Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #7-#8 Spots

[Cavsfansince84]

The other question I have re Shai and Kobe is defense. Do we not think Shai has an edge here or are we just calling it a wash because it really hasn't been discussed at all that I have seen.

[iggymcfrack]

SGA's slight drop in the post-season was in part because he wasn't getting close to the basket as much as the regular season.

RS Shot Demographic
20.6% at Rim
23.1% 3-10 ft

PS Shot Demographic
18.3% at Rim
19.0% 3-10 ft

The other aspect to SGA's efficiency drop is tied to rim finishing efficiency (74.2% vs 64.1%) and midrange (~51.4% vs ~46.5%).

SGA's turnover economy and playmaker share held up in the post-season, as did his free throw rate.

Big Picture
2024 SGA RS: 42.5 Points/100 on 63.6 TS% (197.9 TS+) and 8.4 TOV%
2024 SGA PS: 38.5 Points/100 on 58.2 TS% and 7.8 TOV%

2025 SGA RS: 45.9 Points/100 on 63.7 TS% (236.4 TS+) and 8.6 TOV%
2025 SGA PS: 39.2 Points/100 on 57.4 TS% and 9.1 TOV%

FWIW, League-wide TS%
2024: 58.0%
2025: 57.6%

The reality is SGA is a great post-season scorer as he has incredible volume but with league-average efficiency. This is going to carry an offense to a high level, but not the best levels. For comparison, here is Kawhi and Kobe in comparison.

2019 Kawhi PS: 39.2 Points/100 on 61.9 TS% (+6.9 rTS%) and 11.1 TOV%
2008 Kobe PS: 38.0 Points/100 on 57.7 TS% (+3.7 rTS%) and 11.3 TOV%
2009 Kobe PS: 39.0 Points/100 on 56.4 TS% (+2.0 rTS%) and 8.7 TOV%

This point is further illustrated by the contrast in defences faced.

2019 Kawhi PS: ORL (8th), PHI (15th), MIL (1st), GSW (13th) = 10th Average
2008 Kobe PS: DEN (10th), Jazz (12th), Spurs (3rd), BOS (1st) = 6th Average
2009 Kobe PS: Utah (10th), HOU (4th), DEN (8th), ORL (1st) = 6th Average
2024 SGA PS: NOP (7th), DAL (18th) = 12th Average (FWIW, Dallas was a Top 5 defence for half of the season)
2025 SGA PS: MEM (10th), DEN (22nd), MIN (6th), IND (13th) = 13th Average

SGA is a great player and the best regular season player here. I do tweak my priors slightly when SGA has two post-seasons of near identical impact/scoring where he was clearly worse than Kobe/Kawhi. If you chalk up both post-season runs to sample size, I can see the arguments of SGA over Kawhi/Kobe, but we have enough data for me to confidently say I prefer the best of Kobe, up to this point in SGA's career, to SGA (and Kawhi for that matter).

Shai’s had 2 playoff runs since he got anywhere near close to his peak level. In 2024, he had a BPM of 9.2 in the playoffs. That’s higher than Kobe ever managed his entire career. In 2025, he had a BPM of 8.3. That’s higher than Kobe managed any playoffs his entire career except for 2009.

I feel like by trying to drill too deep, you’re kinda missing the forest for the trees. Yes, in one narrow category, SGA may be behind Kobe, but as a whole, even comparing a “disappointing” stretch to Kobe’s best over his entire 20 year career, Shai still comes out on top.

So when you say I am missing the forest for the trees when all you are doing is citing BPM is exactly what I would call missing the forest for the trees.

RE Two Playoff Runs: That is the sample size we have for SGA. If he improves and replicates more of his regular season impact in the post-season in 2026, I have this ability (Wild, I know) to adjust my priors by moving my dial. But, the fact of the matter is SGA's two post-season's so far have been underwhelming compared to his regular season levels and worse than the best we have seen from Kobe.

When you say I am looking at one narrow category, yet all you did was mentioned BPM, the irony there makes for a great George Orwell story.

So, let's present you with more information and a true comparison, shall we?

