Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #1-#2 Spots

[Doctor MJ]

On era bias within these 25 year spans

If I go through 25 and find 15-20 of my picks falling in a ~10 year window, I'll be worried I'm not looking at players relative to their competition. But on a 4 man ballot I'm just not worried about it - the sample size is so tiny.

Here, first 4 random numbers 1-25 (I used random.org)
20
2
25
2

Oh man, two 2s and none in a 17 number span from 3-19.

This is just to demonstrate the smallness of the 4 spot sample, our brains will find 'patterns' of 'bias' when there's nothing there at all. On the actual lists I'll prefer a light bias towards the later years in this set of 25 and the '77-'00 era, with a moderately aggressive bias towards the later years in the '50-'76 period.

I appreciate you making us check ourselves when taking noise as if it is signal.

At the same time, anyone who finds themselves siding disproportionately with players who can't do the stuff that is now largely a requisite to thrive in the NBA I think should also check themselves, and I keep going back to that question of "Was the early '00s just a really strong time for NBA basketball?". The answer to that is "No, it wasn't". Doesn't necessarily mean that there weren't some outlier greats in that time frame that could happen to deserve to be high on these lists, but any notion that NBA competition has gone down in the past 20 years is backward.

[One_and_Done]

The NBA is substantially better today than the early 00s, however guys like Duncan and Shaq would be great in any era.

[LA Bird]

1- Shaq to duncan/garnett is a half decade~ gap in actual age(not the same as draft class), then lebron another half decade (more in practice as he would have come into the league in 2006 or 2007 if he went to college for as long as shaq. Meaning id closer to a 12 year window between all 4

Just to clarify, I was only referring to the 01/03/04 cluster for 2nd~4th there. LeBron transcends time to me.

On era bias within these 25 year spans

If I go through 25 and find 15-20 of my picks falling in a ~10 year window, I'll be worried I'm not looking at players relative to their competition. But on a 4 man ballot I'm just not worried about it - the sample size is so tiny.

Here, first 4 random numbers 1-25 (I used random.org)
20
2
25
2

Oh man, two 2s and none in a 17 number span from 3-19.

This is just to demonstrate the smallness of the 4 spot sample, our brains will find 'patterns' of 'bias' when there's nothing there at all. On the actual lists I'll prefer a light bias towards the later years in this set of 25 and the '77-'00 era, with a moderately aggressive bias towards the later years in the '50-'76 period.

I ran a simulation to check and yeah, you are right. Minimum range of 3 out of 4 numbers between 1 and 25 after 10000 runs:



17.5% chance of 4 or less is pretty high.

[Doctor MJ]

The NBA is substantially better today than the early 00s, however guys like Duncan and Shaq would be great in any era.

Well generally, greats would be good in any era, but not exactly as good in any era.

[One_and_Done]

The NBA is substantially better today than the early 00s, however guys like Duncan and Shaq would be great in any era.

Well generally, greats would be good in any era, but not exactly as good in any era.

Some greats. The further back you go the lower the odds. In the case of Duncan though he might be even better today.

[ReggiesKnicks]

The NBA is substantially better today than the early 00s, however guys like Duncan and Shaq would be great in any era.

Well generally, greats would be good in any era, but not exactly as good in any era.

Some greats. The further back you go the lower the odds. In the case of Duncan though he might be even better today.

It's possible players like Garnett and Duncan would be better today, but they were already Beat In Show in their era. There is little room to improve on the level of "Top 10 Peak of All-Time".

[Doctor MJ]

The NBA is substantially better today than the early 00s, however guys like Duncan and Shaq would be great in any era.

Well generally, greats would be good in any era, but not exactly as good in any era.

Some greats. The further back you go the lower the odds. In the case of Duncan though he might be even better today.

And your reasoning for why you believe this, I hope, will be part of your vote explanation.

[Doctor MJ]

Well generally, greats would be good in any era, but not exactly as good in any era.

Some greats. The further back you go the lower the odds. In the case of Duncan though he might be even better today.

It's possible players like Garnett and Duncan would be better today, but they were already Beat In Show in their era. There is little room to improve on the level of "Top 10 Peak of All-Time".

I have to push back on the premise that there's no room for improvement simply because you were the best of your competition.

1) There's always room for skill improvement - whether the player in question can achieve it or not.

2) It's not like any of the guys we're going to be talking about here won the championship as a matter of course. Everyone we're talking about is "mostly a loser" from a championship-or-bust perspective, and while that's absurdly harsh as an actual fault, it does mean that we can see with all of these guys again and again how they could have beaten the opponent that eliminated them.

Further, we now have access to a wealth of data which can help us work with much greater precision in our method, and helps us avoid falling into the the habit of equating very different phenomena through some default sense of fairness..

[migya]

Isn't it reasonable that Duncan's peak was in a much tougher era/time period? The 00s, particularly early to mid of that decade was a grind and not easy to score, particularly near the basket and Duncan did so in 02 and 03. His defense is so much better than the others in consideration that he looks the top player.

