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

[One_and_Done]

And yay Jake, saving me from being the only one preventing LeUnanimous.

Currently planning Duncan 1/Bron 2/ deciding on Shaq/KG/Curry for 3/4.

I definitely will be interested in seeing your argument for Duncan at #1. I’ve flirted with having Duncan #2 or even #1. I’ve not dug super deeply into Duncan’s 2003, but I feel like it’s pretty unimpeachable and that there probably is an argument for it to be at the top. One thing I hope you’ll try to address is the concern I raised in my voting post, which is that impact and box data doesn’t quite have Duncan reaching absolutely historic heights (aside from DPM, which is extremely high on Duncan). It’s one of the things holding me back from putting Duncan higher than #3.

A couple of thoughts I had while thinking it through.

1) It requires appreciating the '03 Lakers more than any measure from the '03 season will tell one to.

2) I was very impressed by the '03 Nets giving the Pistons the business in the ECF.

3) If Dirk hadn't got injured in the WCF and the Spurs had still won similarly I wouldn't have any real doubts in my mind. As is I still have my doubts - how good were the Lakers/Nets *really*? Impossible to know, but I've decided I'm pretty impressed with them.

4) I do still like Manu a lot and tend to think Pop was holding him back those first few years. I could reasonably see giving Manu even more credit than I do and moving Duncan down a notch.

Spurs were 10-3 without Manu in 03, and in 02 (the year I have as Duncan's actual peak) he was entirely absent while Duncan led them to 58 wins. Manu had flashes, but just wasn't that great as a rookie. You can blame Pop for that if you like, but whatever the reason was is kind of irrelevant to his on court impact. 05 was the year Manu really broke out and became a star during the 05 playoffs, which was really lucky for the Spurs because if he'd looked that good in 04 they'd have had to give him a much bigger contract.

03 Lakers had injuries and coasted the RS, following 3 title runs. You can't take their RS stats seriously. Come playoffs they were the same Lakers, and if the Spurs don't beat them they win the title.

The Spurs were basically up 2-1 by the time Dirk was hurt, and nobody expected the Mavs to win. The Spurs had historically owned them around this period.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Can context explain away Curry's impact dominance?

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.

2. The teammate fit helped… But the surrounding players arguably benefited from Curry too, and good teammate synergy should be positive
Of course, Curry’s hand-in-glove fit with Draymond also helps Curry to some extent. But the ability to synergies with your best teammates is a positive skill, not a negative -- You can’t build the most dominant team of all time without being able to be incredibly synergistic with your teammates! The goal of a player is to win a championship, and the more dominant you are, the better your chances are. Draymond looks like one of the most valuable players of his era, and I’d argue that’s boosted by getting to play alongside Curry (in addition to being arguably the best defender of his era, of course).

All teammates of all players any of these players have played with have benefited immensely. There is a reason these players are being considered for the Top 5 of the most advanced basketball eras ever. They make their teammates better to a grandiose level, the difference being through different means.

Curry is unique offensively, so much so that no player has come close to replicating how Curry impacts a game. The +/- family does the best job at capturing impact and Curry always looks like one of the best.

-Garnett… played in a bad situation in Minnesota. I won’t sugarcoat it. Most of his teammates were pretty poor, and the good ones tended to get injured or leave. That said, an argument could be made (not sure how compelling it is) that it’s easier to have great impact in floor-raising scenarios, where the team is more singularly reliant on you on both ends, where your backup is worse than Shaun Livingston (Curry’s backup), and where you don’t face diminishing returns as you would on a great team.

Garnett proved his impact when on the Celtics. The idea you would need to somehow question Garnett's impact in 2003 and 2004 considering what he did in 2008 is disingenuous.

Garnett (Regular Season 2008 - 2011)
Garnett+Pierce, 7270 minutes, +13.1
No Garnett, Pierce, 3825 minutes, +3.5
No Garnett, No Pierce, -2.2
Garnett, No Pierce, 1100 minutes, +9.41

Unfortunately for Garnett, his peak where he was at his greatest heights were of small sample size with middling rosters.
Fortunately for Garnett, his 2008 season is still a Top 10 peak in this project range and does provide context about how Garnett's skill set is 1 of 1.

The illegal defense rules ended before the 2002 season, which directly empowered big rim protectors to play more zone-style defenses near the basket. The freedom of movement rules, which ended hand checking and allowed for more perimeter-centric offenses and stars, started in 2005. You’ll notice that Duncan’s two best years are 2002 and 2003, while Garnett’s two best years are 2003 and 2004, directly during three-year stretch where the rules favored defenses heavily. Now you, like me, might prefer to analyze players era-relative, in which case the beneficial rules and play styles are less relevant. But for those who don’t, it’s worth noting that the rules/styles favored Shaq/Duncan/Garnett’s play styles in their time, just like the rules/styles favored Curry in his time. Which may not have been a coincidence — the best players may innovate and adapt to play the style that fits best under their era’s rules and strategies.

Again, doesn't 2008 Garnett upend this idea for it favouring Garnett? Doesn't this change a lot for Duncan as well?

I would also mention Duncan often playing next to another Center, spent his entire career with Tony Parker, while a great point-guard, wasn't a floor spacer albeit an exceptional driver.

… all that to say, I’m not trying to convince anyone that Curry had the worst situation of the bunch, or that you need to have him 1st or 2nd or anything like that. But there were aspects of each player’s fit and era that boosted their impact numbers; Curry’s not unique in that aspect. And given Curry has a reasonably clear individual impact advantage and a significant peak team performance advantage, it's fairly explain the actual basketball history, if you rank Curry outside of your top 4 peaks from 2001–2025.

Curry clearly had the best situation(s) out of all players in contention right now aside from potentially Duncan, where I think Curry and Duncan are 1A/1B in any order.

Big Picture, here are all these guys in their best 2–4-year window during the regular season with what I would to be title contender teams.

Curry+Draymond, 6100 minutes, +17.1
LeBron+Varajao, 3300 minutes, +15.5
Duncan+Manu, 3800 minutes, +14.5
LeBron+Wade, 5491 minutes, +13.4
Garnett+Pierce, 7200 minutes, +13.1
Jokic+Murray, 4500 minutes, +12.6
Garnett+Cassell, 2535 minutes, +11.3
LeBron+Kyrie, 4920 minutes, +10.4
Shaq+Kobe, 4000 minutes, +10.0
LeBron+AD, 2000 minutes, +9.5

I'm not sure how much more Curry benefited, but that isn't a question I am interested in asking or an answer I am interested in finding. I don't need to quantify how much a player benefited in order to determine how great a player they are. Curry and Duncan very well may have benefited the most, but it doesn't take away their greatness and simply is another thought-provoking point about how each of these players can mesh and be built around or upon.

