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

[Cavsfansince84]

I really sort of wish the Jokic convo could die out in this thread. He is already voted in and I don't see any reason whatsoever to still be discussing him in a thread that is about the #7/8 spots. If you want to discuss Jokic's peak it should be going on in the thread he was inducted in imo. This one is for guys who can still be put on ballots.

[jalengreen]

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.

that is raw RAPM.

The RAPM Flavors tab (with 1-year RAPM, 3-year RAPM, 29-year RAPM) are NOT xRAPM. it's vanilla RAPM.

Individual player data consists of information from the standard BoxScore, data that is extracted from PlayByPlay - like block and steal type - and other information like shot defense, deflections etc.

The individual data serves to create a "Bayesian prior" that is then plugged into an RAPM (Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus) calculation that uses the lineup data to come up with the final player impact estimate.

there is no multi season xRAPM. all the xRAPM values you'll see on that site are single season.

[Caneman786]

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.

that is raw RAPM.

The RAPM Flavors tab (with 1-year RAPM, 3-year RAPM, 29-year RAPM) are NOT xRAPM. it's vanilla RAPM.

Individual player data consists of information from the standard BoxScore, data that is extracted from PlayByPlay - like block and steal type - and other information like shot defense, deflections etc.

The individual data serves to create a "Bayesian prior" that is then plugged into an RAPM (Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus) calculation that uses the lineup data to come up with the final player impact estimate.

there is no multi season xRAPM. all the xRAPM values you'll see on that site are single season.

Interesting.

So xRAPM should start at 0 at the beginning of every season and build up just like vanilla RAPM does.

And pretty much, xRAPM is RAPM with box score influence.

[70sFan]

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.

Can you explain why BPM sees Shai as better in the playoffs than Kobe, despite so many evidences suggesting something else?

Sure, just looking at per 100 possession numbers for the 2024 and 2025 playoffs for Shai and the 2008 and 2009 playoffs for Kobe, we get:

Shai: 39.0/7.7/8.4/2.0/1.5 with 3.2 turnovers
Kobe: 38.5/7.0/7.0/2.1/0.8 with 3.7 turnovers

There’s no one category that’s glaring, but SGA has more rebounds, more assists, more blocks, and less turnovers while being pretty much equal on steals and points. Add up those little edges and they more than make up for Kobe’s smallish edge in shooting efficiency.

Ok, so now can you tell me why do you think Shai having an 0.7 rebounds per100 should matter in this discussion? Do you genuinely believe that makes him better rebounder? Or is it the case that Kobe played in a completely different era with massive frontcourts that did most of that job?

More assists is again, mostly based on the role. Kobe played in a triangle system that lowers the individual assist numbers, while Shai played on spread out offense as a ball-dominant scorer.

The one notable thing is indeed turnover economy, I think Shai clears Kobe on that, especially because he handles the ball much more. I also prefer Shai on defense, but the gap isn't drastic either way.

I think I might take Shai due to his remarkable RS performance, but there is absolutely nothing suggesting that Shai played substantially better in the playoffs than Kobe.

[lessthanjake]

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.

This is demonstrably false and super disingenuous. You can just search my post history for “BPM” and find that I have repeatedly talked about it throughout this project in discussions about several players, as have others that my posts have responded to. I’ve even specifically referenced Jokic’s playoff BPM in a voting post for Jokic.

In any event, this thread isn’t about Jokic, so there’s no need to go back and forth about him too much. I just wanted to register the point that it’s wild to act like Jokic hasn’t put together an incredibly impressive playoff run, given how dominant his 2023 playoffs were. Sorry but a guy putting up 30/13.5/9.5 on over 63% TS% while his team easily won the title obviously is an impressive playoff run that more than belongs in a discussion of all-time peaks. I don’t think more needs to be said than that.

[homecourtloss]

“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.

This is demonstrably false and super disingenuous. You can just search my post history for “BPM” and find that I have repeatedly talked about it throughout this project in discussions about several players, as have others that my posts have responded to. I’ve even specifically referenced Jokic’s playoff BPM in a voting post for Jokic.

