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

[DraymondGold]

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.

Just to add on to this:

17-19 Warriors net rating with all 4 all-stars: +15.9
17-19 Warriors net rating with 3 all stars, no Durant: +11.1
17-19 Warriors net rating with Dray+Curry, no Durant no Klay: +11.6
17-19 Warriors net rating with only Curry, no Durant no Klay no Dray: +9.4
17-19 Warriors net rating with Durant + Klay + Dray, no Curry: +3.7
17-19 Warriors net rating with none of the 4 all-stars: -10.3
Per pbpstats.com, full season data.

The data we have make it pretty clear — without Curry, this team was a far cry from the dominance that earns strong championship odds, and Curry is clearly the only player to have the effect on the Warriors.

People may argue that the team was built around Steph (although isn’t that the case for basically every candidate here?), or that his health is a concern, etc., but it’s really not clear at all how many championships they’d win if they had KD the whole time without Curry. Still a great team, sure. But multiple championships? That’s no so clear!

[-Luke-]

Before I really looked deeper into the specific seasons (just from memory) I had the following idea in mind: LeBron #1 with a reasonable gap (but without disrespecting the others, who also had insanely good peaks), Duncan and Shaq competing for #2 and Jokic, Garnett and Curry for the last spot in this round.

After doing more research nothing has changed for the #1 spot, but Duncan turned out to be a rather clear No. 2. Shaq would have been in contention for the second spot of this part of the project had it started with the year 2000, which I see as Shaq's peak (I anticipate that I have his 2000 season as a top 3 spot in the next part of this series, but that's a discussion for another day). 2001 is also a great year for Shaq, but not quite as good as 2000. So Shaq didn't turn out as a clear No. 3 but in competition with Jokic, Garnett and Curry.

Choosing between those four players was very hard. Ranking them felt like splitting hairs. I realizied how many great individual seasons I have witnessed since I started to watch the NBA.

Anyway, final ranking:

1. LeBron James 2013 (2012, 2009, 2016, 2018, 2010, you could pick a lot of seasons)
2. Tim Duncan 2003 (2002)
3. Nikola Jokic 2023 (2024)
4. Shaquille O'Neal 2001

Reasoning for #1:
One of the two highest peaks we have seen (I consider 1991 Jordan the other candidate, with Kareem as a possible third candidate) and you could make a case that multiple LeBron seasons have a case for top 10 peaks of all time if we could choose more than one season per player. I have 2013 as his peak season, but I'm open to counter-arguments. 2012 and 2013 are pretty interchangeable in my mind.

Why 2013? I think 2012 and 2013 was the most complete and polished version of LeBron. In 2013 he had developed a consistent three-point shot and had a 63.8 TS% (10.3 rTS) which is the second best of his career (2014 was slightly better), it was arguably his defensive peak or close to his defensive peak (the last years of his first Cavs stint are also in consideration), he was a better leader than during the earlier years of his career and more experienced. Wade's health had started to deteriorate and LeBron was now the unquestioned leader of a team that won two in a row. His athleticism was still very elite.

Duncan at No. 2:
This could have been the second season in NBA history where a player wins MVP, Finals MVP and DPOY (I don't say 'should have been', as Ben Wallace definitely was a worthy DPOY winner). This is the defensive peak for the players in consideration. The 2002-03 Season was a transition year for the Spurs. Robinson played his last Season, Parker was a sophomore and Manu technically a rookie (although he had lots of experience). Normally you wouldn't expect a championship from a team like that, especially going through the West in the 2000's. The Spurs not only won the title, they won 60 games that year, tied with the Mavericks for best in the league - a team they would later beat in the Conference Finals (much to my chagrin during that time). Looking through the rest of the 2003 Spurs, nothing looks particularly other-wordly apart from Duncan's dominance.

How good and dominant Duncan was in the early 2000's may get lost in history a bit, because it was a silent dominance. He's the least 'flashy' of all the candidates here, but people just have to watch the clinching game of the 2003 NBA Finals. This is pure dominance on both ends when it mattered most.

Jokic at No. 3:
Here's where it really feels like splitting hairs. This is the most recent season of my top 6 and best rememberd, so I wouldn't entirely rule out some recency bias. But this is the offensive peak of those six players to me. In 2024 and 2025 Jokic had arguably a better regular season (he seems to improve parts of his game every single season), but 2023 is the best package to me with the playoff run he had.

70.4 TS% (12.3 rTS). This is the single best pure TS% we have ever seen from a guy who shoots the three. +22.6 on-off, which is insane. Elite playmaking and passing. One of the most dominant offensive peaks we have seen (with a case for #1). In the playoff run he had 55/46/80 shooting splits while almost averaging a 30 point triple double and while playing decent defense.

If this was 5-year peak, Jokic would probably be even higher. The last five years of Jokic is one of the best five-year stretches we have ever seen from a player.

Shaq at No. 4:
I went back and forth between Shaq and KG for this spot, while also considering Curry. The reason why 1999-2000 is generally seen as Shaq's peak is because he was dominant from start to finish. In 2000-01 he needed longer to get in shape and could hardly hit a free throw in the first part of the season. During the second half of the season and the playoffs he was back to his dominating self. But I gave Jokic the edge here and feel pretty good about it.

Why Shaq over KG? I have them pretty much on the same level. I have Shaq 2000 over KG 2004 by a decent margin, and the slight drop-off from 2000 Shaq to 2001 Shaq doesn't seem to warrant a change in position. I'm leaning KG over Curry for the next thread.

[DraymondGold]

... Continuing on from my previous post (#50 here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119539240#p119539240 -- sorry for the wall of text!), I thought I'd try to complement the statistical comparison with some film analysis, because every good statistical analysis can be improved with some film analysis.

C. Is Curry’s impact seen on film?

Here's some film I reviewed several years ago for the 2022 peaks project. The review's a bit out of date, so some opinions (including mine, several years later!) may vary. Note that this is a slightly below-average game for late playoff 2017 Curry, at least according to single-game plus minus and BPM (which admittedly aren’t great measures for single-game impact, but there aren’t really any great measures for single-game impact):

Playoff Film Analysis for Curry

Context: Game 5 of the 2017 Finals. The 2017 Cavs are not the best defense, but their overall playoff performance was great, and they played a style of "Curry rules" to specifically limit the impact of Curry. By overall SRS (which account for playoff improvements from a coasting LeBron), the 2017 Cavs were better than any opponent faced by peak Russell, peak Bird, peak Hakeem, or peak Garnett.

This is around Curry’s 2nd-4th worst game out of 9 in the Conference Finals and Finals by +/- data and BPM (which are admittedly noisy on 1 game samples), so it’s far from his best game.
Link:

Watch on YouTube

Play by play for Curry:

Spoiler:

Qualifier about terminology: I said Curry was “doubled” whenever there were 2 defenders who dedicated their primary attention and positioning to stop Curry, at the cost of leaving another Warrior more open. Many of these are really hard hedges, where Curry’s primary defender goes over the screen, and the secondary defender ignores the screener to stop the Curry 3 or drive. Regardless of what we call it, the point I’m trying to make is that the defense prioritizes stopping and is willing to leave Curry’s teammates open to do so.

[1st quarter]
Defense: 0:37 Okay help defense by Curry to make shot harder

1:10 Curry makes the free throw

Defense: 2:20 Great point of attack defense on irving, forces the turnover with help

Offense: 3:17 Subtle: Curry’s gravity pulls Love to him, not Klay. gets Klay Thompson the open 3 off the positioning mistake by JR

Offense: 4:07 Great off ball ankelbreaker. Gets a good look but misses

Defense: 4:35 Curry forced to zone 2 shooters. Prevents pass to the better shooter, but Cavs motion generate a good look.

Offense: 4:54 Curry KD pick and roll, Curry doubled and KD left open. Good look, KD misses

Offense: 6:25 first Curry offensive mistake. Curry’s dribble stripped, turnover

6:30 KD bad pass, stolen by LBJ

Offense: 9:15 Curry doubled, good pass to roll man, but can’t make the shot at the rim

Offense: 10:12 Curry doubled, generates open 3 point shot.

10:35 Meaningless shot from behind the basket in dead time lol. Makes foul shots

Offense: 11:15: quick pass and offbal movement generates good look

Offense: 11:20: Curry doubled, pass to open Durant 3, who misses

Offense: 11:40 Curry doubled, good pass to thompson with inside position

Defense: 12:55 good defense from Curry, helps and gets the steal on LeBron.

Offense: 13:00 Defense leads to transition offense. Iso Curry gets around defender and makes the shot, with 1-3 defenders by him.

