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

[DraymondGold]

Should be fun to see how this list turns out.

Just a heads up O_6 since I just saw you post your top 2 candidates -- I think you might want to explicitly rank your next two players. Not sure if 70s is enforcing a minimum number of ranked players for a ballot to count, but past projects have, and I think for this project most people are ranking their top 4 each thread. Just thought I'd mention it in case it's a requirement

[Doctor MJ]

I'll write, time to vote I think.

Criteria

Players with best peak goodness as can be observed through their actual Play in the team contexts they Played in.

With "goodness" being something like:

"Capacity for Value-based Achievement as an n-dimensional feature approximated to 1-dimension for ranking purposes".

With "Value" set in the time the Player Played, but with Achievement having a Level of Competition weighting which still applies for this 25-year project, but is of considerably less consequence than when we try to do an All-Time list.

Process
In a nutshell, I'm going to look to
I'm intending to make a lot of use of data that's now available for this era. To some degree that's literally going to be true for earlier eras, but Play-by-Play era ('96-97 onward) based sites are currently the best they've ever been - and believe me when I tell you that the ups and the downs of sophisticated PBP analytics sites have been such a big problem for really using them in a project like this before. Not that I recall us doing something like this before, but even if we had, the ability to use these stats would have been far more limited.

For reference, because it may help others, sources I expect to personally use:

nba.com
basketball-reference.com
pbpstats.com
nbarapm.com
xrapm.com
thinkingbasketball.net
Cheema's playoff studies, which are linked to and well-summarized in this post by OhayoKD, which I've always liked.

And quite possibly others, particularly if people bring this to my attention.

Specifically I may used DPM, but as I alluded to in my prior post, I'd have to get more confident in it than I am at this moment, and this moment is when I need to start voting.

I believe nbarapm is going to be the one I'll be sharing from the most.

On a philosophical level here, I'm not looking to outsource my thought to any measure, but rather to try to understand things well enough that I can justify how my assessment diverges. When people allege inconsistency in analysis, the way they present the criticism is generally pretty alienating, but the truth is that I'm certainly trying to be consistent in my approach within a given study.

On the other hand, I want to be able to be "inconsistent" in that I don't want to be locked in to evaluating things the same way every project. If it leads to different results, that then becomes food for thought in and of itself.

(fyi, I'll put all that in Spoilers for future threads.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vote

1. 2016 LeBron James (> 2009 > 2013 > 2012)
2. 2017 Steph Curry (> 2016 > 2015 > 2022)
3. 2023 Nikola Jokic (> 2025 > 2024 > 2022)
4. 2004 Kevin Garnett (> 2003 > 2008 > 2002)

I'll begin with linking to a study I did using nbarapm.com recently.
nbarapm 4year Peaks Study.

Why "4 year peak" when clearly we're doing a 1-year peak here?

Well, the reason it's multi-season is because I think the data just gets more reliable when you do more seasons, so from an actual goodness perspective, I think a multi-season study will give better accuracy so long as the player in question actually had multi-season runs that were roughly displaying the same level of play.

This is also me saying that I think we tend to over-index on season narrative, and in the context of single year peaks then seek to explain away why a player didn't win the same way every single year because of this, that, or the other as if the player that one year was an entirely different tier of player than he ever was before or would be again. And I don't say this as an allegation toward anyone so much as to myself.

So I'll certainly be looking to zoom in to 1 season as I go, but I think starting with the multi-year will be wise.

I'll also say that because RAPM is not tied 1-to-1 with points on the scoreboard the way pure APM is, I believe having longer studies helps regress deviations back to a mean. This to say that while I'm cautious of using the actual RAPM values from one year to the next as if they are on the same scale, I think I'm going to chance it here with longer studies and see where it takes me.

And as for the 4-year, well, it's what the site defaulted to for me, and I don't recall having seen many 4-year studies before (compared to 3 or 5), so I was curious.

Okay finally getting to some numbers, here are the top performers by peak 4-year RAPM at this time going as far as Shaq, because he's traditionally a very strong candidate:

1. Kevin Garnett 2005-09 10.6
2. LeBron James 2008-12 10.5
3. Nikola Jokic 2022-25 10.1
4. Steph Curry 2014-18 9.2
5. Chris Paul 2014-18 9.1
6. Tim Duncan 8.9
7. Steve Nash 8.8
9. John Stockton 8.3
10. Manu Ginobili 7.9
11. Paul George 7.8
(tie) Kawhi Leonard 7.8
(tie) Kyle Lowry 7.8
(tie) Shaquille O'Neal 7.8

So, I'm only going to focus on determining the first 4 spots here, and I'll be looking to swap that initial order (KG-LeBron-Jokic-Steph) based on specific reasoning.