So I'll just say:

I totally reject the idea that the early-to-mid 00s should be seen as a stronger era than what came after, because quite literally the era that came after represented a paradigm shift of inherently more effective basketball based on skillsets that the top players from the early 00s either a) didn't have, or b) were discouraged from using.

Doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a glut of extreme outlier talents of a sort in the early '00s based on what NBA coaches thought they knew about what worked, but those coaches were wrong. And so I'd suggest, frankly, that if you're seeing the early '00s as the most talented era of the century, when the early '00s couldn't compete against the rest of the century in reality, you're anchoring yourself to a pre-paradigm way of thinking and finding fault with guys for not being optimized for what NBA coaches thought was optimal 25 years ago, rather than asking yourself what issues guys back then would have if they were forced to play in a league that was more advanced.

Of course, I'm a minority view, and I expect my ballot when I put it down is going to deviate pretty wildly from the mean.

To clarify, I meant tougher as in rougher, much more grind and slower, harder to scorer overall. I don't agree that the game got better and is coached better. There is better ball movement for the most part and better shooting, but regression defensively and scoring outside three point shooting.

[DraymondGold]

The Question of Curry's Superior Impact, and the importance of individual Offense > Defense

After LeBron (assuming he's rightly going in first), I think most people have a general group of players: 01 Shaq, 03 Duncan, 04 Garnett, 17 Curry, 23 Jokic. Assuming LeBron will go in first, I’d like to focus on the next five players. Of these five players, I think most people favor the big men. However, I’d argue Curry is still underrated after all these years.

Curry’s rather singular in how he gets his impact: there’s never been another player with his gravity, with his unique combination of on and off-ball shooting, scoring, and playmaking. It may be harder for people to see how he dominates the league compared to an outlier athletic phenom like Shaq, or players in the classic two-way big mold like Duncan and Garett. But like the Barkley saying “Jump shooting teams can’t win championships”, people may intuitively favoring a traditional mold, while underrating how revolutionary Curry was. The data on the whole suggests Curry really did have the more valuable full-season peak than Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, and Jokic, and I think that’s something people should take seriously: I don’t think it can be simply explained away just by being ‘ahead of his time’ or in a better situation or something like that.

A. Is Curry really the most valuable of these players according to the data?

Team Overall SRS
- 17 Curry’s Warriors 16.15 >> 01 Shaq’s Lakers 12.20 > 03 Duncan’s Spurs 9.01 > 23 Jokic’s Nuggets +8.50 > 04 Garnett’s Timberwolves +5 (decimal values weren’t given)
So while Curry obviously had better teammates, there is significantly more value to go around for the peak-Curry Warriors.

Peak WOWY (change in Margin of victory per game with/without a player in game, in 5-year stretch surrounding the peak year):
- 15-19 Curry +12.47 (52 missed games) > 21–25 Jokic +8.91 (36 missed games) > 01–05 Duncan +6.95 (30 missed games) > 99–03 Shaq +6.68 (42 missed games) > 2004–2008 Garnett +5.66 (23 missed games; no usable sample of missed games in 02–06)

Full Season Plus Minus (relative plus minus for playoffs):
- -17 Curry 19.29 > 23 Jokic 12.48 > 01 Shaq 9.73 > 03 Duncan 9.11 > 04 Garnett 7.81
Full Season Plus Minus (relative plus minus for playoffs, 7x playoff weighting):
- 17 Curry 21.2 > 01 Shaq 14.36 > 23 Jokic 11.15 > 03 Duncan 10.55 > 04 Garnett 4.92
Curry stays significantly ahead as we go to longer peak samples (~5 years).

Full Season On/off:
- 23 Jokic 22.3 > 17 Curry 21.1 > 04 Garnett 20.1 > 03 Duncan 17.0 > 01 Shaq 16.1
Curry sneaks ahead of Jokic and gains a much larger advantage over Garnett/Duncan/Shaq as we go to long peak samples (~5 year).

Full Season On/off (7x playoff weighting):
- 17 Curry 22.0 > 03 Duncan 21.7 > 04 Garnett 21.4 > 23 Jokic 17.7 > 01 Shaq 13.1
Curry gains a much larger advantage over Duncan/Garnett/Jokic as we go to long peak samples (~5 years). Shaq sneaks out in first in longer samples, but only if we include the year 2000 which is before the era.

So the raw impact metrics tend to suggest Curry was the most impactful, and often by a large margin. Now raw impact metrics are noisy with high uncertainty, so this is far from conclusive. What about adjusted metrics?