Offense: 14:25 Curry KD pick and roll, Curry soft doubled. (really a soft hedge) Then KD iso

Offense: 15:20 Curry rebound. Curry iso blows by defender, makes shot at rim

Offense: 17:00 takes long 3, misses

Offense: 17:45 Curry soft double, gets around defender and makes scoop layup

Offense: 18:07 Curry doubled, steps out of bounds, turnover. Offensive mistake

Defense: 18:40 good curry defense. Goes for steal because he knows Draymond can cover. Recovers position and forces into help defense

18:50 pushed off ball, no call.

Offense: 20:00 Curry doubled, gets some separation but misses shot

Offense: 22:03 Curry great off ball movement, completely loses his defender. Good look, draws foul. makes 2/3 free throws f

25:09 Makes 2/2 free throws for 12 points in 1st quarter.

Defense: 27:48 Active off-ball defense. Communicates, prevents screen from being disruptive, then gets in good help position near rim.

Offense: 28:10 Doubled, drives, turnover. Offensive Mistake.

8 doubles, 2 more soft

…[2nd quarter]

Offense: 35:44 Soft double on Curry, good pass gets KD open, forces recovery from worse man defender. KD makes shot

Offense: 37:53 Curry faces the 3 defender “wall” near the logo

Offense: 39:30, Curry KD pick and roll. First time Curry’s not doubled, and he makes the long 3.

Offense: 42:15 Curry’s 3 point gravity lets him blow by defender. Makes floater

Defense: 43:30 Goes for steal, but misses 3 point shooter makes it. Probably shouldn’t have gambled - Defensive mistake.

Offense: 43:44 Curry doubled once, doubled again, great pass to Draymond for the open corner 3

Defense: 44:05 Curry targeted on defense once, again, but it wastes almost all the shot clock and they don’t get anything. Last second shot misses, Curry rebound

Offense: 44:20 Curry doubled. HIs gravity gets KD an open 3. KD misses,

Offense: 44:30 Curry gets the rebound. Curry’s Doubled again, KD’s open again, this time it’s a made 3

Defense: 44:45 Curry’s defense forces kyrie baseline and into help defense. Kyrie miss.

Curry makes the technical free throw

49:10 not curry but this is funny - David West defends the referee, Cavs make the open 3 lol

Offense: 51:30 Classic Warriors play. Curry doubled on perimeter, good pass to rolling Dray, hockey assist to Iguodala

Offense: 51:53 Curry fantastic vision and execution with the crosscourt pass to KD for an open transition layup

52:15 makes free throws

Defense: 54:39 Curry loses rebound fight to kyrie, leads to open 3. Deffensive Mistake.

Offense: 54:50 Gets a good look shot for the 2-for-1

Offense: 55:18 Curry doubled, good pass generates the open dunk

6 doubles, 1 soft double

…[3rd quarter]

Offense: 57:34 small detail: Curry’s 3 point threat forces the switch to be easy, which gives KD the mismatch height advantage. They don’t easily switch if Curry’s not the 3 point threat he is.

Offense: 58:24 Curry KD pick and roll early in the shot clock. This catches LeBron out of position as he tries to help on Curry, and the fact that it’s so quick in the shot lock forces 2 defenders to stop middle penetration. Curry good pass to KD roll man, then hockey assist to an open Klay 3 pointer
Note: compare these last two plays to how ineffective and slow the Cavs have been trying to mismatch hunt on Curry. Getting a mismatch switch onto Curry takes so much longer, wastes so much more shot lock, seems much less effective

Offense: 59:10 Curry Kd pick and roll. Curry’s doubled, gets middle penetration which forces help defense, then quick pass to draymond for the open 3. Miss, which leads too…

Offense: 59:19 offensive rebound Curry. Some Curry iso but they double him; bad pass to our Kd, relocation 3 attempt but good defense; Curry Zaza pick and roll and again gets curry doubled, for an open Klay 3 point attempt

Defense: 1:00:55 Cavs try to mismatch hunt on Curry, and even get Lebron switched onto Curry. It takes from 14 seconds to 2.5 Seconds before they get a good look, and get bailed out by a tough 3

Offense: 1:01:20 Curry doubled, great pass to Dray for a great look

Defense: 1:01:50 Cavs spend 17 seconds trying to mismatch hunt on Curry before they get anything (slightly contended 3), which LeBron rebounds and puts back

Offense: 1:03:15 Curry doubled, generates fairly open 3, which they make

Defense: 1:03:35 Curry klay unnecessary switch gives Cavs a good look. Mistake.

Offense: 1:03:46 curry iso, gets good look. 2nd defender pays him some attention but mostly stays on Durant

Offense: 1:04:03 Curry doubled, good pass to roll man, potential hockey assist to Dray but they miss the rim attempt

Offense: 1:04:50 Curry pick and roll, gets mismatch scores

Offense: 1:05:56 Curry drive gets fouled, makes both free throws.
Noice how when the Cavs go on a run, the Warriors go full Curry. This matches the pattern you’d see in future years too (e.g. against the 2018 Rockets)

Defense: 1:08:28 Curry great man defense against Kyrie forces the miss.

Offense: 1:10:10 Curry KD pick and roll, Curry doubled, good pass, gets durant a good look near the basket

Offense: 1:11:20 Curry Kd pick and roll, Curry doubled, pass to Durant, Durant gets good look after short iso

Defense: 1:11:38 Curry fouls leBron. defensive mistake

Offense: 1:12:12 Curry doubled, thinks about driving, doubled again, and gets Klay the open look

Offense: 1:15:40 Curry doubled, pass to roll man, but bad 2nd pass/reception prevents the layup.

Defense: 1:16:14 Curry switches onto Lebron. Great strength to hold him back, with help ready. LeBron passes out, they try to pass back but Curry sneaks into the passing lane for the steal. In transition: fouled, puts them into penalty

1:17:00 makes free throws.

Offense: 1:18:35 Curry doubled, attracts the 3rd defender, great pass to McCaw. Generates a layup attempt, and Warriors get the putback

Offense: 1:19:45 Curry occupies 3 defenders. Later doubled, pass to McCaw with inside position, and he makes the layup

Offense 1:20:40 Curry doubled, ball knocked loose. One of the first times Curry doesn’t get the pass. Curry recovers it, 4-5 defenders near him, makes the pass to the open layup but the buzzer sounds.

12 doubles

…[4th quarter]

Offense: 1:29:22 Curry occupies 3-4 defenders, great look away pass through the defenders for the open Iguodala dunk

Offense: 1:31:35 Curry drives past his defender, gets the layup through 2 more defenders doubling him.

Offense: 1:32:10 Curry KD pick and roll, Curry doubled, pass to Durant, KD makes the shot over the smaller help defender

Defense: 1:32:32 Curry pretty good man defense, Kyrie with better offense, help defense works.

Offense: 1:33:04 Curry gets good look, but misses

Defense: 1:33:20 Good positioning for the long rebound off the 3

Offense: 1:34:54 Curry iso on Love, briefly doubled, gets by. Contact to Curry’s head, no call, Curry makes it anyway

Offense: 1:35:15 Curry off ball movement in transition gets position for open layup. Good pass from Durant and the Warriors are up by 14

Defense: 1:35:25 Curry sneaks into passing lane to get the steal. Good steal without gambling

Defense: 1:38:20 Curry a split second behind JR’s off ball movement. foul on JR smith for free throws. Mistake.

Offense: 1:39:25 Curry draymond pick and roll, curry doubled, pass to Dray, hockey assist for the iguodala dunk

Offense: 1:40:37 Curry good look, misses.

Offense: 1:41:10 Curry Kd disagree on the play. KD calls for an iso, Curry gives in, KD fumbles it once, twice, then is out of position in transition on the Irving defense

Offense: 1:41:40 Crowd starts to celebrate, Curry iso. Crazy dribble move and Curry’s shot seals the deal.

note: 4 doubles + 1 soft double this quarter

Takeaways:
Possessions I tracked where Curry was actively involved: 55 offensive possessions, 20 defensive possessions

Curry’s offense demands tremendous defensive attention which drives the Warriors' GOAT-level offense: I think people underestimate just how much defensive attention Curry demands. Two or more defenders left another Warriors open to focus on Curry in ~30-34 out of these 55 possessions, in the form of hard doubles, soft doubles, hard hedges, triple/quadrouple teams and defensive walls. That’s more than 50% of offensive possessions when Curry was actively involved! I’m not sure if KD received even 5 doubles when Curry was on the court.

In these possessions, the Warriors scored 38 points (for 1.12 points/possession), with 34 of them clearly aided by the double. Of the 16 possessions that didn’t generate points, only 3 ended with mistakes -- the other 13 generated good looks (and we might expect more of these good looks to go in if we took a larger sample). These possessions don’t even include subtler cases where Curry’s off-ball gravity help generate an open look, such as at 3:17.