2024 SGA PS: 38.5 Points/100 on 58.2 TS% (+0.2 rTS%) and 7.8 TOV%
2025 SGA PS: 39.2 Points/100 on 57.4 TS% (-0.2 rTS%) and 9.1 TOV%
2008 Kobe PS: 38.0 Points/100 on 57.7 TS% (+3.7 rTS%) and 11.3 TOV%
2009 Kobe PS: 39.0 Points/100 on 56.4 TS% (+2.0 rTS%) and 8.7 TOV%

2024 SGA PS: 112.0 Ortg (-3.3 rORTG) vs 12th Average defense (Dallas was Top 5 in the 2nd half of season and great in Post-Season until they faced Boston)
2025 SGA PS: 115.6 Ortg (+1.0 rORTG) vs 13th Average defense
2008 Kobe PS: 111.3 Ortg (+3.8 rORTG) vs 6th Average defense (included #1 defense in NBA)
2009 Kobe PS: 113.4 Ortg (+5.1 rORTG) vs 6th Average defense (included #1 defense in NBA)

What more do we need?

2024 OKC PS Ortg w/ Shai: 112.0 (+1.0 On/Off)
2024 OKC PS Ortg w/o Shai: 111.0
2025 OKC PS Ortg w/ Shai: 115.6 (+1.0 On/Off)
2025 OKC PS Ortg w/o Shai: 114.6

2008 LAL PS Ortg w/ Kobe: 111.3 (+9.9 On/Off)
2008 LAL PS Ortg w/o Kobe: 100.4
2009 LAL PS Ortg w/ Kobe: 113.4 (+13.1 On/Off)
2009 LAL PS Ortg w/o Kobe: 100.3

These numbers for Kobe track with his regular season Offensive On/Off as well, which gives us a massive sample size of massive lift.

For SGA, his numbers in two consecutive post-seasons drop, the teams overall efficiency drops accordingly. Why would we dismiss this data for SGA as have difficulties in the post-season compared to Kobe?

If you care so much for BPM, why not include 2008 Chris Paul on your ballot? Afterall, in 2008 he had a BPM in the post-season of 11.3. Hell, he had a 5-year stretch from 2013-2017 where his average BPM in the post-season was 9.6, which is larger than SGA had in his career best of 9.2 in 2024 and besting 2025 where SGA only had a BPM of 8.2 in the post-season.

I am confused how you are citing one stat in your response to mine, when I cited multiple, and told me I am focusing in on one statistic, when you are the one who is looking at one or two points of data, data in which SGA isn't even the best when compared to the available pool of players.

Playoff on/off is noisy in small samples which is the only thing that seems to really favor Kobe of the stuff you mentioned. If you look at team net rating in the playoffs over that time, the Thunder were +8.3 and the Lakers were +6.8.

I notice that Kobe supporters often tend to use ORtg instead of net rating so they can be like “well we all KNOW Kobe’s good on defense so we can just ignore those numbers and look what he does to the offense!” I do think SGA’s a significantly more reliable and impactful defender than Kobe and that’s a big part of why I’d prefer him.

Just as a quick comparison, here’s their defensive xRAPMs over the time given:

2008 Kobe: -0.8 (80th percentile)
2009 Kobe: -0.4 (74th percentile)
2024 SGA: -1.9 (94th percentile)
2025 SGA: -3.8 (98th percentile)

Basically, SGA clears Kobe by large margins in terms of box stats, impact stats, and team performance in the regular season. In the postseason they look very similar except that Kobe’s teammates perform worse with him off the floor. The “off” sample of the playoffs though is by definition the smallest sample by far and as a result the noisiest. I don’t think that one small thing in Kobe’s favor makes up for the mountain of evidence in the other direction.

[One_and_Done]

The other question I have re Shai and Kobe is defense. Do we not think Shai has an edge here or are we just calling it a wash because it really hasn't been discussed at all that I have seen.

Shai has a substantial edge, especially for the years after about 03.

[Djoker]

There’s definitely people here who weigh the playoffs less than I do, but at the very least I think Djoker probably gives substantially more weight to playoffs than I do—which is why I’m going to bite on 2025 SGA before Djoker will.