One interesting point is LeBron, Duncan and Garnett were dominant with vastly different rosters and constructions. This is a testament to their longevity and skill-set. Curry and Jokic have played their careers within a similar ecosystem for most of their careers, specifically their primes. For Curry, we have a chunk of 2015 and as you alluded to, 2014, which sheds light on Curry's ability to play a different role and carry a massive impact footprint. For Jokic, he has proven he doesn't need a Murray-tier perimeter option (Think 2023 post-season Murray) to be effective and carry a massive impact.

For Shaq, he misses a lot of this databall era but still hits some intriguing heights in the early 2000's. I'm more dull, less bullish on his overall footprint compared to the other 5 players here for other reasons, but this certainly is a data point echoing some of these players could be ahead of Shaq.

[One_and_Done]

KG is a guy who I have in my top 10, and he was a versatile guy. That said, I take issue with the claim he 'dominated' in a variety of systems. He played well, but given his team's success I don't think you could say he was 'dominating' outside of Boston and maybe, maybe 04. I also think it's too soon for KG, terminology aside.

[DraymondGold]

-Garnett… played in a bad situation in Minnesota. I won’t sugarcoat it. Most of his teammates were pretty poor, and the good ones tended to get injured or leave. That said, an argument could be made (not sure how compelling it is) that it’s easier to have great impact in floor-raising scenarios, where the team is more singularly reliant on you on both ends, where your backup is worse than Shaun Livingston (Curry’s backup), and where you don’t face diminishing returns as you would on a great team.

Garnett proved his impact when on the Celtics. The idea you would need to somehow question Garnett's impact in 2003 and 2004 considering what he did in 2008 is disingenuous.

Garnett (Regular Season 2008 - 2011)
Garnett+Pierce, 7270 minutes, +13.1
No Garnett, Pierce, 3825 minutes, +3.5
No Garnett, No Pierce, -2.2
Garnett, No Pierce, 1100 minutes, +9.41

Unfortunately for Garnett, his peak where he was at his greatest heights were of small sample size with middling rosters.
Fortunately for Garnett, his 2008 season is still a Top 10 peak in this project range and does provide context about how Garnett's skill set is 1 of 1.

The illegal defense rules ended before the 2002 season, which directly empowered big rim protectors to play more zone-style defenses near the basket. The freedom of movement rules, which ended hand checking and allowed for more perimeter-centric offenses and stars, started in 2005. You’ll notice that Duncan’s two best years are 2002 and 2003, while Garnett’s two best years are 2003 and 2004, directly during three-year stretch where the rules favored defenses heavily. Now you, like me, might prefer to analyze players era-relative, in which case the beneficial rules and play styles are less relevant. But for those who don’t, it’s worth noting that the rules/styles favored Shaq/Duncan/Garnett’s play styles in their time, just like the rules/styles favored Curry in his time. Which may not have been a coincidence — the best players may innovate and adapt to play the style that fits best under their era’s rules and strategies.

Again, doesn't 2008 Garnett upend this idea for it favouring Garnett? Doesn't this change a lot for Duncan as well?

I would also mention Duncan often playing next to another Center, spent his entire career with Tony Parker, while a great point-guard, wasn't a floor spacer albeit an exceptional driver.

Oh absolutely! As I tried to elude to with the parenthetical, the Garnett argument was relatively weak. Garnett definitely maintained impact on the Celtics, I'm not trying to question Garnett's impact at all. I'm moreso just trying to question the idea that all of Curry's impact advantage over Shaq/Duncan/Garnett/Jokic can just be hand waved away as Curry just being in a favorable situation; I don't think a favorable situation is enough to fairly argue that Curry should be in the tier after these guys. The situation for each is complicated, and there are pros/cons to each. I see Curry as right there in the mix with these guys, despite being only a 'one way' star -- the impact metrics and team performance and film are positive enough, even with the favorable situation for Curry.

Personally, I might have Curry as having the most favorable situation (for his impact), but I'm not sure it's too much more favorable than Shaq or Duncan, with Jokic and Timberwolves Garnett coming last out of these guys (again focusing on how their situation effects their situational value, not focusing on how their situation effects the team success, in this point).

… all that to say, I’m not trying to convince anyone that Curry had the worst situation of the bunch, or that you need to have him 1st or 2nd or anything like that. But there were aspects of each player’s fit and era that boosted their impact numbers; Curry’s not unique in that aspect. And given Curry has a reasonably clear individual impact advantage and a significant peak team performance advantage, it's fairly explain the actual basketball history, if you rank Curry outside of your top 4 peaks from 2001–2025.

Curry clearly had the best situation(s) out of all players in contention right now aside from potentially Duncan, where I think Curry and Duncan are 1A/1B in any order.

Big Picture, here are all these guys in their best 2–4-year window during the regular season with what I would to be title contender teams.

Curry+Draymond, 6100 minutes, +17.1
LeBron+Varajao, 3300 minutes, +15.5
Duncan+Manu, 3800 minutes, +14.5
LeBron+Wade, 5491 minutes, +13.4
Garnett+Pierce, 7200 minutes, +13.1
Jokic+Murray, 4500 minutes, +12.6
Garnett+Cassell, 2535 minutes, +11.3
LeBron+Kyrie, 4920 minutes, +10.4
Shaq+Kobe, 4000 minutes, +10.0
LeBron+AD, 2000 minutes, +9.5

I'm not sure how much more Curry benefited, but that isn't a question I am interested in asking or an answer I am interested in finding. I don't need to quantify how much a player benefited in order to determine how great a player they are. Curry and Duncan very well may have benefited the most, but it doesn't take away their greatness and simply is another thought-provoking point about how each of these players can mesh and be built around or upon.

One interesting point is LeBron, Duncan and Garnett were dominant with vastly different rosters and constructions. This is a testament to their longevity and skill-set. Curry and Jokic have played their careers within a similar ecosystem for most of their careers, specifically their primes. For Curry, we have a chunk of 2015 and as you alluded to, 2014, which sheds light on Curry's ability to play a different role and carry a massive impact footprint. For Jokic, he has proven he doesn't need a Murray-tier perimeter option (Think 2023 post-season Murray) to be effective and carry a massive impact.

For Shaq, he misses a lot of this databall era but still hits some intriguing heights in the early 2000's. I'm more dull, less bullish on his overall footprint compared to the other 5 players here for other reasons, but this certainly is a data point echoing some of these players could be ahead of Shaq.

Yeah that's all reasonable stuff. Good point about the impact in different roster constructions suggesting good longevity, and thanks for the duo numbers!

[ReggiesKnicks]

KG is a guy who I have in my top 10, and he was a versatile guy. That said, I take issue with the claim he 'dominated' in a variety of systems. He played well, but given his team's success I don't think you could say he was 'dominating' outside of Boston and maybe, maybe 04. I also think it's too soon for KG, terminology aside.