In any event, this thread isn’t about Jokic, so there’s no need to go back and forth about him too much. I just wanted to register the point that it’s wild to act like Jokic hasn’t put together an incredibly impressive playoff run, given how dominant his 2023 playoffs were. Sorry but a guy putting up 30/13.5/9.5 on over 63% TS% while his team easily won the title obviously is an impressive playoff run that more than belongs in a discussion of all-time peaks. I don’t think more needs to be said than that.

Over the past few months, there has been a large effort put together to find on/offs, rORtgs, with conclusions being made about players based on them (i.e., “GOAT offensive player,” etc). Right now you’re using BPM and slash lines, things that haven’t been used in these months discussions. These should apply to Jokic as well.

As has been discussed, even though Jokic has had a team that is offensively slanted (not my term—others have used these terms about team composition), AND had a teammate have a very good playoffs run who also incidentally had better on/off numbers than Jokic and who was also creating his own offense (63% of his field goals made were unassisted) and yet Jokic didn’t elevate his team offense to the heights others have, which was my original point with regards to what a player’s “real level” was, i.e., what he did in the playoffs. Even though he has things in his favor, to elevate him to the second highest peak, his “real level” has to at some point produce a higher level of team offense and impact than someone like Kobe produced. If we weren’t talking about the highest peaks ever, it wouldn’t matter, but when a player, with a contention being made that he had the second highest peak ever, can’t produce the same even though he’s had many chsnces, well, that’s an issue.

rORtg in title runs (non-exhaustive list)

2017 Curry: +17.9
2017 Durant: +17.2
2001 Kobe: +13.5
2016 LeBron: +13.4
1991 Jordan: +13.3
1993 Jordan: +13.0
2001 Shaq: +11.5
2017 Draymond: +11.1
2014 Manu: +11.0
2000 Shaq: +10.6
1985 Kareem: +10.2
2012 LeBron: +10.0
1986 Bird: +9.5
2002 Shaq: +9.5
2013 LeBron: +9.1
1982 Magic: +9.1
1985 Magic: +8.5
2009 Kobe: +8.4
2008 Kobe: +8.1
1999 DRob: +8.1
2011 Dirk: +7.8
2005 Manu: +7.6
2023 Jokic: +7.4

rORtg in non-title runs (non-exhaustive)

2017 LeBron: +16.4
2005 Nash: +16.3
2006 Nash: +11.0
2003 Nash: +10.5

His overall impact has a lower ceiling because of his defense, which is respectable due to DREB% and probably his best rim defense in the 2023 playoffs though the Nuggets had a -6 rDRtg with Jokic off the floor.

rNRtg on court ( rORtg - rDRtg)
Non-exhaustive

2017 Curry: +17.9, -4.0, +21.9
2001 Kobe: +13.5, -8,1, +21.6
1999 DRob: +8.1, -13.3, +21.4
2014 Manu: +11.0, -10.0, +21.0
2017 Draymond: +11.1, -9.7, +20.8
1996 Jordan: +9.7, -10.6, +20.3
1985 Kareem: +10.2, -9.8, +20.0
2001 Shaq: +11.5, -8.2, +19.7
2017 Durant: +17.2, -2.1, +19.3
2016 LeBron: +13.4, -5.8, +19.2
1985 Magic: +8.5, -9.4, +17.9
1991 Jordan: +13.3, -4.2, +17.5
2018 Curry: +6.6, -10.9, +17.5
1986 Bird: +9.5, -7.5, +17.0
2018 Durant: +8.3, -8.6, +16.9
2015 Draymond: +5.2, -10.6, +15.8
1982 Magic: +9.1, -6.6, +15.7
2011 Dirk: +7.8, -6.8, +14.6
2009 Kobe: +8.4, -6.2, +14.6
2012 LeBron: +10.0, -4.3, +14.3
2008 KG: +5.3, -8.4, +13.7
2003 Duncan: +3.4, -10.2, +13.5
2019 Kawhi: +5.3, -7.9, +13.2
2021 Giannis: -.4, -11.6, +11.2
2023 Jokic: +7.4, -3.0, +10.3

[TrueLAfan]

Giannis 2021. 4th in MVP voting, 5th in DPOY Voting, Finals MVP. Maybe a better RS in 2020, although I personally don’t think so. The Bucks added pieces that may have led to Giannis looking a shade less important in the season. I think that’s mistaken, and I think this is one of those cases where analytics miss the forest for the trees. I actually agree with the idea(s) that 2019 Giannis was better in the RS. But Giannis really couldn’t be stopped on offense in the playoffs in 2021; the “we have no answer for him” impetus puts that season up by just a little. He was almost as dominant as J in 1975, and that is saying a real whole lot.