First thing, for me, neither KG or LeBron's rapm 4-year peak match with how I see their peaks.

In the case of KG, his rapm peak is iast two years in Minny combined with his first two years in Boston which is funny and interesting to me as I, like most, tend to think he peaked in capacity around his MVP season ('03-04). For reference, Garnett's local max around that year is 2002-06 at 9.0.

Now, the fact that Garnett proved to be able the revolutionary defensive player he did in Boston is a really big deal, and I can believe him being more impactful per minute than in '03-04, which in some ways make KG even more impressive, but just from a VORP perspective, he's playing less minutes and missing more time later on.

This then to say, I am going to be holding back Garnett some still. I see indicators of a goodness-level in Garnett that could have yielded more value than he was ever able to demonstrate because of the limitations of his coaches, but we only got to see what we got to see.

Though to be clear, what we got to see is still insanely high.

With LeBron also I'm more impressed with a different time in his career - specifically '15-16 & '16-17, but I don't think there's a lot that needs explaining here. LeBron's drop to a mere 9.7 in that timespan compared to the 10.5 in the earlier (Cle->Mia) era doesn't seem like a big deal. I mean, at a certain level, we just know that LeBron became a bit less focused during the regular season as he went, like most superstars do.

This is where we cry out for playoff analytics, and so I'll head over there now, and probably later in this thread. Before I do though, I'll just note that I have major sample size about playoff RAPM, that really go down to the analysis of +/- expectations in the playoffs.

Just in a nutshell: It's unrealistic to have positive +/-, and thus I believe high RAPM, when you're a big minute guy on the losing team in the series. As such, I believe there's likely a kind of "winning vs losing bias" thing wherein players lead teams with first & second round exits are going to see their RAPM hurt on average even if they don't actually underperform relative to perception.

Alright so heading over to Cheema's study from 1997-2021 career Postseason RAPM, the top guys from #1 to Shaq:

1. LeBron James +5.875 (don't assume this scale is the same as nbarapm study)
2. Draymond Green +5.483
3. Manu Ginobili +5.169
4. Kevin Garnett +4.767
5. Tim Duncan +4.289
6. Steph Curry +4.117
7. James Harden +4.106
8. Shaquille O'Neal +3.932

So career is not peak, but let it suffice to say that with LeBron effectively topping both the peak RAPM VORP study and the career playoff RAPM study, I don't have a lot of reason to strongly consider someone else at #1.

Moving on from the top spot, we see Garnett, Curry & Duncan, but no Jokic. The obvious thing here is that this was 2021, and Jokic's best 4 years of play hadn't even begun at that point, so let's head over to more Raw data there before considering further.


If we look at Thinking Basketball's Augmented Plus Minus (AuPM) to place Jokic, which he described as "an estimate of RAPM using a player's on/off data and his teammates on/off data -- converted to a per game value based on minutes per game played", here's what the (I believe single-season) leaderboard looks like for the RS & PS respectively (2001 to 2023), here's what we get:

RS:

1. LeBron James '08-09 7.7
2. Steph Curry '15-16 7.5
3. Draymond Green '15-16 7.4
4. Nikola Jokic '22-23 7.3

PS:

1. LeBron James '08-09 8.7
2. Steph Curry '16-17 7.5
3. Nikola Jokic '22-23 7.4
(tie) Tim Duncan '02-03 7.4

I wouldn't say that helps Jokic against this top tier competition, but it does give us an indication that when we zoom in on Jokic's success, there are playoff indicators that his impact continues even we don't have as much data as we'd like and his other years can sometimes paint a considerably less rosy picture.

Let me extend both by adding a few others, plus any players who were only on one of the two lists:

LeBron James RS '08-09 7.7 PS '08-09 8.7
Steph Curry RS '15-16 7.5 PS '16-17 7.5
Draymond Green RS '15-16 7.4 PS 6.3
Nikola Jokic RS '22-23 7.3 PS '22-23 7.4
Kevin Garnett RS '02-03 7.0 PS '03-04 & '07-08 5.4
Tim Duncan RS '02-03 5.9 PS '02-03 7.4
Chris Paul RS '14-15 6.2 PS '16-17 5.7
Shaquille O'Neal RS '99-00 6.0 PS '01-02 5.7
Giannis Antetokounmpo RS '19-20 5.6 PS '20-21 4.7
Dirk Nowitzki RS '02-03 7.0, PS '10-11 5.6

Welp so clearly I've listed enough data here to make a lot of people skip reading it, so let me take stock here, again with the focus of finding reasons to diverge from what stats seem to say.

LeBron shines no matter where I look, and the main second-guessing is about whether it should be '08-09 rather than '15-16 (or '12-13).