Dominated as in outscored his opponents by a lot of points when he was on the court.

That's the point of the game, to outscore your opponents, and Garnett is one of the best ever at it.

Curry may very well be the best at it for the regular season, though.

What is your definition of 'dominated'?

[One_and_Done]

KG is a guy who I have in my top 10, and he was a versatile guy. That said, I take issue with the claim he 'dominated' in a variety of systems. He played well, but given his team's success I don't think you could say he was 'dominating' outside of Boston and maybe, maybe 04. I also think it's too soon for KG, terminology aside.

Dominated as in outscored his opponents by a lot of points when he was on the court.

That's the point of the game, to outscore your opponents, and Garnett is one of the best ever at it.

Curry may very well be the best at it for the regular season, though.

What is your definition of 'dominated'?

It seems like a weird term to use for a guy almost nobody thought was the best player in the league at that time, and has been retrospectively elevated by some due to advanced stats that are often wrong (and yes, I'm including plus minus, regardless of whether you want to call it advanced or not).

[ReggiesKnicks]

KG is a guy who I have in my top 10, and he was a versatile guy. That said, I take issue with the claim he 'dominated' in a variety of systems. He played well, but given his team's success I don't think you could say he was 'dominating' outside of Boston and maybe, maybe 04. I also think it's too soon for KG, terminology aside.

Dominated as in outscored his opponents by a lot of points when he was on the court.

That's the point of the game, to outscore your opponents, and Garnett is one of the best ever at it.

Curry may very well be the best at it for the regular season, though.

What is your definition of 'dominated'?

It seems like a weird term to use for a guy almost nobody thought was the best player in the league at that time, and has been retrospectively elevated by some due to advanced stats that are often wrong (and yes, I'm including plus minus, regardless of whether you want to call it advanced or not).

What is your definition of dominated?

What are statistics which you think aren't wrong?

I have seen a lot of "your wrong, I'm right" comments from you here and over in the Trades and Transaction board. Unfortunately you aren't really providing substance other than telling people they are wrong without expanding time or effort explaining why they are wrong.

I'm all about enlightenment, so if you could respond to my two questions

[lessthanjake]

It wouldn't be fair to just bring up the 2011 Finals but pointing out that Lebron looked very un-GOAT like in the playoffs in all surrounding years (2007, 2008, 2010, 2011) is definitely fair when talking about 2009 Lebron. The 2009 postseason probably falls under the definition of a fluke run.

Now with that being said, would I completely disregard his dominance? Of course not. 2009 is probably his best year (RS + PS) start to finish regardless given the huge ON ratings and great postseason play but the inconsistency to surrounding postseasons does hurt him relatively speaking.

Man, why bother quoting my whole post if you are just going to do the same old LeBron arguments.

1. LeBron's prime is usually regarded as 09-18 (or 20) since the 2009 season represented a big step-up in his career. Do you bring up 03/04 Nash to argue against 2005 being his peak season because it has weak preceding years? No? So why do it here for LeBron?

I don’t quite understand the notion that LeBron wasn’t in his prime until 2009. A lot of people have 2009 as his peak season, including you! I’ve personally put down 2012 as his greatest peak in this thread, but that is in significant part on the back of “greatness” having a significant team success element to it. In terms of pure individual performance, 2009 was probably his best year. Players don’t typically have their prime begin the same year as they peak individually, so I think if we’ve come to that conclusion about a player then we should probably really take a step back and consider whether that is really correct.

And while LeBron was better in 2009 than in 2008, I don’t think the data would really put 2006-2008 LeBron (or at least 2007 & 2008 LeBron) out of line with a whole lot of years you include in his prime here. Some info on this:

- His BPM in 2008 was tied for the 4th highest of his career, behind only 2009, 2010, and 2013. Meanwhile, his overall BPM from 2006-2008 was higher than it was from 2014-2018 (and even further above 2014-2020).

- His WS/48 in 2008 was tied for 6th highest of his career. His overall WS/48 from 2006-2008 was essentially exactly the same as it was in 2014-2018 and 2014-2020 (0.227 in 2006-2008; 0.230 in 2014-2018; 0.221 in 2014-2020).

- His PER in 2008 was the 6th highest of his career. His PER from 2006-2008 was right in line with both 2014-2018 and 2014-2020 (27.2 in 2006-2008; 27.7 in 2014-2018; 27.2 in 2014-2020).

- His EPM in 2008 was right in line with all but his MVP years. His EPM in 2007 was in line with the lower end of his prime years and 2006 was lower than the rest.

- His three-year RAPM (as per NBArapm) from 2006-2008 was above four different three-year spans from 2009-2020 (though there’s potentially issues of different scaling there).

- His xRAPM in 2007 and 2008 were right in line with his prime years outside his 2009-2013 peak (while 2006 was a bit below the rest).

Meanwhile, in terms of individual accolades, he was 2nd, 5th, and 4th in MVP voting in 2006-2008, which is certainly indicative of someone in their prime. And especially so in a context where his team wasn’t very good, so he was achieving those high MVP placements despite not being on a team that had a great season.

Basically, I don’t think it makes sense to say LeBron’s prime started in 2009. He was pretty clearly already in his prime in the preceding years (whether that starts in 2006 or 2007 or whatever is a separate question—2006 does look a bit lower in some impact data).

I think sometimes people say his prime started in 2009 in order to make it easier to handwave away things that happened in the 2007 and 2008 playoffs as being pre-prime LeBron. Of course, one could say that the evidence he wasn’t in his prime is precisely that he had those playoff struggles. But that’s basically a circular argument, because it amounts to “His playoff struggles in those years aren’t relevant because he wasn’t in his prime, and we know he wasn’t in his prime because he struggled in the playoffs.” And even that circular argument doesn’t really make a lot of sense when we realize he struggled in the playoffs in 2010 and 2011 too and those are indisputably part of his prime.

So yeah, I think LeBron was in his prime prior to 2009, though they were not his peak years. Of course, perhaps the response to all this for purposes of this thread is that this is a project about peaks and so we shouldn’t necessarily use what happened in non-peak prime years against him for purposes of evaluating his peak. That view holds some merit. But we *are* explicitly allowed to look at surrounding years for context, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking that approach here.

[One_and_Done]

Dominated as in outscored his opponents by a lot of points when he was on the court.

That's the point of the game, to outscore your opponents, and Garnett is one of the best ever at it.

Curry may very well be the best at it for the regular season, though.

What is your definition of 'dominated'?

It seems like a weird term to use for a guy almost nobody thought was the best player in the league at that time, and has been retrospectively elevated by some due to advanced stats that are often wrong (and yes, I'm including plus minus, regardless of whether you want to call it advanced or not).

