there was a 30-spot gap between him and Jordan. Reggie Miller was another moderate competitor, and he is an all-time playoff riser; he has also never appeared in one of these projects. Penny Hardaway, something of a rival from 1995-97, was #28 in 2012, not top forty in 2015/19, and #39 in 2022. Grant Hill was a marketed rival in 1997; never appeared in one of these projects. Even looking at some of the shooting guards who followed Jordan, we have no appearances from Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen… Jordan was a monolithic outlier from the rest of his “small” competition. People could debate the bigs, and while Magic was around they could debate the best (nominal) guard, but after 1991, there was no debate. We can fairly question Jordan’s modern translation, but in his era, Jordan was a historic outlier for his size in a way we had not seen since at Oscar and West (or maybe ABA Erving) and would not see again until Curry.

Of course, while it would be easy enough to argue players like Oscar and West were more separated from other guards than Russell and Wilt were from other centres, that does not mean we qualify them as greater peaks. Or going back even further, Mikan versus Bob Cousy. We can then amend the idea a bit to acknowledge era dynamics, where the playmaking of Oscar and West had more of a capped value than the rim protection and overall defence of Russell and Wilt in terms of how those skills could be applied to the rest of the league. For Jordan, while I have seen comments about his playmaking being somewhat similarly limited by the constraints of his era, that was not anywhere near enough of an element of his game for it to overwrite the immense value of being a still-unparalleled volume scoring hub against defences which were far more limited in their ability to reliably force him to relinquish volume to his teammates.

The other important amendment in the context of a peaks project is that it does not necessarily matter when you were the clearest outlier relative to the league. Kareem was more of an outlier prior to the merger, but that does not mean he suddenly became a worse player during the 1976 offseason — and indeed, the history of this project suggests that the majority consistently assesses Kareem’s peak as that first post-merger year, even though he was not exhibiting the same suggestions of “impact” as what he had on the Bucks, nor as what Bill Walton was exhibiting at the same time. And part of why is that we all clearly do some amount of filtering for both league context and the quality of opposition, e.g. 1948-50 George Mikan never receiving any consideration for this spot.

Jordan is not my #2 perimetre peak over Magic because I think he was demonstrably more impactful; there is plenty of evidence that he was not (although I suppose it depends on the degree to which box scores are conflated with actual impact). And Magic is not my #3 perimetre peak over someone like Curry because I think Curry was inherently less impactful than Magic. What I am generally looking for is expected resilience as the foundation of a title team, and what separates Magic from Curry is that Magic consistently maintains in the postseason, and what separates Jordan from Magic is that Jordan consistently improves in the postseason. That improvement is also largely why I have Hakeem atop my list of bigs. Elephant in the room there is that Bill Russell won more consistently than anyone in the history of team sports, but I think his dominance was disproportionately tied to the dynamics of his era being comparatively skewed toward defence. Again, like with Mikan, context and environment do influence these choices.

“Confidence” is an essential element of these discussions, and I am generally pleased to see it come to the forefront in this thread (even if the concept behind it can be and has been abused or misrepresented). Saying, “this player is a better scorer because they score more,” is not drastically different from, “I am more confident that this player is a better scorer because they score more,” but it is an important distinction nevertheless. For Hakeem, there is a long-term consistency in the postseason which gives me confidence I do not have from other bigs, and that in turn makes me more confident in his peak postseason value. I am not sure that 1993/94 Hakeem is better than 2002/03 Duncan in their respective postseasons… but I am more sure of it in the sense that I feel more sure of Hakeem as a postseason performer generally.

If that tepid confidence is present with a cross-big comparison, it is even cooler with bigs versus perimetre players. For example, I am more confident that perimetre players like Jordan/Magic/Curry could be more “impactful”, via value over replacement, than the best bigs, than I am that the best perimetre players are better on their own merits independent of replacement value “impact” advantages. And when it comes to Hakeem versus Jordan, well, the simplest way to put it is that I am more confident in Hakeem’s ability to rise through adversity and win a series or game which he should not, and that matters more to me than the idea that Jordan is more likely to win by a larger amount and therefore less likely to be placed in adverse situations at all. Jordan only ever lost one series where he had the lead (1989 Pistons), which I think is second only to the undefeated-with-a-lead Russell, and he never lost a home series or a series where he was favoured (Russell’s exception for both is his injured series against the 1958 Hawks). Hakeem also only lost one series with a lead (1998 Jazz), but he did lose two series at home and as the favourite (1985 Jazz and 1987 Sonics). However, he was arguably the best ever at managing an upset*, going 10-10 as an SRS underdog (as of this year, slightly outpacing Lebron’s 10-11) and 7-10 as a road SRS underdog (slightly behind Lebron’s 8-10). And as a minor additional note, he is one of only three players (Russell and Lebron) to win a series down 3-1 on the road. To paraphrase while slightly inverting f4p’s comment about splitting hairs between similarly good players with different strengths, while I am happy with peak Jordan if I am in an adverse situation, and I am happy with Hakeem if I am in a favourable situation, I prefer the player I trust more in the adverse situation because I think adverse situations are more likely.

Here is where cross-big comparison becomes increasingly fuzzy for me — and why I am reluctant to take the path so many voters here seem to be taking and just de facto clustering all these bigs ahead of any perimetre competition. May as well start with Kareem, seeing as almost everyone else has included him. Like I said last thread, Bucks Kareem is more “impactful” than Lakers Kareem and several other points of comparison. Does that make him better? For me, no, and while plenty of people are willing to lean harder on the pure “impact” side, that does (or should) raise some moderately serious questions about Bill Walton’s placement at minimum.

By comparison with Hakeem and Jordan specifically though, it seems like the arguments centre (…) more around his undeniable talent, e.g. “best offensive and defensive player in the league!” I never really agreed with that, but I know I am in a minority there. Still, for all that overwhelming talent, should it not reflect at least a bit negatively on Kareem that he never beat a 3.5-SRS team without Magic? That he never beat a team on the road without Magic? That in a Finals Game 7 he was outperformed by Dave Cowens, who has never been inducted into one of these projects? That he performed worse against Nate Thurmond in every subsequent series the two played against each other, with the third culminating in an outright loss? None of that is anything unforgivable, but it is odd to see such widespread indifference when simultaneously I see a lot of targeted criticism against Jordan for far less egregious or meaningful infractions. Yes, Kareem was supremely talented, but so were Wilt and Shaq, and neither has received anything close to the near universal support I see for Kareem in this thread, and in fact both have their primary defence-first rivals garnering much more support.

But perhaps that is the issue: Kareem’s potential equivalent to Duncan or Russell lasted one postseason before breaking down. To the extent anyone wants to talk about “flukes”, Walton has always been the most prevalent one in this project. And any cannibalisation which may be inherent between Wilt and Russell or Shaq and Duncan is instead restricted to some passive skepticism against Lakers Kareem specifically, thus opening the path to a new choice of peak year for him.

(Nominally choosing Duncan here in part because I see a valuable roster-building advantage in his ability to succeed as both power forward and centre through his career, but his placement is not secure.)

1. Hakeem Olajuwon (1993 = 1994)
2. Michael Jordan (1990 > 1991)
3. Tim Duncan (2003 > 2002)


Will tally votes shortly. Any final votes, make them now, and any final edits, please make a separate post to that effect notifying me what you edited.

Return to Player Comparisons