I think Curry & Green being next to each other is fortuitous. As I always say, I welcome people seeking to argue Green > Curry, I just tend to push back against people who want to use Green to tear down Curry. Did Green help Curry get the chips? Absolutely. Could that mean their On & On-Off are each inflated? Yes. Does inflation explain why Curry an all-timer on ORAPM while Green is an all-timer by DRAPM? No, it really doesn't. Both of these guys are worth discussion among the all-timers.

Am I ready to put Green over Curry? No, I'm not. Curry has the clear edge in the RS, and in the PS, Green's edge isn't actually all that clear. In fact, if we look at our PBP era PS career raw +/- leaders after 2025 we get:

1. LeBron James 1272
2. Tim Duncan 1095
3. Steph Curry 975
4. Draymond Green 968
5. Manu Ginobili 955

Considering all of that plus the fact that we've seen Curry leader quality seasons without Green playing major minutes, but when the reverse situation happened the team fell off a cliff (maybe due to apathy, but a missed opportunity for proof), and then there's just the matter skillset-wise, I have more confidence with the offensive great for today's game, Curry has that edge pretty clear for me.

From there, while I don't want to fall prey to winning bias, I also don't like the idea of nudging Curry downward simply because Green was also great, as I think you can throw stones like that in a kind of double or triple count habit.

Next I want to point out to Curry's RS being in '15-16 but PS in '16-17. This is something I've alluded to already on this thread as a think that's being used as a cudgel against Curry, but I think we should be very careful about this.

I understand saying "they're different seasons", but do I think it's a coincidence that Curry's marks in the respective RS & PS came only a year apart? No, can't say I do.

Meanwhile, by AuPM, Curry's 15-16 PS are behind not just '16-17, but '12-13, '13-14, '14-15, '17-18 & '18-19 I think tells us that Curry being down in the '15-16 playoffs was about health more than anything else. Fine to knock a season in this context for health, but from a perspective of trying to dismiss the '16-17 PS run as something unearned because of Durant's presence, I think we know we wouldn't be so prone to do this if Curry had simply been able to be enough better to have the team end up 4-3 in the finals rather than 3-4, and while the bragging rights are huge there in the context of putting LeBron over Steph... why exactly should we put Step below other guys for losing to LeBron, when we expect everyone would lose to LeBron?

On the Curry vs Jokic comparison, I'm continuing to side with Curry for Peak at this time with Jokic not displaying a clear cut advantage at least with the data we have, and with the belief that Curry's paradigm shifting 3-point shooting was the greater anomaly relative to competitors for those first few years.

I'll be re-considering this thought as the years go by.

Okay, now the other two main guys on my mind are Garnett & Duncan.

As I do that, I'll re-state as many times before: This has been one of the great debates for me and I've gone back & forth on it.

During their primes, with KG's Minny teams fading, I sided with Duncan like everyone else, but while acknowledging that that might change if I saw KG do something amazing on a contender, and of course, that's just what we saw.

Prior to that point it seemed reasonable to favor Duncan's defense over Garnett's - while recognizing both to be stellar - but after that point, to me KG is just the modern defensive GOAT standard. You can argue that guys like Olajuwon, Robinson & Duncan had more accomplished defensive careers, but I don't think any would be as good at post-Illegal Defense defense as Garnett was, and it's really only Russell in the deep past and Wemby in the future that as I see as having defensive ceilings above KG.

I think KG gives you a defensive speed-of-thought on the level of Draymond Green, but with undeniably greater physical talent.

In the KG vs Duncan debate, I see Garnett as being more agile, greater motor, quicker reactor, with comparable verticality and rebounding. I see Duncan as stronger, and thus better able to stand up against volume post scorers.

Offensively it's much the same. Garnett the better point forward, the better mover and shooter with some space away from the basket. I see Duncan as stronger and thus a better post scorer.

And as I think folks know, I just think we over-indexed on strength during their prime because of how our thinking was shaped by the Illegal Defense era followed by the emergence of Shaq - who we shouldn't forget, was certainly a major motivator for getting rid of Illegal Defense. (And we should note that Duncan & Garnett's MVP years came after Illegal Defense was abolished.)

This then to say that at this point, I'm not comfortable giving Duncan the nod over Garnett peak, or generally, based on focusing in a specific skill that people were overly fixated on back then. It would be one thing if all the impact data favored Duncan, but in my experience, it just generally favors Garnett, and I've run out of excuses for siding with Duncan.

Duncan had more team success, but the nature of team games is that teammates and coaches matter, and yes, I think these things explain the differences in team success in their respective careers.

Okay, now: What about Duncan's advantage in a stat like PS AuPM? Well, big thing here is just that I'm careful with playoff stats, and I kinda want to see an overwhelming advantage in the playoffs if I'm going to reverse my RS stance. Garnett has the advantage in Cheema's PS study, and Garnett also has a huge career PS On-Off (14.5). Is this really the profile of a player who is worse in the playoffs? Doesn't seem like it.