What is your definition of dominated?

What are statistics which you think aren't wrong?

I have seen a lot of "your wrong, I'm right" comments from you here and over in the Trades and Transaction board. Unfortunately you aren't really providing substance other than telling people they are wrong without expanding time or effort explaining why they are wrong.

I'm all about enlightenment, so if you could respond to my two questions

Well, all statistics can be misleading, whether that’s counting stats or advanced ones, or something in-between. What’s important is the context of a player’s achievements/stats, and unfortunately there is no formula for that. You have to apply some common sense.

KG “dominated” in the sense that he was a clear top 5 player through his prime. At times, I think he was maybe the 2nd or 3rd best player for some years (though not often). But he didn’t ‘dominate’ in the sense that guys like Duncan or Lebron or Shaq dominated, where they were the most impactful guys in the league.

I’ve talked many times before about why I feel that way. Happy to link you to some past threads where I discuss it. I don’t think the evidence supports KG as being the most impactful player in the league at any point. To re-emphasise; I have him near the bottom of the top 10 all-time. So this isn’t a huge difference, but I think it’s one worth pointing out.

[jalengreen]

Just commenting on these points on 2019

Against the Blazers, many expected the Warriors to fail, and they went on to have an utterly dominant performance.

The Warriors were -550 favorites in the WCF against the Blazers.

Source: www.sportsoddshistory.com/nba-playoffs-series/?y=2019&o=s

Of the 15 playoff series that year, the odds difference of the 2019 WCF was more lopsided than all but 4 (all first round series).

If we go game by game:

Game 1: GSW -7.5 (GSW won by 22)
Game 2: GSW -7.0 (GSW won by 3)
Game 3: POR -2.5 (GSW won by 11)
Game 4: GSW -3.5 (GSW won by 2)

So the Warriors were favored in 3/4 games, and covered the spread in 2/4 - a measure of their performance relative to expectation.

I suppose you can say "many expected X to fail" in any situation as long as you can find some analysts or fans who picked them to fail. I did check to see ESPN's predictions:



Nobody picked a sweep so you can say they outperformed in that sense. I think it's a bit overzealous to go any further than that.

Against the Rockets (statistically one of the best playoff defenses of the century), a team with an innovative coach again focused entirely on stopping Curry, facing some of the most defensive attention a star has ever faced (literally facing a box and one!)... Curry looked again like one of the GOAT offensive players, again under historic amounts of pressure.

Watch on YouTube

"years from now, or maybe days, it will be cited as a playoff failure by critics, but rarely will you ever see a player influence an offense more than Curry did in game 2 of the finals". Just because they lost doesn't mean Curry wasn't dominant under pressure.

(for the sake of not confusing anybody who's reading this, the quoted should say Raptors and not Rockets in case it's not obvious)

Anyway, I think this was a series where Steph gets most of his criticism for the back end of the series.

He averaged 26.3 PPG in Games 4-6 which is quite fine, but on 25-62 FG (0.403) and 10-34 3P (0.294).

Game 4: GSW leads by 4 at half. Lead crumbled away in a 3rd quarter where the Warriors were outscored by 16 and Steph played all 12 minutes.

Game 5: GSW leads by 6 at half. Steph shoots 3-12 FG and 2-9 3P in the second half - but they do escape with a win thanks to clutch shots from Klay and a timely game tying 3 from Steph.

Game 6: GSW leads by 2 going into the 4th quarter. Steph shoots 1-6 FG and 0-4 3P in the fourth quarter.

I don't think this is some godawful series he needs to get held against him or anything. Like you said, he was facing a historic defense and certainly faced a lot of pressure. But to my eye and I think many eyes, he did not close out the series (G4-6) looking like an offensive GOAT nor was he particularly dominant. These are sort of the situations where to some, it feels like the standard for Steph is remarkably low relative to his billing as a player.

[Owly]

It wouldn't be fair to just bring up the 2011 Finals but pointing out that Lebron looked very un-GOAT like in the playoffs in all surrounding years (2007, 2008, 2010, 2011) is definitely fair when talking about 2009 Lebron. The 2009 postseason probably falls under the definition of a fluke run.

Now with that being said, would I completely disregard his dominance? Of course not. 2009 is probably his best year (RS + PS) start to finish regardless given the huge ON ratings and great postseason play but the inconsistency to surrounding postseasons does hurt him relatively speaking.

Man, why bother quoting my whole post if you are just going to do the same old LeBron arguments.

1. LeBron's prime is usually regarded as 09-18 (or 20) since the 2009 season represented a big step-up in his career. Do you bring up 03/04 Nash to argue against 2005 being his peak season because it has weak preceding years? No? So why do it here for LeBron?

I don’t quite understand the notion that LeBron wasn’t in his prime until 2009. A lot of people have 2009 as his peak season, including you! I’ve personally put down 2012 as his greatest peak in this thread, but that is in significant part on the back of “greatness” having a significant team success element to it. In terms of pure individual performance, 2009 was probably his best year. Players don’t typically have their prime begin the same year as they peak individually, so I think if we’ve come to that conclusion about a player then we should probably really take a step back and consider whether that is really correct.

And while LeBron was better in 2009 than in 2008, I don’t think the data would really put 2006-2008 LeBron (or at least 2007 & 2008 LeBron) out of line with a whole lot of years you include in his prime here. Some info on this:

- His BPM in 2008 was tied for the 4th highest of his career, behind only 2009, 2010, and 2013. Meanwhile, his overall BPM from 2006-2008 was higher than it was from 2014-2018 (and even further above 2014-2020).

- His WS/48 in 2008 was tied for 6th highest of his career. His overall WS/48 from 2006-2008 was essentially exactly the same as it was in 2014-2018 and 2014-2018 (0.227 in 2006-2008; 0.230 in 2014-2018; 0.221 in 2014-2020).

- His PER in 2008 was the 6th highest of his career. His PER from 2006-2008 was right in line with both 2014-2018 and 2014-2020 (27.2 in 2006-2008; 27.7 in 2014-2018; 27.2 in 2014-2020).

- His EPM in 2008 was right in line with all but his MVP years. His EPM in 2007 was in line with the lower end of his prime years and 2006 was lower than the rest.

- His three-year RAPM (as per NBArapm) from 2006-2008 was above four different three-year spans from 2009-2020 (though there’s potentially issues of different scaling there).

- His xRAPM in 2007 and 2008 were right in line with his prime years outside his 2009-2013 peak (while 2006 was a bit below the rest).

Meanwhile, in terms of individual accolades, he was 2nd, 5th, and 4th in MVP voting in 2006-2008, which is certainly indicative of someone in their prime. And especially so in a context where his team wasn’t very good, so he was achieving those high MVP placements despite not being on a team that had a great season.