Does Curry overperform in this game? I’d argue no. As I said at the top, this is far from Curry’s best game in the playoffs. And this kind of defensive attention is commonplace for Curry over KD. In the 2018 Finals, Curry was doubled 2000% more often than KD (Yes, you read that right.. two-thousand percent more than KD).

Broader picture: The 2017 Warriors are commonly considered the greatest offensive playoff team of all time. People usually credit Durant for this. I think we should question this assumption. Durant’s scoring did help when Curry was on the bench, but the film analysis shows Curry is clearly the driver of the offense. The plays are run through Curry and the open looks are generated predominantly by Curry.

People like to say that Curry’s a defensive liability. I see him as a positive. In the 20 possessions where Curry was heavily involved, he made 5 mistakes (2 fouls, 1 rebounding miss, 1 unnecessary gamble, 1 unnecessary switch). Curry played good defense in the other 15 possessions, including 10 where he directly contributed to the end of the possession (e.g. 4 forced turnovers or good steals without gambling and 4 cases of good man defense leading to a miss). The Cavs did not benefit that much hunting Curry in isolation; they got good looks in some plays, but just as often they wasted a lot of time forcing the switch and were left with a late-clock heave.

I'd argue this film supports points A and B in my original post -- that Curry's GOAT level shooting, unique combination of attack both on and off-ball, and ever-present gravity, enable GOAT-tier impact on offense through unusually high volume (boosted by him impacting the game even when he doesn't have the ball) and all-time boost to his team's efficiency both as an individual scorer and a playmaker. Then add in some neutral to slight positive defense, and the ability to develop great synergy with his teammates, and you get someone who can be more impactful than other two-way stars like the defensive bigs of the 2000s.

It's just one game, so it's best not to overvalue the small sample. But when we consider the trends seen here continue in other games, and are clearly supported in the impact data, then it starts to paint the picture of someone who might just be more impactful than peak Duncan or KG or Jokic.
Of course, this doesn't include film analysis of other stars or other Curry games. So I'd encourage people to jump in -- More game tracking welcome!

In this game: Curry drew the primary attention of at least 2 defenders on 62% of possessions where he was involved (34/55), and his teammates' points were made easier by this 89% of the time (34/38 points benefited from the attention Curry drew).
-In computerized tracking: Throughout the 2018 Finals, Curry received double teams 2000% more than KD. Curry received 60 doubles to KD's 3. I don't have paywall access to see 2017 finals data, but it's not crazy to think peak Curry received similar defensive attention in 2017.

Notice this is the unique power of Curry's gravity! It's subtle, but nearly ever-present if you pay careful attention to Curry and his defender. The ability to impact the game off ball allows for such high volume, improving his team even in plays that don’t directly involve him. Curry's scoring, and the threat of his scoring on and off the ball (this gravity) is the key engine behind one of the best offenses in NBA history, on an offense-first team that's arguably the most dominant season of all time. “Curry's the bus driver”, as both Steve Kerr and Charles Barkley have said.

This kind of on- and off-ball scoring ability and gravity is also one of the keys that makes Curry so synergistic with his teammates. There’s his all time synergistic fit with Draymond of course. More generally, Curry’s shooting gravity also allowed the Warriors to be so effective with otherwise suboptimal shooting/scoring threads in Iguodala, post-peak Draymond, Zaza in this finals, and Looney in future finals. He unlocked their ability to play so many two-way players, including often multiple non-shooting threats at once, in the three point era... leading them to one of the best defenses in the league and one of the best offenses of all time.

We've talked about volume -- what about efficiency?
Well, of course Curry himself is in the short list of most efficient volume scorers of all time.
But this efficiency edge also confers to his teammates and the team offensive efficiency. In computer tracking of teammate shot quality, peak Curry consistently created better shots for his teammates and improved his teammates' efficiency more than older LeBron, Harden, Jokic, Luka, Westbrook, and older Chris Paul, whether we're looking at a 1-year peak or a 5 Year prime. In 2017 specifically: Curry improved his teammates’ shooting percentage by +7.3%. LeBron (2nd in the league) was way down at +3.9%.
From 2015-2019 RS+PS, Curry’s presence improved Klay Thompson’s three point shooting percentage by +4.2% (39.4 -> 43.6%) and Kevin Durant’s by +6.5% (34.5 -> 41%). That’s the power of his gravity.

[f4p]

.

That leaves five players for four slots. I still am thinking about it, but I think Shaq will probably end up being the odd man out for me. A lot of that is that I don’t really think 2001 is his peak. He definitely had an amazing playoff run, but the regular season wasn’t as good from him....

So I think for me that’ll leave 2023 Jokic, 2012 LeBron, 2017 Curry, and 2003 Duncan.
.

Food for thought. It seems inconsistent to punish Shaq for the regular season and then pick curry when Shaq was better in the regular season and playoffs.

Shaq in 2001 finished 1st in PER, 1st in BPM, and 2nd in WS48 (by 0.001). Curry finished 14th, 8th, 10th.

Shaq dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -0.4
WS48: -0.038
BPM: -1.6

Steph dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -6.9
WS48: -0.089
BPM: -5.0 (almost fell by half)

One guy had a legendary regular season and followed it up with a slightly worse one. 2017 Steph might be the largest season on season decline for any top 20 player in their prime (that wasn't caused by injury).

And while the Lakers did decline by 11 wins, the warriors declined by 6 even with adding Kevin Durant so they almost certainly cruised harder in the regular season.

And of course in the playoffs, Shaq led an even more dominant team and led the playoffs in PER and WS48 while Steph didn't even lead his own team and was 7th, 4th, and 6th.

[lessthanjake]

.

That leaves five players for four slots. I still am thinking about it, but I think Shaq will probably end up being the odd man out for me. A lot of that is that I don’t really think 2001 is his peak. He definitely had an amazing playoff run, but the regular season wasn’t as good from him....

So I think for me that’ll leave 2023 Jokic, 2012 LeBron, 2017 Curry, and 2003 Duncan.
.

Food for thought. It seems inconsistent to punish Shaq for the regular season and then pick curry when Shaq was better in the regular season and playoffs.

Shaq in 2001 finished 1st in PER, 1st in BPM, and 2nd in WS48 (by 0.001). Curry finished 14th, 8th, 10th.

Shaq dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -0.4
WS48: -0.038
BPM: -1.6

Steph dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -6.9
WS48: -0.089
BPM: -5.0 (almost fell by half)

One guy had a legendary regular season and followed it up with a slightly worse one. 2017 Steph might be the largest season on season decline for any top 20 player in their prime (that wasn't caused by injury).

And while the Lakers did decline by 11 wins, the warriors declined by 6 even with adding Kevin Durant so they almost certainly cruised harder in the regular season.

And of course in the playoffs, Shaq led an even more dominant team and led the playoffs in PER and WS48 while Steph didn't even lead his own team and was 7th, 4th, and 6th.

A few things:

1. If you read my full explanation, I *am* penalizing Steph for not putting together his best regular season and best playoffs in the same year. If he’d put those together, then I think he’d be pushing for #1, instead of me thinking I’ll probably put him at #4.

2. You mention a lot of box stats, but impact data still has 2017 Curry looking extremely good in the regular season. For instance, he was 1st in LEBRON. He was 2nd in EPM, only behind CP3 who missed over 20 games. He was 2nd in RAPTOR (behind Kawhi). His NBArapm two-year RAPM for 2017 & 2018 was 1st. He was 1st in Augmented Plus Minus per game. And he was 3rd in xRAPM (behind LeBron and Kawhi). He wasn’t just 1st across the board in all impact stats, but he has a good case for being the best player that year overall in terms of impact data. For reference, we have fewer stats for 2001, but Shaq was 3rd in xRAPM, behind Duncan and Stockton, and 1st in Augmented Plus Minus. Finally, Steph’s on-off is better, and his ON value was way higher, so the overall on-off picture is substantially more impressive.

3. It is not a particular surprise for a player’s box stats to go down a great deal when another major superstar is added to their team. That’s kind of just what happens with box stats. So I’m not really thinking the falls in PER, WS/48, and BPM are all that meaningful, particularly when we saw Steph’s impact remain incredible (see my prior post on how the Warriors were demonstrably a pretty mediocre team without Curry in the Durant era, with the team posting around a 0 net rating in both in the 50+ games Steph didn’t play and in the 6,000+ minutes he wasn’t on the court).

4. On the box stats, I will also note that RAPTOR is basically a box stat in Shaq’s era, and Shaq was 7th in 2001 (while being 1st in 2000 and 2002). So he wasn’t quite as good on the box-score front as you’re suggesting, though he definitely had a great season in box-score terms.