I’ll note that me going for 2006 Wade before anyone else might suggest I put a higher weight on playoffs than others, but I think a lot of what’s going on there is more that I just have a really positive view of how well Wade played in the 2006 playoffs. For any given weighting of playoffs vs. regular season, you will end up with a higher ranking of a player if you view them as having played better in the playoffs than someone else does. I think I probably have Wade’s 2006 playoff performance as like a tier or two higher than other people here do. I think it’s one of the very best playoffs anyone has ever had.

Anyways, I think I do take the strongest possible view that I won’t vote for a year where the player had a playoff-ending injury. And I also think I am more sensitive to actual concrete achievement in an assessment of “greatness” than most are. Like, winning a title matters a lot to me for purposes of this voting (though it’s not dispositive—which is why I put 2004 Garnett ahead of a whole bunch of great title-winning years from other players). Practically speaking, that helps playoff performance end up mattering a good bit, because it’s hard for a star to win a title if they didn’t play well in the playoffs (though it happens—see 2024 Tatum). But, if you held team success constant, I wouldn’t say I particularly preference playoff performance over regular season performance. Which is why 2025 SGA is going to go on my ballot this time over people that won a title and who I definitely think were better in the playoffs.

Probably I do!

For me, how a player plays in the playoffs is their real level. Thus, Shai putting up 30 points on +0.5 rTS is his real level as far as I'm concerned, not regular season Shai putting up 32 points on +6.1 rTS. I like his turnover economy and I wouldn't be super confident based on a smallish sample (it could change...) but so far he looks like a guy who clearly drops off in the playoffs.

[One_and_Done]

"How they played in the playoffs is their real level"... or maybe player X had a bad series? We should certainly rate guys on how they actually played, but someone can just be playing badly for a series rather than that cold streak representing their average capabilities.

[Cavsfansince84]

Probably I do!

For me, how a player plays in the playoffs is their real level. Thus, Shai putting up 30 points on +0.5 rTS is his real level as far as I'm concerned, not regular season Shai putting up 32 points on +6.1 rTS. I like his turnover economy and I wouldn't be super confident based on a smallish sample (it could change...) but so far he looks like a guy who clearly drops off in the playoffs.

So each season of a player we use their playoff to decide their real level? I mean, do you get why this is kind of a weird methodology to use? Like for instance Donovon Mitchell in 2020&2021 would then be a top 5 player in the world. Jamaal Murray in 2020&23 was a top 7 player. So on and so forth. I think you gotta balance it out a bit. Accept that playoffs have some variance that is more than just 'this is how good this player actually is'.

[homecourtloss]

So..."caution," "noise," "grain of salt," "small sample," “outlier,” etc., is now "real level"? In any case, you have to show it in the playoffs, and if given many attempts, in this rarefied air of all-time great peaks, there has to be something there. Jokic, for example, has had many opportunities, and he's never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have. On that note, SGA has to as well. The regular season was historic and when watching him play in the playoffs, you got the feeling that this isn't his level and that he's going to be better than this and get better, but he really didn't. He'll have more opportunities, and I think he rectifies this.

[Cavsfansince84]

So..."caution," "noise," "grain of salt," "small sample," etc., is now "real level"? In any case, you have to show it in the playoffs, and if given many attempts, in this rarefied air of all-time great peaks, there has to be something there. Jokic, for example, has had many opportunities, and he's never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have. On that note, SGA has to as well. The regular season was historic and when watching him play in the playoffs, you got the feeling that this isn't his level and that he's going to be better than this and get better, but he really didn't. He'll have more opportunities, and I think he rectifies this.

I still think the 2025 playoffs was sort of a Steph 2016 situation for him where he semi carried them to 68 wins then ran out of gas. I don't know why people can't cut him a little slack for that. Only two other players on the roster played over 2000 min in the rs. Yet they won 68 and broke the srs mark. I think its understandable that it would contribute to a subpar playoffs. Plus he gets zero credit for the 2024 playoffs where he was quite good despite the 2nd rd loss. I'm not even a huge SGA guy on here but I think there is context that can be applied to 2025. Whereas Kobe in 09&10 sort of coasted in the rs imo which makes it easier to turn it on in the playoffs.