Basically, I don’t think it makes sense to say LeBron’s prime started in 2009. He was pretty clearly already in his prime in the preceding years (whether that starts in 2006 or 2007 or whatever is a separate question—2006 does look a bit lower in some impact data).

I think sometimes people say his prime started in 2009 in order to make it easier to handwave away things that happened in the 2007 and 2008 playoffs as being pre-prime LeBron. Of course, one could say that the evidence he wasn’t in his prime is precisely that he had those playoff struggles. But that’s basically a circular argument, because it amounts to “His playoff struggles in those years aren’t relevant because he wasn’t in his prime, and we know he wasn’t in his prime because he struggled in the playoffs.” And even that circular argument doesn’t really make a lot of sense when we realize he struggled in the playoffs in 2010 and 2011 too and those are indisputably part of his prime.

So yeah, I think LeBron was in his prime prior to 2009, though they were not his peak years. Of course, perhaps the response to all this for purposes of this thread is that this is a project about peaks and so we shouldn’t necessarily use what happened in non-peak prime years against him for purposes of evaluating his peak. That view holds some merit. But we *are* explicitly allowed to look at surrounding years for context, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking that approach here.

General thoughts here

I think "prime" is fuzzy enough that I think it's simplest to allow for differing interpretations. Players have different length and shape career etc.

I struggle a bit with the "circular argument" business it's not wrong but what your criteria is matters and then from there it's always going to be a case of "these are the years X is good" leads to "these are their prime years" and those prime years are the good years. Circularity isn't necessarily in and of itself a problem. Arguably here it's just coherence. I would add that it would be hard to include "weak" playoff years in prime for any poster who weighted playoffs heavily - by definition if you weight it heavily you aren't going to include such years for a given player ... or else you weight it less and the argument isn't such a big deal. it's hard to argue for "indisputably" prime (based on RS prioritization) and a really big deal (based on playoff prioritization and perhaps whilst believing playoffs for the span as a notable relative weakness).

I would tend to take issue with the generalization "he struggled in the playoffs in 2010 and 2011 too". It depends on meaning but applied generally to the 2010 playoffs ...

28.6 PER; .242 WS/48; 11.5 BPM
Reference all-in-ones look healthy

and for what it's worth in a tiny sample +23.2 on-off.

There's an outright absolute-terms poor game in there and there's variance but overall that looks pretty good.

Fwiw looking at the same numbers averaged across those years ... and these are years chosen because a poster thinks they're weak (given voting is as I understand it by player rather than by year, I'd argue that might be used to persuade others, but shouldn't matter to the poster themself, if they're using another year for the peak)
26.9 PER, .237 WS/48, 10.2 BPM
10.9 on-off

Even if this set of numbers in a range targeted for its weakness were the bar ... is the field here beating it ... I don't know.

So at the margin I hear a case for smoothing 2009 playoff out a little but at the same time I don't think the other runs are bad, and I might conceivably smush them up based on larger RS samples and accounting for context (otoh, strong opponents - weaker teammates that might allow for greater opponent defensive focus).

This isn't to push for LeBron in a particular spot ... there are many great players here with great years.

[jalengreen]

2007-11 LeBron playoff talk had me curious, checked postseason EPM for him in those years and compared to 2015-19 Steph



Excuse the lazy graph but X=1 refers to LeBron 2007, Steph 2015, X=2 refers to LeBron 2008, Steph 2016, and so on.

Don't really have a point here, after all nobody's actually ranking 2017 Steph over LeBron AFAIK. Thought it was neat how closely they follow though.

[One_and_Done]

I feel like the discussion on here must be tough for outsiders sometimes. There are these long posts replying to each other with 10 formulas, and replies with another 8 formulas and discussion of variance or standard deviations or whatever. I’m not saying stats don’t have their uses, and aren’t of interest, but I don’t think various advanced stats (or plus minus ones) should be a meaningful argument for why one player is better than another (and I say this as someone whose top 2 guys are god tier by most advanced stats).

There are so many reasons advanced stats can be wrong, and even the most ardent stats zealot would tell you as much. It can be due to superior/inferior back-ups, or match-ups, or the style/game-plan of teams, or it could just be random variance that happens in basketball games. It’s an interesting data point, but to my mind that’s all it should be; a data point, where we say “hmm, that’s interesting, it might hint at these broad conclusions”, but not “it means X”. too often advanced stats ARE the argument.

I’m more interested in a nuanced analysis of the context, and whether what happened really bears out the numbers. In the case of KG, the best example is the comparison between 2002 KG and Tim Duncan. KG and Duncan were both basically at their peak in 02. Most will say it was 03 for Duncan, and 04 for KG, because of team success, but really they weren’t meaningfully different in 02.

If you look at the Wolves, they had a clearly superior support cast that year. KG’s robin was Brandon at first, who was an all-star calibre point guard in the vein of Mike Conley. He didn’t put up big numbers, but he was a big-time player. Then when he went down with injury, Billups took over and proceeded to play like an all-star. Most didn’t realise how good Billups was yet, and obviously he got a little better in future years, but I feel comfortable to say he was playing at an all-star calibre level this year. Then KG had Wally, who actually made the all-star team. In addition, the Wolves had Joe Smith who was a fantastic starter, and rounded out the starting 5 with Rasho. Rasho was a decent 5 man. His help D was good, his man D wasn’t so good, and he had a decent midrange shot most times. Then off the bench KG had other decent role players like Peeler, Gary Trent, etc. It was a solid support cast, especially for that period.

If we look at Duncan, his support cast was nothing like that strong in 2002. He didn’t have anyone even remotely resembling an all-star calibre player. D.Rob was a shell of himself. Parker was an inconsistent rookie who a year later would lose his minutes in the finals to a journeyman point guard named Speedy Claxton. Steve Smith was washed. All he could do was hit open 3s and nothing else. Bruce Bowen was an elite perimeter defender (in the 59 games he played), but he could do nothing but shoot open corner 3s on offense. Given the era, he would have been unplayable if Duncan wasn’t opening up space for him with double teams. The bench has trash players like Malik Rose, Charles Smith, and Antonio Daniels.

Yet despite that clear difference in team quality, Duncan’s Spurs won 58 and had an SRS of 6.28, compared to the Wolves who won only 50 and had an SRS of 3.58. The Wolves were swept in the 1st round by the Mavs by a large margin, while the Spurs had a much closer than it looks 4-1 loss to the champs in round 2 despite D.Rob basically missing the series with injuries (and being almost useless when he did play). The Spurs lose game 1 by 6 points (led going into the 4th), game 3 by 10 points (down 3 going into the 4th), game 4 by 2 points (up 8 heading into the 4th), and game 5 by 6 points (down 1 heading into the 4th). Duncan did all he could that series, but in crunch time his complete lack of support was too much. Stat lines can be misleading, but I think the closing game one speaks loudly as to what I was seeing. Duncan has 34-25 in 45 minutes, as the Spurs ran almost every play through him while he spent much of the game (and series) matching up with Shaq. Meanwhile D.Rob had 0 points and 3 rebounds in 18 minutes, and was worse than even those numbers suggest.