5. While there’s a lot of other factors at play, I do look at team results to get a rough sense of how a star player played. And the 2001 Lakers actually had a disappointing regular season, while the 2017 Warriors had one of the best regular seasons in history. Yeah, the Warriors were really talented, but I still find it a bit difficult to come to the conclusion that Shaq was as good as Steph in those regular seasons, given the difference in team results. And that’s especially true when we kind of know that a good portion of the 2001 Lakers being a bit disappointing in the regular season was Shaq being out of shape during the season and not taking the season as seriously after he’d won a title (this is all part of his feuding with Kobe at the time). So I find it really hard to come to the conclusion that the 2001 Lakers were disappointing in the regular season despite Shaq, rather than in part because of him. And a lot of that is about defense, where he was really good in 2000 and fell off a lot in 2001 IMO, which was a big factor in the Lakers going from 1st to 21st in the league in defense. Which is notable since this is the sort of thing that isn’t necessarily picked up by the box stats you mention.

[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.

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.

Just to add on to this:

17-19 Warriors net rating with all 4 all-stars: +15.9
17-19 Warriors net rating with 3 all stars, no Durant: +11.1
17-19 Warriors net rating with Dray+Curry, no Durant no Klay: +11.6
17-19 Warriors net rating with only Curry, no Durant no Klay no Dray: +9.4
17-19 Warriors net rating with Durant + Klay + Dray, no Curry: +3.7
17-19 Warriors net rating with none of the 4 all-stars: -10.3
Per pbpstats.com, full season data.

The data we have make it pretty clear — without Curry, this team was a far cry from the dominance that earns strong championship odds, and Curry is clearly the only player to have the effect on the Warriors.

People may argue that the team was built around Steph (although isn’t that the case for basically every candidate here?), or that his health is a concern, etc., but it’s really not clear at all how many championships they’d win if they had KD the whole time without Curry. Still a great team, sure. But multiple championships? That’s no so clear!

Fair enough. I do see Curry as the best player on the team, don't get me wrong. But the vibe I get from those Warriors is that when things weren't going their way and being easy (and most of the time they were easy) and Curry didn't sustain his dominance in those situations (not always, but it's not like in those moments in playoff time he elevated his game) the Warriors were still able to control the flow of things, either trough Klay or KD on offense.

Btw what's the data with 3 all-stars but Dray? Do you have it?
And how many minutes really is the sample of Curry without all the other all-stars?

[Joao Saraiva]

.

That leaves five players for four slots. I still am thinking about it, but I think Shaq will probably end up being the odd man out for me. A lot of that is that I don’t really think 2001 is his peak. He definitely had an amazing playoff run, but the regular season wasn’t as good from him....

So I think for me that’ll leave 2023 Jokic, 2012 LeBron, 2017 Curry, and 2003 Duncan.
.

Food for thought. It seems inconsistent to punish Shaq for the regular season and then pick curry when Shaq was better in the regular season and playoffs.

Shaq in 2001 finished 1st in PER, 1st in BPM, and 2nd in WS48 (by 0.001). Curry finished 14th, 8th, 10th.

Shaq dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -0.4
WS48: -0.038
BPM: -1.6

Steph dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -6.9
WS48: -0.089
BPM: -5.0 (almost fell by half)

One guy had a legendary regular season and followed it up with a slightly worse one. 2017 Steph might be the largest season on season decline for any top 20 player in their prime (that wasn't caused by injury).

And while the Lakers did decline by 11 wins, the warriors declined by 6 even with adding Kevin Durant so they almost certainly cruised harder in the regular season.

And of course in the playoffs, Shaq led an even more dominant team and led the playoffs in PER and WS48 while Steph didn't even lead his own team and was 7th, 4th, and 6th.

A few things:

1. If you read my full explanation, I *am* penalizing Steph for not putting together his best regular season and best playoffs in the same year. If he’d put those together, then I think he’d be pushing for #1, instead of me thinking I’ll probably put him at #4.

2. You mention a lot of box stats, but impact data still has 2017 Curry looking extremely good in the regular season. For instance, he was 1st in LEBRON. He was 2nd in EPM, only behind CP3 who missed over 20 games. He was 2nd in RAPTOR (behind Kawhi). His NBArapm two-year RAPM for 2017 & 2018 was 1st. He was 1st in Augmented Plus Minus per game. And he was 3rd in xRAPM (behind LeBron and Kawhi). He wasn’t just 1st across the board in all impact stats, but he has a good case for being the best player that year overall in terms of impact data. For reference, we have fewer stats for 2001, but Shaq was 3rd in xRAPM, behind Duncan and Stockton, and 1st in Augmented Plus Minus. Finally, Steph’s on-off is better, and his ON value was way higher, so the overall on-off picture is substantially more impressive.

3. It is not a particular surprise for a player’s box stats to go down a great deal when another major superstar is added to their team. That’s kind of just what happens with box stats. So I’m not really thinking the falls in PER, WS/48, and BPM are all that meaningful, particularly when we saw Steph’s impact remain incredible (see my prior post on how the Warriors were demonstrably a pretty mediocre team without Curry in the Durant era, with the team posting around a 0 net rating in both in the 50+ games Steph didn’t play and in the 6,000+ minutes he wasn’t on the court).

4. On the box stats, I will also note that RAPTOR is basically a box stat in Shaq’s era, and Shaq was 7th in 2001 (while being 1st in 2000 and 2002). So he wasn’t quite as good on the box-score front as you’re suggesting, though he definitely had a great season in box-score terms.

5. While there’s a lot of other factors at play, I do look at team results to get a rough sense of how a star player played. And the 2001 Lakers actually had a disappointing regular season, while the 2017 Warriors had one of the best regular seasons in history. Yeah, the Warriors were really talented, but I still find it a bit difficult to come to the conclusion that Shaq was as good as Steph in those regular seasons, given the difference in team results. And that’s especially true when we kind of know that a good portion of the 2001 Lakers being a bit disappointing in the regular season was Shaq being out of shape during the season and not taking the season as seriously after he’d won a title (this is all part of his feuding with Kobe at the time). So I find it really hard to come to the conclusion that the 2001 Lakers were disappointing in the regular season despite Shaq, rather than in part because of him. And a lot of that is about defense, where he was really good in 2000 and fell off a lot in 2001 IMO, which was a big factor in the Lakers going from 1st to 21st in the league in defense. Which is notable since this is the sort of thing that isn’t necessarily picked up by the box stats you mention.

On point 5...

If we treat Shaq and Steph as equals, Shaq had definitely a good cast. Kobe who was already a very good player, Fisher, Horry, Fox... With all respect but they're not Iguodala + KD + Klay + Dray...

Even if the Lakers were a great team I can't recall such a talented roster arround any MVP player like Curry.

[eminence]

'17-19 Full season 4 Allstars and then groups of 3 (databallr)

All 4, 3775 minutes, +15.9
No KD, 1228 minutes, +11.2
No Curry, 926 minutes, +3.7
No Dray, 793 minutes, +13.4
No Klay, 606 minutes, +20.2

Don't want to type out all the 4 combinations and don't really see Klay as near the same level as the other 3, so here's all combos of Steph/KD/Dray

All 3, 4381 minutes, +16.5
Steph + Dray, 2143 minutes, +11.3
KD only, 1819 minutes, +1.4
None, 1765 minutes, -6.9
Steph + KD, 1525 minutes, +13.4
Dray only, 1409 minutes, -0.8
KD + Dray, 1135 minutes, +4.9
Curry only, 541 minutes, +9.1

[Djoker]

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.

Just to add on to this:

17-19 Warriors net rating with all 4 all-stars: +15.9
17-19 Warriors net rating with 3 all stars, no Durant: +11.1
17-19 Warriors net rating with Dray+Curry, no Durant no Klay: +11.6
17-19 Warriors net rating with only Curry, no Durant no Klay no Dray: +9.4
17-19 Warriors net rating with Durant + Klay + Dray, no Curry: +3.7
17-19 Warriors net rating with none of the 4 all-stars: -10.3
Per pbpstats.com, full season data.

The data we have make it pretty clear — without Curry, this team was a far cry from the dominance that earns strong championship odds, and Curry is clearly the only player to have the effect on the Warriors.

People may argue that the team was built around Steph (although isn’t that the case for basically every candidate here?), or that his health is a concern, etc., but it’s really not clear at all how many championships they’d win if they had KD the whole time without Curry. Still a great team, sure. But multiple championships? That’s no so clear!

Fair enough. I do see Curry as the best player on the team, don't get me wrong. But the vibe I get from those Warriors is that when things weren't going their way and being easy (and most of the time they were easy) and Curry didn't sustain his dominance in those situations (not always, but it's not like in those moments in playoff time he elevated his game) the Warriors were still able to control the flow of things, either trough Klay or KD on offense.

Btw what's the data with 3 all-stars but Dray? Do you have it?
And how many minutes really is the sample of Curry without all the other all-stars?