[lessthanjake]

So..."caution," "noise," "grain of salt," "small sample," etc., is now "real level"? In any case, you have to show it in the playoffs, and if given many attempts, in this rarefied air of all-time great peaks, there has to be something there. Jokic, for example, has had many opportunities, and he's never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have. On that note, SGA has to as well. The regular season was historic and when watching him play in the playoffs, you got the feeling that this isn't his level and that he's going to be better than this and get better, but he really didn't. He'll have more opportunities, and I think he rectifies this.

I think you’d have to *way* overindex on single-year playoff on-off to conclude that Jokic has “never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have.” Jokic won a title while averaging 30.0/13.5/9.5 on 63.1% TS%. That’s obviously incredibly good. The only person in NBA history who has gotten a higher playoff BPM while winning the title was 1991 Jordan. In fact, no one else besides 1991 Jordan has even had that high a playoff BPM while just making the Finals.

But yeah, agreed on SGA. I guess a question is whether he’s a perpetual playoff faller (which some all-time greats are) or whether it’s just random that he hasn’t quite been as good in the last two playoffs as he was in the regular season. For purposes of this thread, I guess I just think his regular season was historic and he did enough in the playoffs to lead his team to the title, so I rank his year pretty highly regardless of whether the playoff issues will end up persistent or not.

[homecourtloss]

So..."caution," "noise," "grain of salt," "small sample," etc., is now "real level"? In any case, you have to show it in the playoffs, and if given many attempts, in this rarefied air of all-time great peaks, there has to be something there. Jokic, for example, has had many opportunities, and he's never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have. On that note, SGA has to as well. The regular season was historic and when watching him play in the playoffs, you got the feeling that this isn't his level and that he's going to be better than this and get better, but he really didn't. He'll have more opportunities, and I think he rectifies this.

I think you’d have to *way* overindex on single-year playoff on-off to conclude that Jokic has “never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have.” Jokic won a title while averaging 30.0/13.5/9.5 on 63.1% TS%. That’s obviously incredibly good. The only person in NBA history who has gotten a higher playoff BPM while winning the title was 1991 Jordan. In fact, no one else besides 1991 Jordan has even had that high a playoff BPM while just making the Finals.

But yeah, agreed on SGA. I guess a question is whether he’s a perpetual playoff faller (which some all-time greats are) or whether it’s just random that he hasn’t quite been as good in the last two playoffs as he was in the regular season. For purposes of this thread, I guess I just think his regular season was historic and he did enough in the playoffs to lead his team to the title, so I rank his year pretty highly regardless of whether the playoff issues will end up persistent or not.

2023 was a great run, but we are not measuring if it was a great run or not, but rather we are seeing if it is one of the greatest peaks and when you have other players who have pulled off better runs, and many cases much better runs at the team level, well, then something is lacking if we are saying that he has the second highest peak ever which you contend. There's really no two ways about it. If this were SGA, who's only had a couple of cracks at it well then you can look at that, but you have someone who's had many playoff runs and so far hasn't done what others have done, so it's very difficult for me to say that he has one the second highest peak.

[Caneman786]

7. 2025 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Best xRAPM of anyone not named LeBron or Jokic over the 28 seasons it's been available. Led OKC to the best team season ever by point differential. And while he did dip a bit in the playoffs, he still performed very well en route to winning FMVP, and he played best when his back was against the wall. He had his best scoring game of the playoffs Game 7 against the Nuggets, and his best passing game Game 7 against the Thunder.

Hello iggymcfrank,

What do you mean by this? Do you mean 1-year?

I checked the 1-year one and while SGA has +8.3, which is amazing and by far the best this season, Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett (twice!) also reached those marks.

[lessthanjake]

So..."caution," "noise," "grain of salt," "small sample," etc., is now "real level"? In any case, you have to show it in the playoffs, and if given many attempts, in this rarefied air of all-time great peaks, there has to be something there. Jokic, for example, has had many opportunities, and he's never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have. On that note, SGA has to as well. The regular season was historic and when watching him play in the playoffs, you got the feeling that this isn't his level and that he's going to be better than this and get better, but he really didn't. He'll have more opportunities, and I think he rectifies this.

I think you’d have to *way* overindex on single-year playoff on-off to conclude that Jokic has “never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have.” Jokic won a title while averaging 30.0/13.5/9.5 on 63.1% TS%. That’s obviously incredibly good. The only person in NBA history who has gotten a higher playoff BPM while winning the title was 1991 Jordan. In fact, no one else besides 1991 Jordan has even had that high a playoff BPM while just making the Finals.