KG could never carry a team in the way peak Duncan showed he could. He certainly wouldn’t be limiting Shaq the way Duncan did in the 02 series. KG was a great player, but his impact just wasn’t the same as Duncan. If it was we would have seen it in years when his team wasn’t good, the same as we often did for guys like Duncan, Lebron, etc. And before anyone tries to explain it away with the coaching, Flip was a great coach. Pop is obviously a historically better coach, but at the time Pop was just running every other play to Duncan in the post. It was a very simplistic offense compared to what Flip could do. It’s also a players league. Coaches just put players in a position to succeed, they don’t make bad players good. KG had all the coaching he needed to succeed, and he couldn’t to the level of the absolute top guys like Duncan and Lebron. His skillset wasn't suited to it.

[lessthanjake]

Man, why bother quoting my whole post if you are just going to do the same old LeBron arguments.

1. LeBron's prime is usually regarded as 09-18 (or 20) since the 2009 season represented a big step-up in his career. Do you bring up 03/04 Nash to argue against 2005 being his peak season because it has weak preceding years? No? So why do it here for LeBron?

I don’t quite understand the notion that LeBron wasn’t in his prime until 2009. A lot of people have 2009 as his peak season, including you! I’ve personally put down 2012 as his greatest peak in this thread, but that is in significant part on the back of “greatness” having a significant team success element to it. In terms of pure individual performance, 2009 was probably his best year. Players don’t typically have their prime begin the same year as they peak individually, so I think if we’ve come to that conclusion about a player then we should probably really take a step back and consider whether that is really correct.

And while LeBron was better in 2009 than in 2008, I don’t think the data would really put 2006-2008 LeBron (or at least 2007 & 2008 LeBron) out of line with a whole lot of years you include in his prime here. Some info on this:

- His BPM in 2008 was tied for the 4th highest of his career, behind only 2009, 2010, and 2013. Meanwhile, his overall BPM from 2006-2008 was higher than it was from 2014-2018 (and even further above 2014-2020).

- His WS/48 in 2008 was tied for 6th highest of his career. His overall WS/48 from 2006-2008 was essentially exactly the same as it was in 2014-2018 and 2014-2018 (0.227 in 2006-2008; 0.230 in 2014-2018; 0.221 in 2014-2020).

- His PER in 2008 was the 6th highest of his career. His PER from 2006-2008 was right in line with both 2014-2018 and 2014-2020 (27.2 in 2006-2008; 27.7 in 2014-2018; 27.2 in 2014-2020).

- His EPM in 2008 was right in line with all but his MVP years. His EPM in 2007 was in line with the lower end of his prime years and 2006 was lower than the rest.

- His three-year RAPM (as per NBArapm) from 2006-2008 was above four different three-year spans from 2009-2020 (though there’s potentially issues of different scaling there).

- His xRAPM in 2007 and 2008 were right in line with his prime years outside his 2009-2013 peak (while 2006 was a bit below the rest).

Meanwhile, in terms of individual accolades, he was 2nd, 5th, and 4th in MVP voting in 2006-2008, which is certainly indicative of someone in their prime. And especially so in a context where his team wasn’t very good, so he was achieving those high MVP placements despite not being on a team that had a great season.

Basically, I don’t think it makes sense to say LeBron’s prime started in 2009. He was pretty clearly already in his prime in the preceding years (whether that starts in 2006 or 2007 or whatever is a separate question—2006 does look a bit lower in some impact data).

I think sometimes people say his prime started in 2009 in order to make it easier to handwave away things that happened in the 2007 and 2008 playoffs as being pre-prime LeBron. Of course, one could say that the evidence he wasn’t in his prime is precisely that he had those playoff struggles. But that’s basically a circular argument, because it amounts to “His playoff struggles in those years aren’t relevant because he wasn’t in his prime, and we know he wasn’t in his prime because he struggled in the playoffs.” And even that circular argument doesn’t really make a lot of sense when we realize he struggled in the playoffs in 2010 and 2011 too and those are indisputably part of his prime.

So yeah, I think LeBron was in his prime prior to 2009, though they were not his peak years. Of course, perhaps the response to all this for purposes of this thread is that this is a project about peaks and so we shouldn’t necessarily use what happened in non-peak prime years against him for purposes of evaluating his peak. That view holds some merit. But we *are* explicitly allowed to look at surrounding years for context, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking that approach here.

General thoughts here

I think "prime" is fuzzy enough that I think it's simplest to allow for differing interpretations. Players have different length and shape career etc.

I struggle a bit with the "circular argument" business it's not wrong but what your criteria is matters and then from there it's always going to be a case of "these are the years X is good" leads to "these are their prime years" and those prime years are the good years. Circularity isn't necessarily in and of itself a problem. Arguably here it's just coherence. I would add that it would be hard to include "weak" playoff years in prime for any poster who weighted playoffs heavily - by definition if you weight it heavily you aren't going to include such years for a given player ... or else you weight it less and the argument isn't such a big deal. it's hard to argue for "indisputably" prime (based on RS prioritization) and a really big deal (based on playoff prioritization and perhaps whilst believing playoffs for the span as a notable relative weakness).

I would tend to take issue with the generalization "he struggled in the playoffs in 2010 and 2011 too". It depends on meaning but applied generally to the 2010 playoffs ...

28.6 PER; .242 WS/48; 11.5 BPM
Reference all-in-ones look healthy

and for what it's worth in a tiny sample +23.2 on-off.

There's an outright absolute-terms poor game in there and there's variance but overall that looks pretty good.

Fwiw looking at the same numbers averaged across those years ... and these are years chosen because a poster thinks they're weak (given voting is as I understand it by player rather than by year, I'd argue that might be used to persuade others, but shouldn't matter to the poster themself, if they're using another year for the peak)
26.9 PER, .237 WS/48, 10.2 BPM
10.9 on-off

Even if this set of numbers in a range targeted for its weakness were the bar ... is the field here beating it ... I don't know.

So at the margin I hear a case for smoothing 2009 playoff out a little but at the same time I don't think the other runs are bad, and I might conceivably smush them up based on larger RS samples and accounting for context (otoh, strong opponents - weaker teammates that might allow for greater opponent defensive focus).

This isn't to push for LeBron in a particular spot ... there are many great players here with great years.