They only drop off a lot without Curry...

[ReggiesKnicks]

'17-19 Full season 4 Allstars and then groups of 3 (databallr)

All 4, 3775 minutes, +15.9
No KD, 1228 minutes, +11.2
No Curry, 926 minutes, +3.7
No Dray, 793 minutes, +13.4
No Klay, 606 minutes, +20.2

Unfortunately, we miss out on 2000, but here is 2001 and 2002 Shaq, for comparison.

Regular Season
Shaq + Kobe, 4007 Minutes, +10.0
No Shaq, 1857 Minutes, -0.13
No Kobe, 1342 Minutes, +8.6
Neither, 744 Minutes, -10.9

[lessthanjake]

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.

Just to add on to this:

17-19 Warriors net rating with all 4 all-stars: +15.9
17-19 Warriors net rating with 3 all stars, no Durant: +11.1
17-19 Warriors net rating with Dray+Curry, no Durant no Klay: +11.6
17-19 Warriors net rating with only Curry, no Durant no Klay no Dray: +9.4
17-19 Warriors net rating with Durant + Klay + Dray, no Curry: +3.7
17-19 Warriors net rating with none of the 4 all-stars: -10.3
Per pbpstats.com, full season data.

The data we have make it pretty clear — without Curry, this team was a far cry from the dominance that earns strong championship odds, and Curry is clearly the only player to have the effect on the Warriors.

People may argue that the team was built around Steph (although isn’t that the case for basically every candidate here?), or that his health is a concern, etc., but it’s really not clear at all how many championships they’d win if they had KD the whole time without Curry. Still a great team, sure. But multiple championships? That’s no so clear!

Fair enough. I do see Curry as the best player on the team, don't get me wrong. But the vibe I get from those Warriors is that when things weren't going their way and being easy (and most of the time they were easy) and Curry didn't sustain his dominance in those situations (not always, but it's not like in those moments in playoff time he elevated his game) the Warriors were still able to control the flow of things, either trough Klay or KD on offense.

Btw what's the data with 3 all-stars but Dray? Do you have it?
And how many minutes really is the sample of Curry without all the other all-stars?

With Curry, Durant, and Klay on the floor without Draymond, the Warriors had a +12.77 net rating from 2017-2019.

And the number of minutes of Curry without the other all-stars is only 295 minutes. So it’s a small sample. But we can expand out the sample to 544 minutes if we take Klay out things—which is pretty appropriate IMO, since a lot of perusing of Warriors lineup data has made it clear to me that Klay was generally not really a positive to these lineups. And in 544 minutes of Steph on without Durant or Draymond, the 2017-2019 Warriors had a +9.54 net rating. The Warriors also had 927 minutes with all of Durant, Draymond, and Klay on but without Curry (which, as DraymondGold mentioned, resulted in a +3.7 net rating). If we take Klay out of the mix to expand the sample more, we have 1140 minutes of Durant and Draymond on with Steph off, and the net rating was +5.43. These aren’t huge samples, but there’s really no way to look at various lineup data for those Warriors without coming to the conclusion that Steph was by leaps and bounds the most impactful player on the team.

We can also really expand out the sample of minutes without Steph by looking at what happened when *at least* one of Durant or Green were on the court and Steph wasn’t. That was 4382 minutes, with a +2.09 net rating.

The Durant Warriors just weren’t very good without Steph on the floor. They were not bad, and that’s a pretty good place for a superstar’s team to be without him, but I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming that the Durant Warriors were pretty mediocre without Steph and were a top contender for the GOAT team with Steph.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Just to add on to this:

17-19 Warriors net rating with all 4 all-stars: +15.9
17-19 Warriors net rating with 3 all stars, no Durant: +11.1
17-19 Warriors net rating with Dray+Curry, no Durant no Klay: +11.6
17-19 Warriors net rating with only Curry, no Durant no Klay no Dray: +9.4
17-19 Warriors net rating with Durant + Klay + Dray, no Curry: +3.7
17-19 Warriors net rating with none of the 4 all-stars: -10.3
Per pbpstats.com, full season data.

The data we have make it pretty clear — without Curry, this team was a far cry from the dominance that earns strong championship odds, and Curry is clearly the only player to have the effect on the Warriors.

People may argue that the team was built around Steph (although isn’t that the case for basically every candidate here?), or that his health is a concern, etc., but it’s really not clear at all how many championships they’d win if they had KD the whole time without Curry. Still a great team, sure. But multiple championships? That’s no so clear!

Fair enough. I do see Curry as the best player on the team, don't get me wrong. But the vibe I get from those Warriors is that when things weren't going their way and being easy (and most of the time they were easy) and Curry didn't sustain his dominance in those situations (not always, but it's not like in those moments in playoff time he elevated his game) the Warriors were still able to control the flow of things, either trough Klay or KD on offense.

Btw what's the data with 3 all-stars but Dray? Do you have it?
And how many minutes really is the sample of Curry without all the other all-stars?

They only drop off a lot without Curry...

How much of this matters because Curry is the system?

I find myself in a circular logic thought-process, an infinite loop.

1) Curry has incredible +/- and On/Off
2) Curry has incredible +/- and On/Off because the system is built specifically around Curry (and to a lesser extent Draymond who plays a pivotal role)
3) The system is so incredibly effective that any inflation in the numbers are due to Curry's sheer impactful and importance
4) Curry has incredible +/- and On/Off because of his impact and importance

This is an aspect of why I am incredibly high on Curry and why he has a clear argument for being the best Non-Jordan & Non-LeBron perimeter player ever. I can see arguments for him as high as #2 on this list (Behind LeBron James) and he is a shoe-in for the Top 5. The question is where does he end up, and will he get enough support to end up #2.

[lessthanjake]

Food for thought. It seems inconsistent to punish Shaq for the regular season and then pick curry when Shaq was better in the regular season and playoffs.

Shaq in 2001 finished 1st in PER, 1st in BPM, and 2nd in WS48 (by 0.001). Curry finished 14th, 8th, 10th.

Shaq dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -0.4
WS48: -0.038
BPM: -1.6

Steph dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -6.9
WS48: -0.089
BPM: -5.0 (almost fell by half)

One guy had a legendary regular season and followed it up with a slightly worse one. 2017 Steph might be the largest season on season decline for any top 20 player in their prime (that wasn't caused by injury).

And while the Lakers did decline by 11 wins, the warriors declined by 6 even with adding Kevin Durant so they almost certainly cruised harder in the regular season.

And of course in the playoffs, Shaq led an even more dominant team and led the playoffs in PER and WS48 while Steph didn't even lead his own team and was 7th, 4th, and 6th.

A few things:

1. If you read my full explanation, I *am* penalizing Steph for not putting together his best regular season and best playoffs in the same year. If he’d put those together, then I think he’d be pushing for #1, instead of me thinking I’ll probably put him at #4.

2. You mention a lot of box stats, but impact data still has 2017 Curry looking extremely good in the regular season. For instance, he was 1st in LEBRON. He was 2nd in EPM, only behind CP3 who missed over 20 games. He was 2nd in RAPTOR (behind Kawhi). His NBArapm two-year RAPM for 2017 & 2018 was 1st. He was 1st in Augmented Plus Minus per game. And he was 3rd in xRAPM (behind LeBron and Kawhi). He wasn’t just 1st across the board in all impact stats, but he has a good case for being the best player that year overall in terms of impact data. For reference, we have fewer stats for 2001, but Shaq was 3rd in xRAPM, behind Duncan and Stockton, and 1st in Augmented Plus Minus. Finally, Steph’s on-off is better, and his ON value was way higher, so the overall on-off picture is substantially more impressive.

3. It is not a particular surprise for a player’s box stats to go down a great deal when another major superstar is added to their team. That’s kind of just what happens with box stats. So I’m not really thinking the falls in PER, WS/48, and BPM are all that meaningful, particularly when we saw Steph’s impact remain incredible (see my prior post on how the Warriors were demonstrably a pretty mediocre team without Curry in the Durant era, with the team posting around a 0 net rating in both in the 50+ games Steph didn’t play and in the 6,000+ minutes he wasn’t on the court).

4. On the box stats, I will also note that RAPTOR is basically a box stat in Shaq’s era, and Shaq was 7th in 2001 (while being 1st in 2000 and 2002). So he wasn’t quite as good on the box-score front as you’re suggesting, though he definitely had a great season in box-score terms.