But yeah, agreed on SGA. I guess a question is whether he’s a perpetual playoff faller (which some all-time greats are) or whether it’s just random that he hasn’t quite been as good in the last two playoffs as he was in the regular season. For purposes of this thread, I guess I just think his regular season was historic and he did enough in the playoffs to lead his team to the title, so I rank his year pretty highly regardless of whether the playoff issues will end up persistent or not.

2023 was a great run, but we are not measuring if it was a great run or not, but rather we are seeing if it is one of the greatest peaks and when you have other players who have pulled off better runs, and many cases much better runs at the team level, well, then something is lacking if we are saying that he has the second highest peak ever which you contend. There's really no two ways about it. If this were SGA, who's only had a couple of cracks at it well then you can look at that, but you have someone who's had many playoff runs and so far hasn't done what others have done, so it's very difficult for me to say that he has one the second highest peak.

“Much better runs at the team level”? The 2023 Nuggets only lost 4 games in the playoffs. What else do you want from them? They won the title very easily. And, again, that’s with Jokic having put up individual numbers that were completely out of this world. The 2023 Nuggets had a very dominant playoff run, in which Jokic put up outrageous numbers. How is something “lacking” there? Presumably you just don’t think that their playoff opponents were good enough? I don’t think they faced the most difficult gauntlet for title teams, but they dominated what they did face and Jokic himself was very dominant individually throughout. I can see potentially preferencing a player who overcame playoff opposition that seemed even stronger than what the 2023 Nuggets had to face. After all, defeating great opposition is impressive. Indeed, part of what’s probably going to have 2019 Kawhi on my ballot this time is feeling like he faced the most difficult playoff opponent compared to a couple other players that seem otherwise hard to distinguish between. But there’s no particular reason that the greatest peak must have been a player whose team happened to face the toughest playoff opponents that year. It’s nice, and giving 2023 Jokic a super tough set of opponents and holding everything else constant could theoretically make his year even “greater.” But 2023 Jokic is sitting there checking every major box that was in his control (incredible individual regular season numbers, amazing individual playoff numbers, team easily wins the title, etc.). Saying “something is lacking” with that year for him doesn’t make much sense IMO.

Just to reiterate something here, only 1991 Jordan has had a higher playoff BPM than 2023 Jokic while actually winning (or even making) the Finals. And no player in history has had a higher regular season BPM in a year they won the title (with 2009 LeBron being the only year from anyone else that was higher at all). That’s just one stat, and more generally this is all a subjective exercise, so there’s a range of reasonable views, but fixating on this particular guy as having something “lacking” and implying that there is not “something there” for him in the playoffs seems odd, even in the context of a greatest peaks discussion.

[jalengreen]

7. 2025 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Best xRAPM of anyone not named LeBron or Jokic over the 28 seasons it's been available. Led OKC to the best team season ever by point differential. And while he did dip a bit in the playoffs, he still performed very well en route to winning FMVP, and he played best when his back was against the wall. He had his best scoring game of the playoffs Game 7 against the Nuggets, and his best passing game Game 7 against the Thunder.

Hello iggymcfrank,

What do you mean by this? Do you mean 1-year?

I checked the 1-year one and while SGA has +8.3, which is amazing and by far the best this season, Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett (twice!) also reached those marks.

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

He's at +9.2 here

[Djoker]

"How they played in the playoffs is their real level"... or maybe player X had a bad series? We should certainly rate guys on how they actually played, but someone can just be playing badly for a series rather than that cold streak representing their average capabilities.

It's not just 1 series I'm judging SGA off of though. It's actually 33 games in 2024 + 2025 which is 6 series. Of course that still isn't a large sample and as I said several times, SGA can still give us a signal that will elevate his peak. However, there is no guarantee he will do so. As of now, I am judging based on what he did produce not trying to guess what he could produce. As I said, I also see his team offenses not doing well in the postseason. That in combination with his efficiency struggles makes me lower on him.