Full Season Augmented Plus Minus (a combination of the most accurate box stat on the market, and plus minus data)
- 23 Jokic 7.3 > 17 Curry 6.8 > 04 Garnett 6.6 > 03 Duncan 6.2 > 01 Shaq 5.9
Full Season Augmented Plus Minus (7x playoff weighting, averaged game-wise)
- 23 Jokic 7.4 > 17 Curry 7.1 > 03 Duncan 6.9 > 01 Shaq 6.2 > 04 Garnett 6.0

APM (regular season only)
- 17 Curry 8.5 > 03 Duncan 6.8 > 04 Garnett 6.4 > 23 Jokic 6.2 > 01 Shaq 5.6

There are different versions of RAPM, but to start with ‘Vanilla RAPM’, Curry again looks the best:
Vanilla RAPM (regular season only)
- 17 Curry 6.51 > 04 Garnett 4.70 > 23 Jokic 4.51 > 03 Duncan 3.79 > 01 Shaq 3.50
Curry remains ahead as you extend the RAPM to long peak samples (~5 year). Playoff RAPM is flawed, given the smaller samples and uneven lineups/matchups, but 15-19 Curry stays ahead of all but Duncan in 5-year playoff RAPM, and 13–17 Curry is ahead of Duncan too (note we lose playoff data in 23 from this source, so don’t have full Jokic stats).

EPM (regular season)
17 Curry 8.2 > 23 Jokic 7.9 > 04 Garnett 6.4 > 03 Duncan (no data before 2002)
EPM (playoffs)
- 17 Curry 8.9 > 03 Duncan 7.8 > 23 Jokic 7.2 > Garnett (no data before 2002)
EPM is commonly considered the most accurate descriptive stat on the market. I don’t have a subscription, but from posts from other people, available Shaq data in regular season. In the playoffs, 17 Curry is ranked 3rd on record over every Duncan, Garnett, Jokic, or Shaq playoffs on record.

So the adjust impact metrics are more mixed, but also frequently portray Curry at either best, and always in the top two.

On the whole, the data’s noisy, and one can always find stats they favor one player over another. But in a brief survey, looking across raw impact stats (WOWY and plus minus based), adjusted impact stats, and our best available hybrid stat, in regular season and full season samples across sample sizes, Curry tends to come out on top.

B. How is it that a one-way offensive player could be more impactful than two-way players?
In the recent DoctorMJ thread, we discuss the idea that individual offensive impact supersedes individual defensive impact in the play-by-play era. I suspect people are underrating how much more important individual offense is. Which is not to say that defense isn’t important (it’s equally as important at a team level) or that having great individual defenders aren’t a key foundation to building great team defenses… but still, individual offensive impact seems to significantly outweigh individual defensive impact.

What’s the evidence? Take the offensive and defensive splits in Goldstein RAPM, one of the classic sources for single-year RAPM (1997–2019)
-Offensive RAPM samples over +7: 4
Defensive RAPM samples over +7: 0
-Offensive RAPM samples over +6: 19
Defensive RAPM samples over +6: 4
-Offensive RAPM samples over +5: 50
Defensive RAPM samples over +5: 21

What about nbarapm’s 3-year and 5-year RAPM samples?
-Offensive RAPM samples over +8: 7 (peak Curry comes first)
Defensive RAPM samples over +8: 0
-Offensive RAPM samples over +7: 27
Defensive RAPM samples over +7: 2
-Offensive RAPM samples over +6: 55
Defensive RAPM samples over +6: 11

One can also see that individual offense trumps individual defense in WOWY data, and in team data (e.g. in the Top 20 teams all time in overall SRS, ~75% of those teams’ best players get more value on offense while 25% are get comparable or more value on defense).

How can this be? Volume and efficiency.

Volume: Even the best defenders have significantly less volume than the best offensive players.
In a Thinking basketball study of the 2011 season, the highest defensive usage tops out at 22.4%; the highest offensive usage is 34% during that time. Now usage is a flawed stat, and the study only examined one season (defensive usage may be higher in the dead-ball era), but the available studies suggest defenders have much less volume than offensive players. Which makes sense! Offenses are proactive — they can design the offenses around using the skills of their best player. Defenses are reactive — the opposing offenses can scheme to take the best defenders out of the action, putting them on the weak side or attacking weaker defenders.

Efficiency: The available data also suggests defenders aren’t more impactful on opponent efficiency than the best offensive players. The best offensive players lift their team’s offensive efficiency by +5 to +8 according to nbarapm, while the best defenders hurt opponent’s offensive efficiency by -4.5 to -6 (see the DoctorMJ thread).

So the best offensive players have significantly more volume, and a clear efficiency advantage

Given this asymmetry, Curry comes out as one of the clear offensive GOAT candidates, often with the best offensive RAPM on record, while also being a neutral to positive defender. This may help contextualize why so many of the overall impact metrics are higher on Curry than some of the two-way candidates, e.g. Duncan or KG. Shaq of course gets much of his impact from offense, as dose Jokic, so this could still be complementary to them. But the data we have seems to still favor Curry over those two.

Now It's not so compelling to end the debate -- far from it. No metric is perfect, and each can have wide uncertainty bars. And indeed, people may have contextual reasons to prefer other players (e.g. health/durability). But there do seem to be a trend in the data we have that Curry is the most impactful, and is being underrated in votes so far. Food for thought as people discuss!