Yeah, I hear your point on the circularity thing. It’s true that the fact that it’s a circular argument doesn’t *inherently* make it wrong. But I have a tough time thinking that some playoff struggles mean a player is not in their prime when regular season box and impact data doesn’t bear that out at all. Like, I can’t really think of any other example where people widely define a player’s prime this way, rather than simply saying the guy was a bit disappointing in the playoffs in his early prime. And this is especially dubious when those playoff struggles didn’t actually disappear afterwards, but instead reappeared after a one-year hiatus in years that are unquestionably part of the player’s prime. Like, if 2007 and 2008 are not part of LeBron’s prime solely because he struggled in the playoffs, then does his prime only start after 2011? Pretty clearly not. So then why would 2007 and 2008 not be part of his prime solely for that reason, when the rest of the data indicates they were? The playoffs aren’t a big sample and they are only against certain teams/matchups. Sometimes someone just struggles into certain teams/matchups or struggles against a strategy that a playoff opponent employs against them (or that the composition of their supporting cast allows to be employed against them). But they don’t always face teams that can do that, and they also sometimes just experience positive variance in a small sample such that that weakness is temporarily papered over (even more likely when the playoff sample is only 14 games). In general, it’s also not uncommon for players to have their weaknesses exploited in the playoffs in their early prime (after which, the effect can often be limited by some combination of the player working on those weaknesses and their teams engaging in team building and game planning to mitigate it). So I really wouldn’t say having some struggles in the playoffs means someone hasn’t entered their prime.

Of course, in the context of single-year peaks, it may be a valid approach to basically just say “I don’t care about whether LeBron had weaknesses be exploited in surrounding years, because that didn’t happen in 2009 and I am judging this only based on what actually happened in this one specific year.” I think that’d be a reasonable approach (which would tend to lead to a higher evaluation of 2009 LeBron). But I also think it’s reasonable to look at surrounding years to draw some inferences about 2009 (and the voting criteria explicitly allows for that). And I don’t think that that sort of analysis should be cut off by artificially limiting his prime in order to take what happened in some surrounding years out of consideration.

[Doctor MJ]

KG is a guy who I have in my top 10, and he was a versatile guy. That said, I take issue with the claim he 'dominated' in a variety of systems. He played well, but given his team's success I don't think you could say he was 'dominating' outside of Boston and maybe, maybe 04. I also think it's too soon for KG, terminology aside.

Dominated as in outscored his opponents by a lot of points when he was on the court.

That's the point of the game, to outscore your opponents, and Garnett is one of the best ever at it.

Curry may very well be the best at it for the regular season, though.

What is your definition of 'dominated'?

It seems like a weird term to use for a guy almost nobody thought was the best player in the league at that time, and has been retrospectively elevated by some due to advanced stats that are often wrong (and yes, I'm including plus minus, regardless of whether you want to call it advanced or not).

I just have to interject here with the historiography:

The consensus was literally that Garnett was the best player in the world during the '03-04 season and that's why he won the MVP in a blow out. That's not to say he'd ended the debate with Duncan generally, but rather that it was very much a Duncan vs Garnett debate.

It was the last years in Minnesota that re-classified Garnett as something a tier below Duncan, and why was that? Not because of a direct re-evaluation of Garnett based on his play, but based on the fact that his team wasn't good and everybody "knew" that that meant he couldn't be as good as Duncan whose teams were always good.

Regardless of whether that re-classification is something you judge to be right or wrong, that's literally what happened. Garnett went from a guy that people really weren't skeptical of to a guy that people were skeptical of from the span of '04 to '07, rather than an actual criticism of his play in '02-03 or '03-04.

To be clear, that doesn't mean people thought Garnett was as good as prime Shaq, because prime Shaq was considered in a tier separate from Duncan & Garnett, but just in terms of Garnett & Duncan, it really wasn't until '05-06 and especially '06-07 that they became perceived as being in different tiers with Garnett relegated to a tier below where Duncan by then was perceived.

And also to be clear: I was right there with everyone else in that time frame for the most part with the main exception being that I made clear that I had uncertainty about Garnett's placement because I wasn't sure how much of Minny falling off a superstar should have been able to prevent. When he got moved to Boston, I absolutely did not predict the success he would have there, but I did acknowledge that if he had major success that might re-frame my assessment of his Minnesota years... and of course that's eventually what happened.

[Doctor MJ]

I don’t quite understand the notion that LeBron wasn’t in his prime until 2009.

I just wanted to respond to this separately:

We really don't have good agreed upon definitions of "prime" and that has everything to do with why we do peak projects rather than prime projects.

What I can say about LeBron with some certainty is that he was first a serious MVP candidate in '05-06 and last one in '19-20. I think if things had broken right he could have kept being an MVP candidate longer, but despite the fact he got MVP ballot votes in his first two years, he really shouldn't have (though he did deserve All-NBA in his 2nd year just as he got). His 3rd year was the real breakthrough when consider that MVP tier of player. Of course, '08-09 was another breakthrough on a different tier from his first 3 years, but it's not like his '05-06 campaign was worse than every season from '08-09 to '19-20.

[One_and_Done]

Dominated as in outscored his opponents by a lot of points when he was on the court.

That's the point of the game, to outscore your opponents, and Garnett is one of the best ever at it.

Curry may very well be the best at it for the regular season, though.

What is your definition of 'dominated'?

It seems like a weird term to use for a guy almost nobody thought was the best player in the league at that time, and has been retrospectively elevated by some due to advanced stats that are often wrong (and yes, I'm including plus minus, regardless of whether you want to call it advanced or not).

I just have to interject here with the historiography:

The consensus was literally that Garnett was the best player in the world during the '03-04 season and that's why he won the MVP in a blow out. That's not to say he'd ended the debate with Duncan generally, but rather that it was very much a Duncan vs Garnett debate.

It was the last years in Minnesota that re-classified Garnett as something a tier below Duncan, and why was that? Not because of a direct re-evaluation of Garnett based on his play, but based on the fact that his team wasn't good and everybody "knew" that that meant he couldn't be as good as Duncan whose teams were always good.

Regardless of whether that re-classification is something you judge to be right or wrong, that's literally what happened. Garnett went from a guy that people really weren't skeptical of to a guy that people were skeptical of from the span of '04 to '07, rather than an actual criticism of his play in '02-03 or '03-04.

To be clear, that doesn't mean people thought Garnett was as good as prime Shaq, because prime Shaq was considered in a tier separate from Duncan & Garnett, but just in terms of Garnett & Duncan, it really wasn't until '05-06 and especially '06-07 that they became perceived as being in different tiers with Garnett relegated to a tier below where Duncan by then was perceived.