So each season of a player we use their playoff to decide their real level? I mean, do you get why this is kind of a weird methodology to use? Like for instance Donovon Mitchell in 2020&2021 would then be a top 5 player in the world. Jamaal Murray in 2020&23 was a top 7 player. So on and so forth. I think you gotta balance it out a bit. Accept that playoffs have some variance that is more than just 'this is how good this player actually is'.

Well this project forces us to rank 1-year peaks... 1 year by definition will produce low sample size in the playoffs. So yes I can see Spider Mitchell making it relatively high on a list like this. Obviously T-Mac is a much better all-around player but he is easily making it here off of the 2003 season where he played 7 playoff games.

Obviously myself and everyone else on here (I would presume) uses neighbouring years to solidify our claims and enlarge the sample. The fact that Mitchell never came close to those numbers before or after 2020 and 2021 makes me way less confident of his peak. But I still can't completely disregard him for 1-year peaks when his 1-year peak is very good. Of course, just to clarify, the Mitchell talk is just an example to prove a point. I am not seriously considering Mitchell for this list because he brings little to no value outside of scoring.

[Caneman786]

7. 2025 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Best xRAPM of anyone not named LeBron or Jokic over the 28 seasons it's been available. Led OKC to the best team season ever by point differential. And while he did dip a bit in the playoffs, he still performed very well en route to winning FMVP, and he played best when his back was against the wall. He had his best scoring game of the playoffs Game 7 against the Nuggets, and his best passing game Game 7 against the Thunder.

Hello iggymcfrank,

What do you mean by this? Do you mean 1-year?

I checked the 1-year one and while SGA has +8.3, which is amazing and by far the best this season, Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett (twice!) also reached those marks.

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

He's at +9.2 here

Thanks jalengreen,

I was thinking all the tables on the following link were one-year values: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_hist.html

So then how many years ago does xRAPM start up to? Since it doesn't appear to be three-year or one-year. And it's not including all years either (since that's 29-year RAPM).

[homecourtloss]

I think you’d have to *way* overindex on single-year playoff on-off to conclude that Jokic has “never pulled off the type of playoff runs that players not yet voted in have.” Jokic won a title while averaging 30.0/13.5/9.5 on 63.1% TS%. That’s obviously incredibly good. The only person in NBA history who has gotten a higher playoff BPM while winning the title was 1991 Jordan. In fact, no one else besides 1991 Jordan has even had that high a playoff BPM while just making the Finals.

But yeah, agreed on SGA. I guess a question is whether he’s a perpetual playoff faller (which some all-time greats are) or whether it’s just random that he hasn’t quite been as good in the last two playoffs as he was in the regular season. For purposes of this thread, I guess I just think his regular season was historic and he did enough in the playoffs to lead his team to the title, so I rank his year pretty highly regardless of whether the playoff issues will end up persistent or not.

2023 was a great run, but we are not measuring if it was a great run or not, but rather we are seeing if it is one of the greatest peaks and when you have other players who have pulled off better runs, and many cases much better runs at the team level, well, then something is lacking if we are saying that he has the second highest peak ever which you contend. There's really no two ways about it. If this were SGA, who's only had a couple of cracks at it well then you can look at that, but you have someone who's had many playoff runs and so far hasn't done what others have done, so it's very difficult for me to say that he has one the second highest peak.

“Much better runs at the team level”? The 2023 Nuggets only lost 4 games in the playoffs. What else do you want from them? They won the title very easily. And, again, that’s with Jokic having put up individual numbers that were completely out of this world. The 2023 Nuggets had a very dominant playoff run, in which Jokic put up outrageous numbers. How is something “lacking” there? Presumably you just don’t think that their playoff opponents were good enough? I don’t think they faced the most difficult gauntlet for title teams, but they dominated what they did face and Jokic himself was very dominant individually throughout. I can see potentially preferencing a player who overcame playoff opposition that seemed even stronger than what the 2023 Nuggets had to face. After all, defeating great opposition is impressive. Indeed, part of what’s probably going to have 2019 Kawhi on my ballot this time is feeling like he faced the most difficult playoff opponent compared to a couple other players that seem otherwise hard to distinguish between. But there’s no particular reason that the greatest peak must have been a player whose team happened to face the toughest playoff opponents that year. It’s nice, and giving 2023 Jokic a super tough set of opponents and holding everything else constant could theoretically make his year even “greater.” But 2023 Jokic is sitting there checking every major box that was in his control (incredible individual regular season numbers, amazing individual playoff numbers, team easily wins the title, etc.). Saying “something is lacking” with that year for him doesn’t make much sense IMO.