5. While there’s a lot of other factors at play, I do look at team results to get a rough sense of how a star player played. And the 2001 Lakers actually had a disappointing regular season, while the 2017 Warriors had one of the best regular seasons in history. Yeah, the Warriors were really talented, but I still find it a bit difficult to come to the conclusion that Shaq was as good as Steph in those regular seasons, given the difference in team results. And that’s especially true when we kind of know that a good portion of the 2001 Lakers being a bit disappointing in the regular season was Shaq being out of shape during the season and not taking the season as seriously after he’d won a title (this is all part of his feuding with Kobe at the time). So I find it really hard to come to the conclusion that the 2001 Lakers were disappointing in the regular season despite Shaq, rather than in part because of him. And a lot of that is about defense, where he was really good in 2000 and fell off a lot in 2001 IMO, which was a big factor in the Lakers going from 1st to 21st in the league in defense. Which is notable since this is the sort of thing that isn’t necessarily picked up by the box stats you mention.

On point 5...

If we treat Shaq and Steph as equals, Shaq had definitely a good cast. Kobe who was already a very good player, Fisher, Horry, Fox... With all respect but they're not Iguodala + KD + Klay + Dray...

Even if the Lakers were a great team I can't recall such a talented roster arround any MVP player like Curry.

Yeah, I agree that the 2001 Lakers weren’t as talented as the 2017 Warriors. That said, I don’t think the Warriors were quite as talented as a lot of people do—in large part because I don’t see Klay as an overly impactful player (which is informed by looking at lineup data and finding that adding Klay to lineups results in the lineups doing worse about as often as it makes them do better). Meanwhile, a guy like Horry was way more impactful than people realize. The Lakers role players were spectacular. The 2001 Lakers were a great team. But yeah, not as talented as those Warriors.

More importantly, though, there’s a massive amount of room to come to the conclusion that the 2017 Warriors were a more talented roster *and* that what Curry did with them in the regular season was significantly more impressive than what Shaq did with the 2001 Lakers. The 2017 Warriors had a +11.35 SRS, and the 2001 Lakers had a +3.74 SRS. That is a *massive* difference! I find it a little hard to look at that and ascribe that entire difference to the Warriors being more talented, especially given that the Durant Warriors played like a pretty mediocre team when Steph wasn’t on the court.

[Joao Saraiva]

'17-19 Full season 4 Allstars and then groups of 3 (databallr)

All 4, 3775 minutes, +15.9
No KD, 1228 minutes, +11.2
No Curry, 926 minutes, +3.7
No Dray, 793 minutes, +13.4
No Klay, 606 minutes, +20.2

Unfortunately, we miss out on 2000, but here is 2001 and 2002 Shaq, for comparison.

Regular Season
Shaq + Kobe, 4007 Minutes, +10.0
No Shaq, 1857 Minutes, -0.13
No Kobe, 1342 Minutes, +8.6
Neither, 744 Minutes, -10.9

This is where evaluating stats even of impact need to come with context. LA without Shaq does far worse than LA without Kobe, but is the gap that big between Shaq and Kobe in 01? I don't believe so.

But when Kobe goes to the bench Shaq still has enough guys arround him who provide good spacing and defense (Harper, Fox, Fisher, etc.) But when Shaq goes to bench the team has to play with Foster as a C, the only other C on the roster. The downgrade is just too big, so obviously it's a lot harder to keep things flowing when the downgrade is that big.

That's why despite liking impact stats and stats in general I think the extreme usage of them while evaluating is still misleading to some point if you can't catch the context within the numbers.

[Doctor MJ]

On point 5...

If we treat Shaq and Steph as equals, Shaq had definitely a good cast. Kobe who was already a very good player, Fisher, Horry, Fox... With all respect but they're not Iguodala + KD + Klay + Dray...

Even if the Lakers were a great team I can't recall such a talented roster arround any MVP player like Curry.

Just so it's clear:

In '00-01, Shaq had a cumulative all-season +/- of +650.
In '16-17, Steph had a cumulative all-season +/- of +1257.

These numbers are nowhere near each other, but you're effectively equating them here.

Even if we ignore the regular season and just focus on the playoffs where the Lakers were so dominant:

In 2001, Shaq had a playoff +/- of +186.
In 2017, Steph had a playoff +/- of +244.

To me this is all part of the general category of concern where we have a tendency to look to equate very different things as equally good and then try to make choices based on indirect factors:

"If Team A & Team B were equals, and the start of Team B had more help, then we should side with the star of Team A".

But there's really no measure where the two teams in question should be seen as comparably dominant over their competition, and so the foundational premise of the reasoning really shouldn't get granted.

And generally with regards to Steph & the Warriors, I think people have a tendency not really really appreciate how much of an outlier they were both in terms of stats like this, and from the perspective that in the 11 years only one franchise has won more than one championship, and that franchise (Warriors) have won 4. I'm all for not simply going by winning bias, but any notion that the Warriors haven't been that impressive in the playoffs is just not true by any standards.

[lessthanjake]

Am going to set forth my vote now in case I don’t have time to do it later, but I genuinely may edit it after seeing further discussion, since I don’t think my vote is set in stone. I don’t have time to be as thorough as I’d like (might also edit in more detail later), but here’s my thoughts:

My Vote

1. Nikola Jokic (2023)

I think the biggest thing here is that I have 2023 Jokic above LeBron, since LeBron is going to be the most common #1 vote. I don’t think it’s an easy choice, but I’ll quote here what I said about this in the abandoned peaks project:

Spoiler:

Last year, I compiled impact and impact-correlated box numbers for Jokic and LeBron in their peak years. It used 2021-2024 timeframe for Jokic, and a 2009-2013 timeframe for LeBron (note: an extra year was used for LeBron in order to help him, because 2009-2013 was better across the data than either 2009-2012 or 2010-2013). See here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=112905068#p112905068. Jokic and LeBron were close, and of course these numbers would be slightly different if I took the time to add Jokic’s 2025 data to this. But, on balance, peak Jokic looked better than peak LeBron. That post defined peak more broadly than just the one-year peak being used for this “greatest peaks” project, but I find it persuasive here, especially when Jokic’s “greatest” year (2023) was also probably the year he actually performed the best in general.

Basically, I think a compilation of impact and box data over their multi-year peaks indicates to me that peak Jokic may actually have been a little better than peak LeBron. And that comports with my own eye test, which is extremely high on Jokic, largely on the back of how automatic his scoring was (in significant part because of his complete-outlier floater, which was at its best in 2023), his incredible ability to create good looks for teammates, and his dominant rebounding. Despite that, I think I’d have multiple LeBron years above most peak Jokic years in terms of “greatness,” because Jokic’s team has mostly lost in the first couple rounds of the playoffs. But in 2023 the Nuggets won the title, and Jokic was every bit as dominant in the playoffs as LeBron has ever been IMO. So I have Jokic above LeBron, but I am not listing any other year for it besides 2023.

2. LeBron James (2012 > 2009)

Obviously, LeBron deserves to be on everyone’s top 4. He peaked at an incredible level. As I mentioned in a prior post, I am open to the idea that 2003 Duncan may have actually been better than any LeBron year. I’d be very interested in anyone willing to make the argument. But, for now, I have LeBron at #2. I have 2012 as his greatest year. To me, LeBron’s peak timeframe was 2009-2013 (with 2011 being a down year in that timeframe). In my view, that’s the timeframe where he really had his best athleticism, motor, etc. And it’s also the timeframe where impact and box data looks the best for him. So, to me, his peak is one of those years. I think there’s a decent argument that he performed his best in 2009. But winning a title matters to me in terms of “greatest” peak, and I’m also not entirely convinced he had really figured things out entirely by 2009, given what happened in the next couple playoffs. As for 2012 vs. 2013, I just think he was a bit better in the 2012 playoffs, in part because he struggled for much of the 2013 Finals. So I choose 2012 here. I am listing 2009 here as well, since I think I’d have that above my #3 choice (2003 Duncan) as well, but am not listing 2013 because I think I probably prefer 2003 Duncan to that year by a slight bit.

3. Tim Duncan (2003)

In the 2002 and 2003 timeframe, Duncan was incredible. He was one of the best defenders ever, and at the height of his powers in that regard. Meanwhile, while I am not overly high on Duncan as an offensive engine, I do actually think he was a great offensive player in those years. He demanded a lot of double teams and produced a lot of offense that way, while actually being a really efficient scorer. In other years, his scoring efficiency wasn’t as high, and perhaps as a consequence, his playmaking wasn’t as effective IMO. I don’t really think that Duncan’s offense would translate so well to the present day. Teams would probably just live with his post-ups without doubling so much, since his post-ups weren’t all that efficient by the standards of today’s offense. But I look at this in era-relative terms, and Duncan played in a grind-it-out era, where his post scoring in 2002 and 2003 was really good offense and therefore demanded a lot of defensive attention. So basically, I see 2002 & 2003 Duncan as him combining near-GOAT-level defense (only “near-GOAT-level” because of Russell), with genuinely elite offense. As for choosing between 2002 and 2003, it’s about the playoffs. In 2003, Duncan was dominant in the playoffs, leading his team to the title, without an overwhelming amount of talent on his team. It is about as impressive a playoff run as there is.