[Joao Saraiva]

All right so from 2001 on:
1. LeBron James 2009
I had some doubts about including 2018 here or 2016, but I just feel the motor difference is hard to ignore. That was James going all out for the entire regular season, perfoming at superb level every night and dragging a poor roster to 66 wins. Best driver the game has ever seen. Superb finisher at the rim. Best athlete of all time in my view. It was impossible to stop his 1st step, he could go where he wanted on the court unless you defended him with A TON of help defense. He was just an unstopable machine.

On defense he was very fast rotating, a great help defender and a very good man to man defender, able to stick with stronger guys but also move his feet quick enough to stay in front of the fastest guards.

He went down in the ECF with a legendary performance (specially games 1 and 5) but it had nothing to do with him. Cleveland was just outmatched all over the place.

2. Nikola Jokic 2023
The greatest passing big man at full display in the playoffs too. Dude is a superb scorer even tough he isn't flashy, constantly touching 60 and 70 ts% at high volume. Also his passing and offensive awareness is by miles the best in his position in NBA history. He's the best center of the modern era on offense and you can build safely trough him.

As a defender he's average/above average, nowhere near the realms of Tim Duncan. But I think he's so unique on offense that you always get a chance with him as your best player. We're talking about a guy who is taking trash teams to 7 games against OKC like last year, dragging old Westbrooks to the playoffs and being competitive.

To be honest I just went with 2023 for playoff success, as I think his last years have all been in a class of his own on offense.


3. Shaq 2001
Hard to separate the 01 and 00 versions, and teams were still going with multiple bigs on the roster just to foul him. He was the #1 of one of the most dominant ever teams in the playoffs. Absolute monster on offense, and while he had his faults on defense he was still an above man to man defender and good rim protector.

4. Tim Duncan 2003
Two way player showing his best version on both sides of the floor, and clearly his best year on offense. Also the Spurs cast wasn't that great as some were either too young or too old to be the best support Duncan has ever had.

I just don't believe building trough Duncan on offense can provide the same results as building trough Jokic or LeBron, and that's why he goes 3rd. Still a great year, a dominating performance in the finals and Spurs took a crap on LA that year, and that's still quite surprising as Shaq and Kobe were both well in their prime.

[f4p]

Leaning LeBron, Duncan, KG and Shaq. Order TBD.

-- 2024 Jokic is the other big candidate for me. Considering inclusion, will look at some 2001 Shaq tape I guess.
-- Curry? 2017 I find hard to trust at face value for obvious reasons ("hard to trust at face value" = still a surefire top 6 peak). Of course 2016 would be here if he didn't get injured.

Gonna wait a bit for an actual post/vote.

Why would his peak be over kawhi for example? Like it doesn’t even seem particularly likely that he was better than kawhi from the same year nor does he really have a complete finals run in the level of 2019 kawhi if we’re going to ding 2017 kawhi for being purposely injured.

[Joao Saraiva]

The thing about Curry... well in 16 it didn't end well and his impact in the playoffs is not at the same level, making it hard to choose him over 01 Shaq, 09, 12, 16 or 18 Bron, 03 Duncan...

Then KD is added. And then the Warriors have it all - ultimate spacing with Klay, Curry and KD. Two elite defenders in Iguodala and Draymond. They were deep enough. And when Steph wasn't playing, the Warriors were still unstopable. When Curry had subpar performances in the finals it didn't matter, cause the fire power was still there.

So despite the team being incredible together it's hard to value Steph as much as other guys cause when they weren't there the team would go absolutely nowhere. In 17 the Warriors might even miss Steph for 50% or more of the time and still end up as champions. You can't say that about other guys.

I'm looking at Giannis, Kobe 06 whom I think is underrated peak wise and then Kevin Garnett and Steph, but still not decided the order I want them in. My guess is that Steph will go ahead on this list, but while he is a great ceilling raiser I don't see him putting up Kobe's impact in 06 for example.

Just some food for thought.

[Doctor MJ]

Isn't it reasonable that Duncan's peak was in a much tougher era/time period? The 00s, particularly early to mid of that decade was a grind and not easy to score, particularly near the basket and Duncan did so in 02 and 03. His defense is so much better than the others in consideration that he looks the top player.

So I'll just say:

I totally reject the idea that the early-to-mid 00s should be seen as a stronger era than what came after, because quite literally the era that came after represented a paradigm shift of inherently more effective basketball based on skillsets that the top players from the early 00s either a) didn't have, or b) were discouraged from using.

Doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a glut of extreme outlier talents of a sort in the early '00s based on what NBA coaches thought they knew about what worked, but those coaches were wrong. And so I'd suggest, frankly, that if you're seeing the early '00s as the most talented era of the century, when the early '00s couldn't compete against the rest of the century in reality, you're anchoring yourself to a pre-paradigm way of thinking and finding fault with guys for not being optimized for what NBA coaches thought was optimal 25 years ago, rather than asking yourself what issues guys back then would have if they were forced to play in a league that was more advanced.

Of course, I'm a minority view, and I expect my ballot when I put it down is going to deviate pretty wildly from the mean.