I wish I could have seen KG put everything together like I think he could have - Thibs' style middle linebacker on D, pace & space helio on O - and if he had had, I'd perhaps have him all the way up at #1, but as it is, I don't think that's quite what he was able to show us, and as a result, the more prime-optimized trio of LeBron, Steph & Jokic lead the way.

[Cavsfansince84]

Random fact of the day. Jokic is 0-5 in the playoffs against teams with over 50 wins since 2020. Hard to imagine that ever being true for some of the other guys we're discussing here.

True though part of that is the shortened season in 2020(would have been 2 wins) and then he's missing Murray in I think 2 other playoff runs. Also the weirdness of how the 2023 season worked out that there was only 1 other 50 win team in the west and a sub 50 win team came out of the east. So while its a true statement it's not quite as relevant as you are making it out to be imo.

[f4p]

Shai will be in the top 10, no doubt. His post season efficiency left a lot to be desired. His volume was great though. I think that’s what’s holding him back from the top 5.

Theres no world where he should be top 5 and top 10 would be pushing it without being a prisoner of the moment. Negative rTS and basically a 0 on/off and his +13 team nearly losing to a +4 team and then coming even closer to losing to a +1 team that might have pulled it off without their best player getting hurt all paint the same picture of significant playoff decline. The thunder might be young but Shai is 26 so it's not like we can't just call a spade and spade. And the declines were similar last year and the on/off worse and obviously his 1 seed lost to an underdog so this year isn't a one off either.

[One_and_Done]

Random fact of the day. Jokic is 0-5 in the playoffs against teams with over 50 wins since 2020. Hard to imagine that ever being true for some of the other guys we're discussing here.

True though part of that is the shortened season in 2020(would have been 2 wins) and then he's missing Murray in I think 2 other playoff runs. Also the weirdness of how the 2023 season worked out that there was only 1 other 50 win team in the west and a sub 50 win team came out of the east. So while its a true statement it's not quite as relevant as you are making it out to be imo.

It's a little misleading, but it's also true that Jokic hasn't exactly taken his team to the sort of success that others in consideration have. The fact that he didn't face any in 2023 is part of that point; namely that he got very lucky with the opponents he matched up with, not just in terms of win totals but in terms of the favourability of the match ups.

[70sFan]

Voting so far - 16 votes:

Spoiler:

Poster Year
Cavsfansince84
1 LeBron James 2009 2016 2012
2 Tim Duncan 2003 2002
3 Nikola Jokic 2023 2024
4 Shaquille O'Neal 2001 2002

One_and_Done 
1 LeBron James 2013 2012 2016 2009 2010 2018 2014
2 Tim Duncan 2002 2003
3 Shaquille O'Neal 2001
4 Kawhi Leonard 2017

trelos6 
1 LeBron James 2013 2012 2009
2 Stephen Curry 2017 2016 2015
3 Nikola Jokic 2023 2024 2025
4 Tim Duncan 2003 2002 2001
5 Shaquille O'Neal 2001 2002 2004

babyjax13
1 LeBron James 2012
2 Nikola Jokic 2023
3 Stephen Curry 2016
4 Tim Duncan 2003

TrueLAfan
1 LeBron James 2012
2 Tim Duncan 2003
3 Shaquille O'Neal 2001
4 Nikola Jokic 2023

Joao Saraiva 
1 LeBron James 2009
2 Nikola Jokic 2023
3 Shaquille O'Neal 2001
4 Tim Duncan 2003

homecourtloss 
1 LeBron James 2016 2009 2013 2012
2 Tim Duncan 2003 2002
3 Kevin Garnett 2004
4 Stephen Curry 2016 2017 2015

-Luke- 
1 LeBron James 2013 2012 2009 2016 2018 2010
2 Tim Duncan 2003 2002
3 Nikola Jokic 2023 2024
4 Shaquille O'Neal 2001

lessthanjake
1 Nikola Jokic 2023
2 LeBron James 2012 2009
3 Tim Duncan 2003
4 Stephen Curry 2017

LA Bird 
1 LeBron James 2009 2016 2012
2 Tim Duncan 2003
3 Stephen Curry 2017
4 Shaquille O'Neal 2001

TheGOATRises007 
1 LeBron James 2009 2012 2013 2016 2017 2018
2 Nikola Jokic 2023 2024
3 Tim Duncan 2003 2002
4 Stephen Curry 2017 2016

iggymcfrack
1 LeBron James 2009
2 Nikola Jokic 2023
3 Kevin Garnett 2004
4 Tim Duncan 2003