Just to reiterate something here, only 1991 Jordan has had a higher playoff BPM than 2023 Jokic while actually winning (or even making) the Finals. And no player in history has had a higher regular season BPM in a year they won the title (with 2009 LeBron being the only year from anyone else that was higher at all). That’s just one stat, and more generally this is all a subjective exercise, so there’s a range of reasonable views, but fixating on this particular guy as having something “lacking” and implying that there is not “something there” for him in the playoffs seems odd, even in the context of a greatest peaks discussion.

BPM? Come one, now—you nor anyone else has mentioned BPM in a long, long time. People have been calculating on/offs, rORTgs, basing GOAT claims on these numbers, but now when Jokic doesn’t have them, well we’re going to BPM I guess.

[homecourtloss]

Hello iggymcfrank,

What do you mean by this? Do you mean 1-year?

I checked the 1-year one and while SGA has +8.3, which is amazing and by far the best this season, Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett (twice!) also reached those marks.

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

He's at +9.2 here

Thanks jalengreen,

I was thinking all the tables on the following link were one-year values: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_hist.html

So then how many years ago does xRAPM start up to? Since it doesn't appear to be three-year or one-year. And it's not including all years either (since that's 29-year RAPM).

Not sure what the bolded is asking. But XRAPM is the newer version of the RPM we used to see ESPN using that JE cooked up. We used to see people cite these numbers but not anymore for some reason.

[jalengreen]

Hello iggymcfrank,

What do you mean by this? Do you mean 1-year?

I checked the 1-year one and while SGA has +8.3, which is amazing and by far the best this season, Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett (twice!) also reached those marks.

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

He's at +9.2 here

Thanks jalengreen,

I was thinking all the tables on the following link were one-year values: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_hist.html

So then how many years ago does xRAPM start up to? Since it doesn't appear to be three-year or one-year. And it's not including all years either (since that's 29-year RAPM).

Those are one year values. But he doesn't have 2025 linked on that page yet, 2025 is instead at the main link I sent.

So, the xRAPM one year values for each season in the 1997-2024 span are here: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_hist.html

While the one year values for 2025 are here: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM.html

[Caneman786]

Thanks jalengreen,

I was thinking all the tables on the following link were one-year values: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_hist.html

So then how many years ago does xRAPM start up to? Since it doesn't appear to be three-year or one-year. And it's not including all years either (since that's 29-year RAPM).

Those are one year values. But he doesn't have 2025 linked on that page yet, 2025 is instead at the main link I sent.

So, the xRAPM one year values for each season in the 1997-2024 span are here: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_hist.html

While the one year values for 2025 are here: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM.html

I don't think so. There's this page titled "2024/25 single season RAPM" that has to be the one-year values for xRAPM last season:

https://xrapm.com/table_pages/RAPM_1y.html

The page you're linking to seems to incorporate multiple years of data.

[Caneman786]

Thanks jalengreen,

I was thinking all the tables on the following link were one-year values: https://xrapm.com/table_pages/xRAPM_hist.html

So then how many years ago does xRAPM start up to? Since it doesn't appear to be three-year or one-year. And it's not including all years either (since that's 29-year RAPM).

Not sure what the bolded is asking. But XRAPM is the newer version of the RPM we used to see ESPN using that JE cooked up. We used to see people cite these numbers but not anymore for some reason.

Usually there's a time span for these values. Like in the one-year, three-year, and 29-year data sets. xRAPM doesn't seem to have a beginning or end. Is it just the current value like Darko is and it includes everything? And even then, what differentiates that from 29-year, that also should include everything?

Pretty much what I'm asking is if we want to say Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had a RAPM of +9.2, what years can I use? Is it just that was his RAPM on the date September 20, 2025 (like it would be for Darko?)

Or a set of seasons like the 2022–25 seasons?

The blog posts section where this is supposed to be explained hasn't been added yet.