And also to be clear: I was right there with everyone else in that time frame for the most part with the main exception being that I made clear that I had uncertainty about Garnett's placement because I wasn't sure how much of Minny falling off a superstar should have been able to prevent. When he got moved to Boston, I absolutely did not predict the success he would have there, but I did acknowledge that if he had major success that might re-frame my assessment of his Minnesota years... and of course that's eventually what happened.

No, KG won the MVP in 2004 because:

1) voter fatigue, after 2 consecutive MVP wins by Duncan

2) Duncan playing only 69 games that year, and working his way back from a foot injury, and

3) narrative reasons, e.g. “KG is due an MVP” and “Wolves finished higher”

I don’t even think casual fans thought KG was better than Shaq at this point, and many discerning fans still had him below Duncan.

The Spurs were 51-18 in games Duncan played, and only 6-7 in games he didn’t. If Duncan plays a full season like he did the previous 2 years, the Spurs win more games and he gets 3 straight MVPs.

I’m sure KG had many fans, I know he did because I followed the commentary at the time, but he was not the consensus best player in the world in 2004. No more than Dirk was when Dirk won an MVP in 2007. Voters said “well, nobody else has a bullet proof case, and the Mavs had a great record, and Dirk is kind of due, let’s give it to him”.

In short, I don’t agree with the narrative you have presented. Maybe for you that was the narrative, but it certainly wasn’t mine at the time, or many others. To describe it as “the consensus” strikes me as wrong. People did not expect the Wolves to win the title, the thought (correctly) that the Lakers were going to roll them. A big reason for that was KGs limitations. You can’t run the post-centric offense through him, and he can’t guard Shaq 1v1 like Duncan can, or act as the team’s defensive anchor. Not that he didn’t “anchor” the Wolves (and Celtics) D, he absolutely did, but he did it through his versatility, etc, and not rim protection which is more valuable.

[TheGOATRises007]

Voting

1. Lebron James 2008-2009

I know others pick 2012 or 2013 for his peak, but I can’t really ignore the sheer impact numbers from his 2008-2009 season. I honestly think if LeBron won a ring this season, it’d be seen as his consensus peak without question.

Obviously, I don’t blame him 1 bit for failing to win a ring. Him leading that rather average supporting cast to 66 wins and almost 9 SRS was remarkable.

Even if I concede the notion that he maybe becomes more polished in Miami with the same 2-way dominance. And I concede his mastery of offense is perhaps showcased more during his 2nd Cleveland stint, I just can’t pick another LeBron season besides this 1.

It is the greatest floor raising season in NBA history because it is LeBron’s physical peak matching his already exceptional basketball IQ. If this LeBron was playing in the 5 out offense of today’s game, I think he’d average 40 in every single playoff series.

Easily my 1st pick from this era.

Other LeBron seasons for nomination: 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018

2. Nikola Jokic 2022-2023(2024)
3. Tim Duncan 2002-2003(2002)


I had a really tough time picking between the two.

I’m aware of Duncan’s superior 2-way play. He is one of the greatest defenders of all-time. I don’t think the Spurs cast was that great in either season that I nominated for Duncan and he was the spearhead behind their success. He was tremendous in the series that ended the Lakers’ bid for the 4-peat. And we know how amazing his finals run was. I also think Duncan’s offense is superior to someone like Garnett’s because of his ability to scale up in scoring when necessary even if I slightly prefer KG’s reads when it comes to passing from post play. If I need Duncan to score near 30 in the flow of the offense throughout the series while maintaining his defensive dominance, I have confidence in him doing so. Less confident in KG which is my reasoning for going with Duncan over KG.

Jokic to me already has the best offensive peak from a center ever. His passing is arguably the greatest of all-time. His scoring efficiency is tremendous and simply put, he is the most devastating offensive player in NBA history IMO when he gets the ball in an advantageous position near the basket. You can’t double team him effectively. If you defend him 1vs1, he’ll likely pivot until he finds a slight opening and score with that feathery touch of his. I do think Jokic’s defense does improve a good amount in the playoffs. Not saying he’s great, but I do think he provides positive value especially considering his amazing defensive rebounding.

So why did I pick Jokic when it seems like I made a better argument for Duncan? In the end, I just think Jokic is that great on offense. Arguably the offensive GOAT in general and I just think Duncan’s defense would slightly suffer today honestly. His lesser mobility compared to someone like KG would deter his value a bit.

Essentially, I think if you transported Duncan to today’s game, I think he’s still amazing, but I think his defensive value slightly decreases. If Jokic went back in Duncan’s time, I think he maintains the same value overall. Arguably improves even more defensively with less space to defend.


4. Stephen Curry 2017(2016)

We all know what’s been said about Curry. Numerous data has been posted in this thread for the impact monster he is. Truthfully, if he maintained his 2016 RS level in the playoffs, I’d pick him 2nd without question. But alas, he did not.

He is the driver behind the modern NBA dynasty. He is IMO the greatest offensive force in NBA history when he gets hot from 3. There’s simply no defense to deter him. It’s not the same year, but I find it crazy that the French national team was hard-doubling Curry leaving LeBron and KD wide open. That just speaks to how much of a supernova he is on offense when he’s in the zone.

I went with Curry over Shaq, because I think Shaq’s 2001 season isn’t as good as his 2000 season and I do think Curry was specifically lights out in the playoffs for 2017. Even with his RS decline from 2016, the on-off numbers are staggeringly high. There's no question that Curry was the driver of that team's success even with KD on the team.

Remove KD and that team was just fine.

Remove Curry and the team cratered a good amount.

[Verticality]

I understand this will not count but if it is acceptable I will share.

1 will be 2003 Tim Duncan. He could have been Defensive Player of the Year and was dominant in two ways playing great to gain a championship and NBA Most Valuable Player award and NBA Finals Most Valuable Player award. He also was incredible against the Lakers and Nets and stopped an unprecedented 4-peat. He did not win alone but I believe Spurs were not a great supporting team. Lebron will be two finishing behind Gasol in Defensive Player of the Year and a vote short of a unanimous NBA's Most Valuable Player award before defeating the dynastic for a NBA Championship and Finals Most Valuable Player award. He did not play perfectly those finals but it was a still a great season of play on both sides. I am split on the query of Shaquille or Stephen Curry. Many points have been brought forward for Curry here and I think my feelings on Shaq have waned from questions asked from his defense by the other project. I think it is possible Steph is better but I will still take the totality of 2000 over the great regular season of 2016. It is a shame Curry was injured and I feel if he captured a title that year I could vote reverse.

1 03 Tim Duncan
2 13 Lebron James
3 00 Shaquille O'Neal
4 16 Stephen Curry

[ReggiesKnicks]

1 03 Tim Duncan
2 13 Lebron James
3 00 Shaquille O'Neal
4 16 Stephen Curry

The years are 2001-2025, meaning 2000 just misses the cut-off.