I’m genuinely open to moving Duncan up. What is currently keeping me from putting it higher is that the impact and box data we have isn’t *that* high on him. Of course, he looks incredible in those measures. But, with the exception of DPM, Duncan doesn’t come off with absolutely historic numbers in the data, like the two guys I’ve put above him do. I definitely don’t think the data we have is infallible, though, and the fact that DPM has Duncan as an absolutely historic player indicates to me that the data we have doesn’t make it implausible that Duncan should be higher (though DPM is meant to be a predictive measure, not a retrospective one, so it’s not really meant to be used for these purposes).

4. Stephen Curry (2017)

I’ve spoken a lot about Curry already in this thread. I think if we were looking at impact data, Curry is arguably the most impressive, when we take into account the heights he was leading his team to. So I think there’s definitely a reasonable argument to have him higher than I have him here. The fact that the Durant Warriors were pretty mediocre without Curry on the floor is extremely compelling IMO. And he was extremely good in the 2017 playoffs. He led his team to probably the best combination of regular season and playoffs we’ve ever seen. It’s arguably the greatest ceiling raising we have ever seen. Steph was so good that it feels weird to me to put him at #4. Indeed, if we grafted together the 2016 regular season and the 2017 playoffs, then I think we’d be looking at Steph Curry at #1. But his 2017 regular season wasn’t quite as transcendent as his 2016 regular season. Perhaps that’s simply because he didn’t have to do as much once Durant was there. His 2017 regular season was still great, and he was still an incredibly impactful player. But I think he’s just an example of a player who suffers in a single-year peak ranking by not having his best regular season and playoffs coincide.

[LA Bird]

1. LeBron James (09 > 16 > 12)
2. Tim Duncan (03)
3. Stephen Curry (17)
4. Shaquille O'Neal (01)

- Highest on court +/- in nearly two decades of recorded data despite being paired with one of the worst All Star selections ever in Mo Williams
- Averages damn near a 40 point triple double on 60% TS in the playoffs against the #1 defense and looked so unstoppable that critics have to point to the Mavs series 2 years later to discredit this entire season
- All time level on-court DRtg of almost -8 while leading the league in defensive stats both box scores allowed and possession weighted plus minus amongst non bigs

That's the best peak of all time in my books. Even if we have to pick a title season, 16 LeBron would be my #1.

Wavered for a second but ultimately stayed with Duncan for #2. His defense is by far the best of the remaining candidates (excluding KG) and while an offense revolving around him may not be the most conducive to a high ceiling (see Ginobili in later years), it is more than enough to carry most teams. In a non snail paced environment, his numbers against the 02 Lakers would have been a more GOAT-looking 35/20/6. Didn't score as much in 03 and his FT% also started falling off (80->70->60 from 02 to 04) but he made up for it with a historically good defensive run to the championship. Overall, I have more confidence in Duncan's two way package than any non-LeBron player.

Three offensive juggernauts next and I'll start with Shaq since he is basically the default peak outside of the PC board. 3 consecutive FMVPs while demolishing opponents on the biggest stage is obviously an easy case to make. But here is the thing - the Finals opponents were pretty much the worst teams the Lakers would face the entire playoffs during that 3peat. If we try a little thought exercise and label the eastern series as round 1 and the WCF as the finals, this is how things would look instead:

2000 Lakers barely win against choking Blazers. Shaq wins FMVP with 26/12.
2001 Lakers crush Spurs on a 15 game win streak. Kobe wins FMVP with 33/7/7.
2002 Lakers barely win against choking Kings. Shaq wins FMVP with 30/14.

On court performance stays the same but in terms of public perception, Shaq loses the MDE aura boost that historically elevated him above other GOAT peaks. IMO, if we are talking about real MDE, I think that title actually belongs to Curry's +18 on court offense in the 2017 playoffs. We can (and really should) ask questions about why Curry was merely averaging +5 offense the rest of his postseason career given this insane peak but that's outside the scope of this project. You can call it luck or whatever but things just clicked in that one run. It was the only time in his career Curry's 3pt volume and efficiency didn't decline from regular season to playoffs, and the only time he beat Draymond in playoffs on/off during their 15-22 title span. The team was stacked but every lineup combination also improved a lot with the addition of Curry. OTOH, the very strength of that team can be a counterargument. Curry has never had another playoffs offense even half as good as 17 and if the only time he is at this level is on a team that would cruise to an easy title with him doing way less anyway, how valuable really is that additional juice?

Going back to Shaq, he may lose the peak MDE label but I do think he has the most consistent playoffs track record here which is often overlooked. 01 is not as godly as 17 but then Shaq has four more +10 playoffs offenses. Curry has never gotten near that level outside 17. Neither has Jokic even when Murray was popping off (peaking at +7 in 20 and 23). In other playoff runs, Jokic has only been +1 in 21, +3 in 22, +2 in 24, and +3 in 25. Sure, we can talk about supporting casts playing an important role in overall team ratings but it's not like those early Lakers teams with teenage Kobe off the bench were stacked. And Jokic himself has carried Murray-less lineups well in the last few regular seasons - it just didn't translate in the playoffs. In the end, while Jokic beats Shaq in efficiency handily and in basically any type of skillset analysis, the lacking playoffs results led me to drop him back down in my rankings. Not very confident about it and maybe it's simply a product of the different league environments but it is what it is.

Why no Garnett yet? Well, it's not his fault but I think Minnesota was simply so bad that you can't really evaluate him properly. It's like watching a sprinter compete while carrying weights and trying to extrapolate how fast he would be without it. People will point to 08 Celtics as proof that KG's impact translates to better teams and while that is true, nobody is actually voting for the 08 version. We are voting for 04 when he had bigger offensive numbers while admitting it's a sub-optimal role. It's like if we agree on 67 Wilt's impact but then vote for his 62 season instead. Yeah, Garnett led three straight top 5 offenses in the 02-04 regular season and was among the league leaders in ORAPM. But do we really trust that to hold up in the postseason when his long 2s aren't falling at a Dirk-like rate? TWolves offense dropped in the playoffs as did KG's own RAPM numbers. Even on the Celtics when he was a better shooter (judging from FT%) and surrounded by talent, his offensive impact wasn't in that top echelon. Which is totally fine because he was a defense-first player after all but I do think people can get deceived by that 5.5 ORAPM number in 04 when discussing that season. Moving onto his defense, the guy checks all the boxes but I should point out RAPM is a rate metric and Garnett's minutes dropped to 32 once he went to Boston at age 31. Pierce and Allen didn't dip to that level until after they left Boston at age 36 and 37. Could KG have kept up the same defensive impact playing as many minutes as he did in 04? Possibly, but we never got to see it. He did anchor very strong playoff defenses while playing 36mpg on the Celtics (-9.8 defense) so maybe I'll move him above Jokic next round.

[ReggiesKnicks]

'17-19 Full season 4 Allstars and then groups of 3 (databallr)

All 4, 3775 minutes, +15.9
No KD, 1228 minutes, +11.2
No Curry, 926 minutes, +3.7
No Dray, 793 minutes, +13.4
No Klay, 606 minutes, +20.2

Unfortunately, we miss out on 2000, but here is 2001 and 2002 Shaq, for comparison.

Regular Season
Shaq + Kobe, 4007 Minutes, +10.0
No Shaq, 1857 Minutes, -0.13
No Kobe, 1342 Minutes, +8.6
Neither, 744 Minutes, -10.9

This is where evaluating stats even of impact need to come with context. LA without Shaq does far worse than LA without Kobe, but is the gap that big between Shaq and Kobe in 01? I don't believe so.

But when Kobe goes to the bench Shaq still has enough guys arround him who provide good spacing and defense (Harper, Fox, Fisher, etc.) But when Shaq goes to bench the team has to play with Foster as a C, the only other C on the roster. The downgrade is just too big, so obviously it's a lot harder to keep things flowing when the downgrade is that big.

That's why despite liking impact stats and stats in general I think the extreme usage of them while evaluating is still misleading to some point if you can't catch the context within the numbers.

The value in line-up data like this is that it provides evidence of a player being incredibly impactful.

Shaq and Curry proved they could be the linchpin of All-Time great teams. Both players played in environments privvy to their skill-set for an extended period of time under incredible leadership (Phil Jackson & Steve Kerr).

Where Curry separates himself from Shaq and Jokic in relation to the statistical imprint of Line-up data is the sheer heights Curry has summited. That's something we can ascertain from this data. At the end of the day, it is still one data point and is an ingredient in the recipe.

[Joao Saraiva]

On point 5...