To clarify, I meant tougher as in rougher, much more grind and slower, harder to scorer overall. I don't agree that the game got better and is coached better. There is better ball movement for the most part and better shooting, but regression defensively and scoring outside three point shooting.

Are you saying you don’t think teams from today would generally beat teams from 20 years ago if they played?

If so, what’s your explanation for why we have seen progressively changed their strategy in that time frame?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ReggiesKnicks]

Some greats. The further back you go the lower the odds. In the case of Duncan though he might be even better today.

It's possible players like Garnett and Duncan would be better today, but they were already Beat In Show in their era. There is little room to improve on the level of "Top 10 Peak of All-Time".

I have to push back on the premise that there's no room for improvement simply because you were the best of your competition.

To be clear, I did say little room, not no room. The context being the actual ranking of the peaks. If you think a player who peaked Top 10 all-time has vast room for improvements in terms of ability, then they would be head-and-shoulders ahead of the field, and that seems highly unlikely.

1) There's always room for skill improvement - whether the player in question can achieve it or not.

Unquestionable, but Garnett and Duncan are two of the most skilled big men of all-time. In fact, Kevin Garnett had guard skills as a 7-Footer. The obvious skill improvement for Garnett is adding a 3-Point shot, vaulting his efficiency from the Long-2's. For Duncan, he had more to unlock from a passing perspective as a pivot-passer in the passer given his inate inatefeel for the game and IQ.

Both of these are simply examples of easy to identify skill improvements we could have seen from Garnett and Duncan had they been born 20 years later.

Further, we now have access to a wealth of data which can help us work with much greater precision in our method, and helps us avoid falling into the the habit of equating very different phenomena through some default sense of fairness..

I have been fond of the data. Here is some interesting stuff.

Best DARKO of All-Time
1. Duncan
2. Garnett
3. Duncan
4. Duncan
5. Duncan
6. LeBron
7. LeBron
8. Duncan
9. LeBron
10. Duncan
11. LeBron
12. Garnett
13. LeBron
14. Garnett
15. Chris Paul

There are 3 players who have the best 14 season per DARKO.

When looking at RAPM, those 3 (Garnett, Duncan, and LeBron) also reign supreme, so much so that it is going to take a lot of work from differing perspectives or arguments to curtail what I already believe.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Isn't it reasonable that Duncan's peak was in a much tougher era/time period? The 00s, particularly early to mid of that decade was a grind and not easy to score, particularly near the basket and Duncan did so in 02 and 03. His defense is so much better than the others in consideration that he looks the top player.

So I'll just say:

I totally reject the idea that the early-to-mid 00s should be seen as a stronger era than what came after, because quite literally the era that came after represented a paradigm shift of inherently more effective basketball based on skillsets that the top players from the early 00s either a) didn't have, or b) were discouraged from using.

Doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a glut of extreme outlier talents of a sort in the early '00s based on what NBA coaches thought they knew about what worked, but those coaches were wrong. And so I'd suggest, frankly, that if you're seeing the early '00s as the most talented era of the century, when the early '00s couldn't compete against the rest of the century in reality, you're anchoring yourself to a pre-paradigm way of thinking and finding fault with guys for not being optimized for what NBA coaches thought was optimal 25 years ago, rather than asking yourself what issues guys back then would have if they were forced to play in a league that was more advanced.

Of course, I'm a minority view, and I expect my ballot when I put it down is going to deviate pretty wildly from the mean.

To clarify, I meant tougher as in rougher, much more grind and slower, harder to scorer overall. I don't agree that the game got better and is coached better. There is better ball movement for the most part and better shooting, but regression defensively and scoring outside three point shooting.

Could you expand how defense has gotten worse, even when all the coaches and players in the league have discussed, at length, how advanced defensive schemes have become? Defenses have evolved at an incredible late on the back of Thibs and Stan Van Gundy's strategies which they began using in the mid-late 2000's.

In fact, you can go watch 2007-2009 Houston Rockets, 2009-2012 Orlando Magic, 2008-2010 Celtics and 2011-2015 Chicago Bulls and see how much of they were doing has led to the current evolution of modern NBA defenses.

Another way to think about defense: Defense is a lot easier when you are defending a Ben Wallace Post-Up or a when your 3-4-5 are Jalen Rose, Jermaine O'Neal and Brad Miller and your Point Guard can't shoot a 3P shot in Jamaal Tinsley.

[homecourtloss]

1. LeBron James, 2016 (2009 > 2013 > 2012)

You can argue many different seasons as LeBron’s peak and the overall goat peak. I have gone back forth between 2009, 2013, and 2016. In 2009 he is a force of nature and in just about every game the Cavs played he would come out of the gate in the first quarter and physically impose his will on the game on both sides of the ball. +15 on court with THAT roster is absurd. Had the greatest box score run in playoffs history. I think had Ben Wallace not gotten injured, 2009 would be remembered differently. In 2013 he plays a different role and without an injured Wade in the playoffs posts an absurd +30 rORtg. But 2016 does it for me. He posts an absurd +13.5 or +14 rORtg on court (depending on various methods of calculation) while shouldering massive defensive responsibilities, a +20 on/off, lifts a defense by more than +7 per 100 possessions (the territory of ATG defensive bigs) and then defeats a 73 win team posting a nearly +30 on/off in the finals.