Djoker 
1 LeBron James 2009
2 Tim Duncan 2003
3 Shaquille O'Neal 2001
4 Stephen Curry 2017
5 Nikola Jokic 2023
6 Kobe Bryant 2008

70sFan 
1 LeBron James 2012 2009 2013
2 Tim Duncan 2003 2002
3 Nikola Jokic 2023 2024
4 Shaquille O'Neal 2001

DraymondGold 
1 LeBron James 2016 2013 2012 2009
2 Stephen Curry 2017 2016
3 Nikola Jokic 2023 2024
4 Kevin Garnett 2004

 Doctor MJ 
1 LeBron James 2016 2009 2013 2012
2 Stephen Curry 2017 2016 2015 2022
3 Nikola Jokic 2023 2025 2024 2022
4 Kevin Garnett 2004 2003 2008 2002

I will wait for the rest of the day before calculating the results.

[trelos6]

Shai will be in the top 10, no doubt. His post season efficiency left a lot to be desired. His volume was great though. I think that’s what’s holding him back from the top 5.

Theres no world where he should be top 5 and top 10 would be pushing it without being a prisoner of the moment. Negative rTS and basically a 0 on/off and his +13 team nearly losing to a +4 team and then coming even closer to losing to a +1 team that might have pulled it off without their best player getting hurt all paint the same picture of significant playoff decline. The thunder might be young but Shai is 26 so it's not like we can't just call a spade and spade. And the declines were similar last year and the on/off worse and obviously his 1 seed lost to an underdog so this year isn't a one off either.

Good point on the ps On/Off. It’s not in the same league as the top guys.

[One_and_Done]

0_6 gave alot of reasoning with their first two votes, and then said 'I think Jokic and Curry are the next two on my list'. That seems explicit enough to count as their vote, even though they didn't use the numbers 3 and 4.

[70sFan]

0_6 gave alot of reasoning with their first two votes, and then said 'I think Jokic and Curry are the next two on my list'. That seems explicit enough to count as their vote, even though they didn't use the numbers 3 and 4.

...

Please specify your last 2 choices.

[lessthanjake]

Random fact of the day. Jokic is 0-5 in the playoffs against teams with over 50 wins since 2020. Hard to imagine that ever being true for some of the other guys we're discussing here.

True though part of that is the shortened season in 2020(would have been 2 wins) and then he's missing Murray in I think 2 other playoff runs. Also the weirdness of how the 2023 season worked out that there was only 1 other 50 win team in the west and a sub 50 win team came out of the east. So while its a true statement it's not quite as relevant as you are making it out to be imo.

It's a little misleading, but it's also true that Jokic hasn't exactly taken his team to the sort of success that others in consideration have. The fact that he didn't face any in 2023 is part of that point; namely that he got very lucky with the opponents he matched up with, not just in terms of win totals but in terms of the favourability of the match ups.

It’s really very misleading though IMO. Since he entered his MVP-winning years, he has won a title in one playoffs, had a completely hobbled team in two playoffs that no one in history would beat a good team with, and lost in 7 games to the highest SRS team in NBA history (i.e. better SRS than any player in consideration has defeated) in another playoffs. The only playoff run that one could conceivably criticize the result in is 2024, where the Nuggets lost in 7 games to the Timberwolves. Of course, he put up 29/11/8 on 60% TS% in that series, while Jamal Murray and MPJ were bad, so even that is hard to criticize. But it’s really the only thing one *could* genuinely criticize. But how negatively persuasive is *one* could-be-super-harsh-and-criticize-the-result-despite-incredible-stat-line series?

I guess one could expand it out beyond the years I mentioned, but if you do that, then you’re talking about a Jokic that was far from his peak and beat the title favorite Clippers, so I can’t see how that would permit any negative implications regarding peak Jokic. If anything, it reflects very well on him.

Also, I would note that the line used to be that he’d not beaten a 50-win team, and now it has changed to above-50-win team, since the 2025 Clippers were a 50-win team. On that front, it’s also worth noting that the 2025 Clippers dealt with a lot of injuries in the regular season, but had a +12.87 net rating and 64-win pace in the 27 games in which their four best players all played, and all of those guys were healthy in the playoffs against the Nuggets.

[f4p]

Just in a nutshell: It's unrealistic to have positive +/-, and thus I believe high RAPM, when you're a big minute guy on the losing team in the series. As such, I believe there's likely a kind of "winning vs losing bias" thing wherein players lead teams with first & second round exits are going to see their RAPM hurt on average even if they don't actually underperform relative to perception.