If we treat Shaq and Steph as equals, Shaq had definitely a good cast. Kobe who was already a very good player, Fisher, Horry, Fox... With all respect but they're not Iguodala + KD + Klay + Dray...

Even if the Lakers were a great team I can't recall such a talented roster arround any MVP player like Curry.

Just so it's clear:

In '00-01, Shaq had a cumulative all-season +/- of +650.
In '16-17, Steph had a cumulative all-season +/- of +1257.

These numbers are nowhere near each other, but you're effectively equating them here.

Even if we ignore the regular season and just focus on the playoffs where the Lakers were so dominant:

In 2001, Shaq had a playoff +/- of +186.
In 2017, Steph had a playoff +/- of +244.

To me this is all part of the general category of concern where we have a tendency to look to equate very different things as equally good and then try to make choices based on indirect factors:

"If Team A & Team B were equals, and the start of Team B had more help, then we should side with the star of Team A".

But there's really no measure where the two teams in question should be seen as comparably dominant over their competition, and so the foundational premise of the reasoning really shouldn't get granted.

And generally with regards to Steph & the Warriors, I think people have a tendency not really really appreciate how much of an outlier they were both in terms of stats like this, and from the perspective that in the 11 years only one franchise has won more than one championship, and that franchise (Warriors) have won 4. I'm all for not simply going by winning bias, but any notion that the Warriors haven't been that impressive in the playoffs is just not true by any standards.

While those numbers for Curry are impressive, are they equally as good when he wasn't out there within the KD years? You're acting like we don't have data from seasons where his team wasn't a clear tier above everyone else. That comparison will tell you how much of that +/- is actually his or from the strenght of the team in general.

Well the point of the Warriors being so dominant is something we can agree on. They're the complete outlier team strenght wise, while we see now a lot of parity in the league.

The Warriors not performing as well in the playoffs... I never said that. What I said is when things got more difficult in the playoffs Curry didn't strive to have the best games of his life - he actually didn't sustain his level of greatness many times and the Warriors still prevailed many times. That is telling of the team strenght, not the player strenght.

Despite that, I'm not even arguing Curry doesn't belong in the conversation for the top peaks of this era, I understand his argument. I just think the data is sometimes being too much team oriented when for obvious reasons the Warriors provide great stats in that regard. Is part of that Curry? Sure. Is all of it Curry? Well, make a comparison with other and it will be telling if it's all on him.

And btw when I say Curry many times had lesser performances when it was needed the most doesn't mean he never performed great in the biggest stages, he surely did. But... he also had underperforming moments, and it wasn't a one time thing (doesn't mean they were bad performances, just lower than what he did provide when he wasn't pressured). A good example is the 15 finals - while I agree he should have won FMVP over Iggy, he surely didn't deliver at all time level against a team that had no business even winning a game against them.

We're talking about the OKC matchup in 16 and the NBA finals.

I'm going even further and talk about the 19 finals last game, with Draymond blasting a triple double and Klay having an isane game Curry was 6-17 FG with 21 points.

[f4p]

.

That leaves five players for four slots. I still am thinking about it, but I think Shaq will probably end up being the odd man out for me. A lot of that is that I don’t really think 2001 is his peak. He definitely had an amazing playoff run, but the regular season wasn’t as good from him....

So I think for me that’ll leave 2023 Jokic, 2012 LeBron, 2017 Curry, and 2003 Duncan.
.

Food for thought. It seems inconsistent to punish Shaq for the regular season and then pick curry when Shaq was better in the regular season and playoffs.

Shaq in 2001 finished 1st in PER, 1st in BPM, and 2nd in WS48 (by 0.001). Curry finished 14th, 8th, 10th.

Shaq dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -0.4
WS48: -0.038
BPM: -1.6

Steph dropped off the following in the regular season.
PER: -6.9
WS48: -0.089
BPM: -5.0 (almost fell by half)

One guy had a legendary regular season and followed it up with a slightly worse one. 2017 Steph might be the largest season on season decline for any top 20 player in their prime (that wasn't caused by injury).

And while the Lakers did decline by 11 wins, the warriors declined by 6 even with adding Kevin Durant so they almost certainly cruised harder in the regular season.

And of course in the playoffs, Shaq led an even more dominant team and led the playoffs in PER and WS48 while Steph didn't even lead his own team and was 7th, 4th, and 6th.

A few things:

1. If you read my full explanation, I *am* penalizing Steph for not putting together his best regular season and best playoffs in the same year. If he’d put those together, then I think he’d be pushing for #1, instead of me thinking I’ll probably put him at #4.

i mean he would never compete with lebron for #1. that would be bonkers. no version of steph ever came close to lebron in a playoff series.

2. You mention a lot of box stats, but impact data still has 2017 Curry looking extremely good in the regular season.

i mean, a draymond-inflated impact stat says steph is amazing? no matter what steph is doing, great shooting, poor shooting, scoring more, scoring less, winning more games, losing more games, some impact stat says he's the best. of course i think xRAPM (if that's old RPM from espn) said kyle lowry was the best in 2019 so i'm not sure we should always take them so seriously. i think they also had steph about 40 or 50% ahead of lebron in 2015 and 2016 and as we recall, no over ever got to the end of those seasons and said "steph is 40 or 50% better than lebron". if you're going to object to the box score, feels like we should probably start curving steph down a bit from his impact numbers, right? especially if they are just going to pretend that kevin durant is what, worth nothing? we could look at the warriors PSRS's in the series before they got durant, the series where they had durant, and then the 2019 finals right after and see the huge step change that was KD (both up and down).

the reason i compared his box stats to himself is it's unlikely that he massively changed as a player in one year. but his production fell off harder than just about anybody ever (like really, find me a crazier mid-career dip). he somehow even cratered in TS% despite having more gravity around him. "actually, it was still all steph" doesn't seem like an acceptable conclusion if he's just a worse version of himself.

3. It is not a particular surprise for a player’s box stats to go down a great deal when another major superstar is added to their team. That’s kind of just what happens with box stats. So I’m not really thinking the falls in PER, WS/48, and BPM are all that meaningful, particularly when we saw Steph’s impact remain incredible (see my prior post on how the Warriors were demonstrably a pretty mediocre team without Curry in the Durant era, with the team posting around a 0 net rating in both in the 50+ games Steph didn’t play and in the 6,000+ minutes he wasn’t on the court).

are we sure the impact stats aren't just locked into a weird way the warriors play (lots of steph/draymond minutes), the whole team being built around steph so his role helping his impact out, impact stats being prior informed, etc? of course, the KD warriors were a +14 team in the playoffs without steph so it seems unlikely they were actually mediocre without steph. i mean the argument can't really be that KD + draymond + klay isn't actually one of the best supporting casts ever, can it?

4. On the box stats, I will also note that RAPTOR is basically a box stat in Shaq’s era, and Shaq was 7th in 2001 (while being 1st in 2000 and 2002). So he wasn’t quite as good on the box-score front as you’re suggesting, though he definitely had a great season in box-score terms.

i don't know how RAPTOR is calculated, but it doesn't seem like it can be all box score based. shaq basically swept the BBRef box score stats, and between them, they tend to cover everything that could be derived from the box score, with some people being stronger or weaker in each. shaq being 7th seems difficult to get to from a box score only stat.

5. While there’s a lot of other factors at play, I do look at team results to get a rough sense of how a star player played. And the 2001 Lakers actually had a disappointing regular season, while the 2017 Warriors had one of the best regular seasons in history. Yeah, the Warriors were really talented, but I still find it a bit difficult to come to the conclusion that Shaq was as good as Steph in those regular seasons, given the difference in team results.

you tend to make a similar argument a lot (see the harden thread), where it's "yeah the warriors were loaded beyond belief" but then you just use the team result anyway, like it really just came down to how good steph was.

And that’s especially true when we kind of know that a good portion of the 2001 Lakers being a bit disappointing in the regular season was Shaq being out of shape during the season and not taking the season as seriously after he’d won a title (this is all part of his feuding with Kobe at the time). So I find it really hard to come to the conclusion that the 2001 Lakers were disappointing in the regular season despite Shaq, rather than in part because of him. And a lot of that is about defense, where he was really good in 2000 and fell off a lot in 2001 IMO, which was a big factor in the Lakers going from 1st to 21st in the league in defense. Which is notable since this is the sort of thing that isn’t necessarily picked up by the box stats you mention.

i mean he had a +16 on/off if you like impact so it can't be as much his fault as this board likes to claim. about the only ding would be his +0 in the playoffs, but that's sandwiched between two identical +22's from 2000 and 2002 (where steph is in the middle of a -4 and +5 from 2016 and 2018) and is basically only because of the 4th quarters of games 3 and 4 against the spurs that it isn't something like +11 while anchoring a playoff team somehow even more dominant than the 2017 warriors without a draymond or klay (or really even iggy) on the roster.