One of the things that gives me pause of not voting 2009 LeBron as his peak other than just the sheer force of nature impact in 2009 was how inelastic his impact was despite who and who wasn’t on court.

The supporting cast should not have been able to get this team to 66 wins and an 8+ SRS. One of the things that hurt was the injury to Big Ben who came back in the playoffs a shell of himself and was soon out of the league.

LeBron ON, West, Wallace, BigZ, Varejao OFF: +18.0
LeBron ON, Gibson, Szczerbiak, Pavlovic OFF: +15.7

with Vareajao OFF: +17.1
with BigZ OFF: +15.5
with Pavlovic OFF: +15.4
with West OFF: +14.2
with Gibson OFF: +13.8
with Mo OFF: +13.5
with Wallace OFF: +12.0

with BigZ and Varejao OFF, +18.2
with Varejao and Gibson OFF, +17.3
with Mo and West OFF, +13.0
with BigZ and Ben OFF, +12.0
with Ben and West OFF, +11.4
with Mo and Ben OFF, +10.6

without Ben Wallace, 1,802 minutes, +12.03
without Gibson, 2,003 minutes, +13.43
without Mo Williams, 836 minutes, +13.46 (Mo without James, 616 minutes, -3.25)
without West, 1,025 minutes, +14.21
without Illgauskas, 1,547 minutes, +14.45
without Szczerbiak, 2,151 minutes, +15.39
without Andy V., 1,195 minutes, +17.13

LeBron without Mo and Varejao, 309 minutes, +10.68; Mo and Varejao without LeBron, 388 minutes, -1.13
without Ben and Illgauskas, 1,000 minutes, +11.97
without Mo and West, 240 minutes, +12.99
without Ben and Varejao, 382 minutes, +13.54
without Ben, Andy, Big Z, 254 minutes, +15.73

I’m pretty confident in James’s peak being the highest peak given the outlier nature of how many different seasons he has led in PI RAPM in whstever intervals of looking at surrounding years. Obviously, this doesn’t have to be the case, but I highly doubt that it’s not.

Playoff RAPM

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KiGykvmgXmDv5ibAtobHui-DfjjRhpBueHrJMD8v3vk/edit

Not sure if all have seen this, but Engelmann has been reworking his RPM models into what he now calls xRAPM (RS and PS), and for single year RAPM, LeBron leads in nine different seasons between 2007 and 2021, a 14 year span of years leading in RAPM. To say this ludicrous is an understatement. In the databall era, i.e., 1997-current, there have only been a handful of players who have led a season in RAPM multiple years and the longest span of years between leading in RAPM other than LeBron’s 14 is KG’s 4. LeBron was in 99th percentile in every season between 2007 and 2021 save 2019.



If you look at being in the 99th percentile rather than outright leading, then you get some longer spans such as Dirk’s 10 and KD’s 10. KD is interesting since he appears in the 99th percentile in 2013 and 2014 and then again in 2022 and 2023.



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

The breadth of longevity and peak impact is quite extraordinary.

Cheema’s 5 year RAPM, 1997-2021

https://www.thespax.com/nba/quantifying-the-nbas-greatest-five-year-peaks-since-1997/

LeBron has the Highest 5 year RAPM in the 25 year dataset, 2 of the top 3 five year intervals, 3 of the top 4, 11 of the top 33.

LeBron has ELEVEN different 5 year intervals in which he had the highest RAPM.
KG has 4,
Duncan has 2,
Steph Curry has 2.

11 is an absurd amount and is a technical outlier.

Code: Select all

PLAYER    Interval      RAPM     Interval Rank       Overall Rank
LeBron James   2012-16   6.46            1                    1
LeBron James   2013-17   6.27            1                    2
LeBron James   2006-10   6.15            1                    4
LeBron James   2016-20   5.76            1                    11
LeBron James   2005-09   5.73            1                    13
LeBron James   2008-12   5.71            1                    14
LeBron James   2009-13   5.55            1                    22
LeBron James   2011-15   5.54            1                    23
LeBron James   2007-11   5.51            1                    26
LeBron James   2017-21   5.42            1                    29
LeBron James   2010-14   5.29            1                    33

Englemann’s xRAPM (newer version of his RPM)

https://xrapm.com

1 yr RAPM leaders

LeBron: 9 times (12 times top 2)
KG: 4 (5 times top 2)
Jokic: 4
Duncan: 3 (6 times top 2)
Shaq: 2 (3 times top 2)
Curry: 2 (5 times top 2)
CP3: 2 (5 times top 2)
Giannis: 1
Kawhi: 1 (tied in 2017 with LeBron)
DRob: 1
Jordan: 1 (2 times top 2)