Alright so heading over to Cheema's study from 1997-2021 career Postseason RAPM, the top guys from #1 to Shaq:

1. LeBron James +5.875 (don't assume this scale is the same as nbarapm study)
2. Draymond Green +5.483
3. Manu Ginobili +5.169
4. Kevin Garnett +4.767
5. Tim Duncan +4.289
6. Steph Curry +4.117
7. James Harden +4.106
8. Shaquille O'Neal +3.932

Shouldn't stuff like this force people to be higher on #19 peak harden? He's basically tied with Steph and duncan while being the only non-KG guy who wasn't on a dynasty, which you say above tends to make it tough to look good in these measures, like we see with Manu and green.

I think Curry & Green being next to each other is fortuitous. As I always say, I welcome people seeking to argue Green > Curry, I just tend to push back against people who want to use Green to tear down Curry. Did Green help Curry get the chips? Absolutely. Could that mean their On & On-Off are each inflated? Yes. Does inflation explain why Curry an all-timer on ORAPM while Green is an all-timer by DRAPM? No, it really doesn't. Both of these guys are worth discussion among the all-timers.

It's not necessarily about tearing Steph down as seeing him being the most kids gloves treated superstar ever (see below). The same people who will say we really need to focus on RAPM will then say we can't look at green as being Steph's equal, essentially because it just doesn't make sense. But of course the whole point of RAPM is supposed to be that it sees beyond what makes sense and tells us the truth. If it only does that when it makes sense, then it's tough to use. I mean KD, who supposedly doesnt impact much of anything (even in non warriors contexts), beats Steph in playoff RAPM in the engelmann data and Draymond beats Steph fairly regularly and people will acknowledge this (well, not the KD part), but then just go back to it was all Steph. Or jump on the one year with crazy outlier impact in 2017 as if it is essentially the validating data for what everyone sees in the regular season numbers for Steph through his prime and not the outlier.

Or we have people describing steph as like an outlier among outliers in offensive impact and then he's not even 1st in playoff ORAPM or even second behind LeBron.

I mean i wouldnt put green over curry but if I was mostly sticking to RAPM then it would seem like a serious convo.

Considering all of that plus the fact that we've seen Curry leader quality seasons without Green playing major minutes, but when the reverse situation happened the team fell off a cliff (maybe due to apathy, but a missed opportunity for proof),

I mean the team lost its top 3 offensive weapons. It would effectively be like if Steph had to play for a year as the best defender on the team (and not just relative to position, like actual best) and also that team didn't really have good offensive players either. And the team tanked. And the team also sucked even when Draymond played (like it did when steph played). And Steph only played like 60% of the season.

Next I want to point out to Curry's RS being in '15-16 but PS in '16-17. This is something I've alluded to already on this thread as a think that's being used as a cudgel against Curry, but I think we should be very careful about this.

I understand saying "they're different seasons", but do I think it's a coincidence that Curry's marks in the respective RS & PS came only a year apart? No, can't say I do.

To me Steph's 2015 to 2018 regular seasons look more like each other than his 2017 playoffs do to any of the other playoffs.

Fine to knock a season in this context for health, but from a perspective of trying to dismiss the '16-17 PS run as something unearned because of Durant's presence, I think we know we wouldn't be so prone to do this if Curry had simply been able to be enough better to have the team end up 4-3 in the finals rather than 3-4, and while the bragging rights are huge there in the context of putting LeBron over Steph... why exactly should we put Step below other guys for losing to LeBron, when we expect everyone would lose to LeBron?

This is what I mean by kids gloves. Yes, LeBron is amazing and maybe had his best series ever, or maybe anybody's best series ever. But the warriors lost because steph was real bad. Full stop. The scoring champion averaged 22 ppg and had more turnovers than assists for the series and went 6/19 in a nail biter game 7 against a team with no elite perimeter defenders that regularly had 35 year old richard jefferson and kevin love playing forward minutes.

It doesn't get talked about like 2011 LeBron, but it's arguably even more of a thrown away title. Like the Heat needed to win 2 more games, the warriors just needed to score more than 0 points in the final 5 minutes of the series.

[One_and_Done]

Yeh, I disagree. The guys he's being compared to here have done more than Jokic with less. That's the criticism.

[One_and_Done]

Just in a nutshell: It's unrealistic to have positive +/-, and thus I believe high RAPM, when you're a big minute guy on the losing team in the series. As such, I believe there's likely a kind of "winning vs losing bias" thing wherein players lead teams with first & second round exits are going to see their RAPM hurt on average even if they don't actually underperform relative to perception.

Alright so heading over to Cheema's study from 1997-2021 career Postseason RAPM, the top guys from #1 to Shaq:

1. LeBron James +5.875 (don't assume this scale is the same as nbarapm study)
2. Draymond Green +5.483
3. Manu Ginobili +5.169
4. Kevin Garnett +4.767
5. Tim Duncan +4.289
6. Steph Curry +4.117
7. James Harden +4.106
8. Shaquille O'Neal +3.932

Shouldn't stuff like this force people to be higher on #19 peak harden? He's basically tied with Steph and duncan while being the only non-KG guy who wasn't on a dynasty, which you say above tends to make it tough to look good in these measures, like we see with Manu and green.

These numbers do seem to be very selectively invoked. Harden will get next to no support from anyone until way down the track.

[eminence]

General thoughts before putting down my ballot:
-Looking to stay positive on players, focusing on reasons they earned their spot, not reasons why they weren't higher
-Mentioned earlier that I don't see players changing too much in prime, so I tend to pick seasons where team success coincides with individual play
-Full season counts, but POs are obviously higher stakes than the RS

1. 2003 Tim Duncan
60-22, +6.0 Net, 16-8 in the POs (Suns/Lakers/Mavs/Nets, all 4-2)
Duncan #1
Parker/Jackson/Bowen 2-4
Manu/Robinson/Rose 5-7

Manu/Robinson were great mid rotation guys, but that 2-4 starting crew (Tony was 20) is not a set of starters who should be taking the #1 overall seed and going through all opponents come playoff time. When I see a roster like that winning a title I expect a to see a serious down year from the competition - '03 is not that year. Not that they were all at their best, but the Lakers/Mavs/Nets (and Kings) were an impressive list of teams to come away from with a title.

I am particularly impressed by Duncan outplaying Shaq and half-series Dirk in back to back series: two in-prime ATG bigs with about as different of playstyles as you can get. Each accompanied by an all-timer at the guard slot and Phil Jackson/Don Nelson with all that offensive talent couldn't figure out how to crack Duncan. Averaging a solidly efficient 25/15/5 over the PO run in the depths of the dead ball era. Closed out the Nets (who'd just waxed the Pistons) with a legendary 21/20/10/8 performance (credit to Manu/Captain Jack for their 4th quarter work in that one - and Speedy too for stepping up when needed).

It is the most impressive carry job in league history imo, hats off to Tim Duncan.

2. 2013 LeBron James
Y'all can read through all the #1 votes in this thread. I went with 2013 in particular because when Wade was doing well this is the Bron team that felt most like a GOAT level team. By far the best defender of the top tier offensive guys. Impact monster through all phases of his career.

3. 2017 Stephen Curry
'Somewhere around 1162 AD a child named Temujin was born in the steppe of northeast Asia.'

The Warriors are the GOAT team, and I don't think it's close. Everyone conceptually understands that as overall talent rises individual box-score numbers will shrink even if team success continues to rise, but when presented with as concrete of example as we're going to get folks get all confused. Steph is the heart of the GOAT team by any measure we can measure.

In the non-KD years I find it's quite arguable who the Warriors 'real' MVP is (still go with Steph over Dray), but KD+Dray never came together like Steph+KD. Steph with either of the forwards was a top tier duo, with net ratings above ridiculous talent combos like Shaq/Kobe, LeBron/Wade, Dirk/Nash, KD/Westbrook, LeBron/AD, etc.

4. 2001 Shaquille O'Neal
Shaq+Kobe put it all together for one magical playoff run, and not against an easy path at all. This RS is a solidly lower level than the other 3 vote getters and a handful of other seasons available to vote for, but the PO run only would be even higher (I think up to #2 to Duncan). That's in spite of thinking the more dramatic RS to PO improvement on the '01 Lakers belonged to Kobe (Shaq still above Kobe for POs only, more clearly for complete season).

Sweeping +4.7, +6.0, +8.6 teams 11-0 back to back to back is incomprehensible.

[iggymcfrack]

Some of us aren't basing 100% of our evaluation on advanced stats, whereas you've been very clear that you are, to the point you've admitted it wouldn't even be necessary for you to watch the games.

OMG, I'm so sick of this made up bull you parrot about me any time you quote any of my posts even when I'm not using advanced stats at all! I used no advanced stats in that post!!! I just said that the 2023 Nuggets played much better with Jokic on the floor than the Spurs played with Duncan on the floor so who cares if the Spurs better bench allowed them to win more games? You're the one who brought up regular season success. I'm just limiting it to things that the player can possibly control.

Whether you call net rating an advanced stat or not, it falls under the same category to me as stuff like RAPM, VORP, etc. It isn't reliably telling us anything, for the many reasons I provided already.

If your methodology has changed since we last discussed it, I'd be glad to hear it. Last I heard you told me that your approach just involves comparing numbers you like, and that strictly speaking you wouldn't need to watch any games to rank players.

NB: shouldn't you delete the old voting post? It's confusing having 2 voting posts, and might accidentally get counted twice.