All +9 seasons: 43% of 9+ seasons belong to James

2010 LeBron: +9.9
2011 LeBron: +9.6
2009 LeBron: +9.4
2025 Jokic, +9.4
2025 SGA, +9.2
2008 KG, +9.0
1997 Jordan, +9.0

All 8+ seasons: 37% of all 8+ seasons belong to James

2010 LeBron: +9.9
2011 LeBron: +9.6
2009 LeBron: +9.4
2025 Jokic, +9.4
2008 KG, +9.0
1997 Jordan, +9.0
2012 LeBron, +8.9
2013 LeBron, +8.7
2004 KG: +8.9
2024 Jokic, +8.6
2023 Jokic, +8.5
2016 LeBron, +8.3
2017 LeBron, +8.2
2017 Kawhi, +8.2
2016 Curry, +8.2
2015 CP3, +8.1
2003 Duncan, +8.0
2016 CP3, +8.0
2018 Curry, +8.0



[url]nbarapm.com[/url]

2 yr stretches leading in RAPM

LeBron 7 times
Garnett 3
Shaq 3
Jokic 3
Duncan 2
CP3 1
Curry 1
Jordan 1
Dirk 1
Embiid, 1
Stockton 1
Draymond 0
Wade 0
Kawhi 0
Durant 0
Giannis 0

3 yr

LeBron 7
Garnett 4
Curry 3
Jokic 2
Kawhi 2
Shaq 1
Jordan 1
Dirk 1
Stockton 2
CP3 0
Draymond 0
Wade 0

4 yr

LeBron 8
Garnett 4
Curry 3
Jokic 2
Jordan 1
Nash 1
Kawhi 1
Dirk 0
Shaq 0
CP3 0
Draymond 0
Wade 0
Stockton 2

5 yr

LeBron 9
Garnett 6
Curry 3
Jokic 1
Cp3 1
Jordan 1
Kawhi 1
Stockton 1
Shaq 0
Draymond 0
Wade 0

1st or 2nd in nbarapm.com

2 yr

LeBron 9
Shaq 6
Garnett 4
Duncan 3
Jokic 3
CP3 3
Curry 2
Jordan 2
Draymond 2
DWade 1
Nash 1
Kawhi 2
Dirk 2
Embiid 2
Giannis 1
Stockton 3

3 yr

LeBron 10
Garnett 6
Curry 4
Shaq 4
CP3 4
Jokic 2
Kawhi 2
Jordan 2
Dirk 2
Nash 1
Draymond 0
Wade 0
Embiid 2
Stockton 2

4 yr

LeBron 10
Garnett 8
Curry 5
Shaq 3 (all 2)
CP3 3
Jokic 2
Dirk 2
Jordan 1
Nash 1
Kawhi 1
Draymond 0
Wade 0
Giannis 2
Embiid 1
Stockton 2

5 yr

LeBron 11
Garnett 10
Curry 5
CP3 5
Jokic 2
Kawhi 2
Shaq 1
Jordan 1
Draymond 0
Giannis 2
Stockton 3

He is so very clearly the most valuable player of the 21th century is not even fun, and did it going from the late deadball era all the way to the small ball shoting era to boot

Simply being in the 99 percentile in 2007 and then in the 99 percentile in 2021 let alone leading in both years in a completely different environment is really beyond anything. If you look at the entire data set, all of these players I mentioned are outliers, but amongst just these players, LeBron is an outlier amongst outliers.

To match this 14 year band, someone like Jokić would have to be leading RAPM in a season in 2036.
If Jordan lead in 1988 then he would have to lead in 2002 to match the same span.

Over the past few years, for obvious reasons, the term "longevity" has been sometimes switched out for the phrase "just played a really long time" and it does a disservice to those players that can be impactful for such a long period of time let alone be the most impactful player over such a long period of time. Because the game changes in micro evolves, either your skill set has to evolve and/or your skill set is so dominant that regardless of era and environment you're still that impactful, e.g., Kareem.

2. Duncan, 2003 (>2002)

Who was on this team creating this type of team? Duncan’s plus offense and GOAT level defense lifted a team to immense heights. I cannot think of very many scenarios in which this player wouldn't have the same results—1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s (proven), 2010s (proven), space and pace era, etc. Immense lift on both sides of the ball especially the playoffs. great regular and post season in which he shouldered a heavy load and didn’t falter. Impact metrics look great, especially in the playoffs. Defense is replicable in many different eras while his offense was continuously resilient throughout the playoffs. If we’re doing a “Veil of Ignorance” type simulation, I feel very comfortable with this version of Duncan being capable of providing championship impact.

Playoffs:

+3.8 rORtg on, -14.2 rORtg off (offense strong enough with him on, absolutely nothing with him off)
2. -9.7 rDRtg on, +8.9 rDRtg off (defense incredibly strong with him on, garbage with him off)

3. KG,2004

We saw what happens when he's on a roster that has talent, and unfortunately, his best years were wasted by an incompetent organization, but the levels that he reached by being a positive in every single area of the game and dominant and some lead to one of the highest impact seasons in NBA history. I cannot think of any error that you put this player you put this player in and he doesn't contribute in the same way

4. Curry, 2016>2017>2015

Changed the way people look at the game. 2017 was the better playoffs, but had uniquely favorable circumstances which makes me favor 2016.

Shaq 2000 would have been #3 here for me but it’s 2001-2025.

[ReggiesKnicks]

3. Shaq, 2000

The gravity at the rim, plus defense, high minutes played, only short coming is FT shooting. The Lakers’ shortcomings were really obvious whenever he wasn’t on the court and that was pretty much the case every season except 2001 playoffs.

Playoffs:

+8.8 rORtg on, -5.1 rORtg off (very strong offense on, very weak offense with him off)
4. -1.2 rDRtg on, +9 rDRtg off (solid even defense with him on, terrible with him off)

Good post but you need to use 2001 or onward Shaq if you want to use him.

[lessthanjake]

The thing about Curry... well in 16 it didn't end well and his impact in the playoffs is not at the same level, making it hard to choose him over 01 Shaq, 09, 12, 16 or 18 Bron, 03 Duncan...

Then KD is added. And then the Warriors have it all - ultimate spacing with Klay, Curry and KD. Two elite defenders in Iguodala and Draymond. They were deep enough. And when Steph wasn't playing, the Warriors were still unstopable. When Curry had subpar performances in the finals it didn't matter, cause the fire power was still there.

So despite the team being incredible together it's hard to value Steph as much as other guys cause when they weren't there the team would go absolutely nowhere. In 17 the Warriors might even miss Steph for 50% or more of the time and still end up as champions. You can't say that about other guys.

I'm looking at Giannis, Kobe 06 whom I think is underrated peak wise and then Kevin Garnett and Steph, but still not decided the order I want them in. My guess is that Steph will go ahead on this list, but while he is a great ceilling raiser I don't see him putting up Kobe's impact in 06 for example.

Just some food for thought.

I don’t think the bolded is borne out by the data at all. Steph missed 53 games in the regular season + playoffs in the years Durant was on the Warriors. The Warriors were only 29-24 in those games, with a +0.28 net rating per 100 possessions.. Similarly, in the 6156 minutes when Steph was off the floor in those Durant years, the Warriors had a net rating of -0.50 per 100 possessions. The Warriors were actually demonstrably a pretty mediocre team without Steph. Which is not a bad place for a major star’s team to be without them, but they were definitely not “unstoppable” without him, nor do we have any indication that they could’ve won the title without him.

I think the argument people make otherwise is basically to say that they did fine without him *in the playoffs*. But that argument amounts to looking at 6 games in the 2018 playoffs, against a 47–win team and a 48-win team, with four of those games being at home. They did well in those games, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to ignore way larger samples in favor of a playoff sample of a few games against early-round minnows anyways. Nor does beating 47-48 win teams actually give any indication whatsoever that a team could win a title.

I think it’s essentially undeniable that Steph was the guy that made the Warriors tick, and that they were really not an elite team without him. They were certainly a *talented* team without him, but the results really don’t bear out that they were actually all that good without him. And, of course, with him they were a top contender for GOAT team. That’s a huge feather in Steph’s cap. As I’ve noted, I’m not inclined to vote Steph higher than #4 here, but looking at what the Durant Warriors did with and without him is actually a data point that suggests he should be ranked higher than that IMO.

[falcolombardi]

So I'll just say:

I totally reject the idea that the early-to-mid 00s should be seen as a stronger era than what came after, because quite literally the era that came after represented a paradigm shift of inherently more effective basketball based on skillsets that the top players from the early 00s either a) didn't have, or b) were discouraged from using.

Doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a glut of extreme outlier talents of a sort in the early '00s based on what NBA coaches thought they knew about what worked, but those coaches were wrong. And so I'd suggest, frankly, that if you're seeing the early '00s as the most talented era of the century, when the early '00s couldn't compete against the rest of the century in reality, you're anchoring yourself to a pre-paradigm way of thinking and finding fault with guys for not being optimized for what NBA coaches thought was optimal 25 years ago, rather than asking yourself what issues guys back then would have if they were forced to play in a league that was more advanced.

Of course, I'm a minority view, and I expect my ballot when I put it down is going to deviate pretty wildly from the mean.

To clarify, I meant tougher as in rougher, much more grind and slower, harder to scorer overall. I don't agree that the game got better and is coached better. There is better ball movement for the most part and better shooting, but regression defensively and scoring outside three point shooting.

Are you saying you don’t think teams from today would generally beat teams from 20 years ago if they played?

If so, what’s your explanation for why we have seen progressively changed their strategy in that time frame?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not to mention defense "regressing" which seems to just mean "more s7tatcoring now therefore defense is worse" (but interesringly the same simplistic reasoning not always or like never being used to say offense today is better)

Defenses today need to work way harder, cover way more space and options, looser dribble rules, spacing and ever more complex coverages and recoveries against all sorts of pick and roll actions

The stuff okc does today is basically wizardry in complexity compared to somethingh like the 90 bulls