How can you say that net rating doesn’t reliably tell us anything right after you just used team record to judge impact? Isn’t net rating just measuring the same thing you valued more accurately? Like you think how well the team plays with a player on the floor and on the bench matters, but not how they actually play with just said player?

[One_and_Done]

OMG, I'm so sick of this made up bull you parrot about me any time you quote any of my posts even when I'm not using advanced stats at all! I used no advanced stats in that post!!! I just said that the 2023 Nuggets played much better with Jokic on the floor than the Spurs played with Duncan on the floor so who cares if the Spurs better bench allowed them to win more games? You're the one who brought up regular season success. I'm just limiting it to things that the player can possibly control.

Whether you call net rating an advanced stat or not, it falls under the same category to me as stuff like RAPM, VORP, etc. It isn't reliably telling us anything, for the many reasons I provided already.

If your methodology has changed since we last discussed it, I'd be glad to hear it. Last I heard you told me that your approach just involves comparing numbers you like, and that strictly speaking you wouldn't need to watch any games to rank players.

NB: shouldn't you delete the old voting post? It's confusing having 2 voting posts, and might accidentally get counted twice.

How can you say that net rating doesn’t reliably tell us anything right after you just used team record to judge impact? Isn’t net rating just measuring the same thing you valued more accurately? Like you think how well the team plays with a player on the floor and on the bench matters, but not how they actually play with just said player?

I am not basing my evaluation of players on team record, I'm looking at things like how the team performed and the context of that performance. The 00s Pistons had alot of success, but the context was they were an ensemble cast with no true star among them. The context of 02 Duncan is he took a rubbish team to 58 wins. Unfortunately there is no formula for context. It requires some common sense and analysis.

I also note you did not answer my question, despite getting very upset over my characterisation of your views. Do you still hold to the view that you don't need to watch games to rate players? If you've changed your view on this that's fine, but I think it's important you make that clear. If you're not going to reply I will continue to assume you still hold to your previously expressed views.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

calling literally everything an advanced stat and saying every advanced stat bad is lazy tbh. like others I'm not really in on all those spreadsheet stuff but at least say why.

[One_and_Done]

calling literally everything an advanced stat and saying every advanced stat bad is lazy tbh. like others I'm not really in on all those spreadsheet stuff but at least say why.

I mean I outlined my problems with it earlier in the thread in several posts. For example, here:
viewtopic.php?t=2472692&start=100#p119545340

[IlikeSHAIguys]

Also I think I asked this before so sorry but where do you get stats like on/off and WOWY and RAPM from? I know they're like really big in these threads but I've been relying on other people for all this info lol.

BBref is pretty easy to check basic on/off (and just on rating). Pick a player and scroll down to the play-by-play section.

WOWY/RAPM aren't as standardized.

nbarapm.com is pretty straightforward and has 2/3/4/5 year rapm variants on it. It also has a factor apm here:

https://www.nbarapm.com/datasets/six_factor

Thanks alot lol. Suprised Embid is #1 with all his injuries and all. Shai nowhere but maybe that changes with 2025? Sorry to be stupid but what's factor apm? Also what's like the most easiest wowy website whatever even if it's not standard.

[iggymcfrack]

Whether you call net rating an advanced stat or not, it falls under the same category to me as stuff like RAPM, VORP, etc. It isn't reliably telling us anything, for the many reasons I provided already.

If your methodology has changed since we last discussed it, I'd be glad to hear it. Last I heard you told me that your approach just involves comparing numbers you like, and that strictly speaking you wouldn't need to watch any games to rank players.

NB: shouldn't you delete the old voting post? It's confusing having 2 voting posts, and might accidentally get counted twice.

How can you say that net rating doesn’t reliably tell us anything right after you just used team record to judge impact? Isn’t net rating just measuring the same thing you valued more accurately? Like you think how well the team plays with a player on the floor and on the bench matters, but not how they actually play with just said player?

I am not basing my evaluation of players on team record, I'm looking at things like how the team performed and the context of that performance. The 00s Pistons had alot of success, but the context was they were an ensemble cast with no true star among them. The context of 02 Duncan is he took a rubbish team to 58 wins. Unfortunately there is no formula for context. It requires some common sense and analysis.

I also note you did not answer my question, despite getting very upset over my characterisation of your views. Do you still hold to the view that you don't need to watch games to rate players? If you've changed your view on this that's fine, but I think it's important you make that clear. If you're not going to reply I will continue to assume you still hold to your previously expressed views.

I do think that watching games helps around the edges, but ultimately I trust hard data much more than my memory. Unless you really study a lot of film on a specific player watching that player only through every play on both sides of the floor, it’s pretty hard to actually come up with a true valuation. If anything I’d say watching a guy play a lot generally helps me contextualize the data more often than it does give me fresh insights, although the latter does sometimes happen.