SGA 2025. (From earlier) League MVP, 10th in DPOY Voting, Finals MVP. I’m not 100% clear on the reasons why Shai shouldn’t be here, or even higher. I get that he “slumped” in the PS, but it didn’t hurt his team. I man, look at how the rest of OKC played in the Finals. And they got the job done, and that it done because of SGA. It’s a bit like Jokic; there’s too much there there. I give Giannis the nod for my #7—but SGA had a better RS and was still mighty good on the PS.

Wade 2006. He placed higher in both DPOY and MVP voting in later years, but I’m not sure he was *that* much better than in 2006. And his playoff run—which seems to be a theme for me; I’ll watch out for that—is impeccabale. Those last four games against the Mavs? *chef’s kiss* On the court with a near peak Dirk and a slightly older but still formidable Shaq, there was no question who the best player out there was.

Dirk 2011. Dirk is probably a little harder to quantify than most players. He was (much) more of a unicorn in his first decade and, from a statistical viewpoint, it introduces a bit more/different noise. Just my .02 on that—and as I’ve noted, I’m kind of avoiding too much reliance on analytics for players at this level. The question for me is whether to choose the 2006 or 2011 version of Dirk. Again, the postseason runs lifts the overall player impact higher.

Best comment I’ve seen so far is that we’re now in a place where some/most players are a little less dominant or have minor flaws in their game/season; sort of the 1a tier. Personally, I’m pretty big on my top 3 here … but I have a hard time choosing between 9-15. Oh well. More interested in what others are saying now.

[70sFan]

...

Guys, please move the discussion to another thread, Jokic is already in.

[lessthanjake]

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.

This is demonstrably false and super disingenuous. You can just search my post history for “BPM” and find that I have repeatedly talked about it throughout this project in discussions about several players, as have others that my posts have responded to. I’ve even specifically referenced Jokic’s playoff BPM in a voting post for Jokic.

In any event, this thread isn’t about Jokic, so there’s no need to go back and forth about him too much. I just wanted to register the point that it’s wild to act like Jokic hasn’t put together an incredibly impressive playoff run, given how dominant his 2023 playoffs were. Sorry but a guy putting up 30/13.5/9.5 on over 63% TS% while his team easily won the title obviously is an impressive playoff run that more than belongs in a discussion of all-time peaks. I don’t think more needs to be said than that.

Over the past few months, there has been a large effort put together to find on/offs, rORtgs, with conclusions being made about players based on them (i.e., “GOAT offensive player,” etc). Right now you’re using BPM and slash lines, things that haven’t been used in these months discussions. These should apply to Jokic as well.

As has been discussed, even though Jokic has had a team that is offensively slanted (not my term—others have used these terms about team composition), AND had a teammate have a very good playoffs run who also incidentally had better on/off numbers than Jokic and who was also creating his own offense (63% of his field goals made were unassisted) and yet Jokic didn’t elevate his team offense to the heights others have, which was my original point with regards to what a player’s “real level” was, i.e., what he did in the playoffs. Even though he has things in his favor, to elevate him to the second highest peak, his “real level” has to at some point produce a higher level of team offense and impact than someone like Kobe produced. If we weren’t talking about the highest peaks ever, it wouldn’t matter, but when a player, with a contention being made that he had the second highest peak ever, can’t produce the same even though he’s had many chsnces, well, that’s an issue.

Okay, Jokic isn’t on topic so it’s not worth responding to specifics about him, but I think there’s some things that actually go to a more general question of approach to things, as well as a more Jokic-specific point that leads to an actually forward-looking point:

1. We have actually had prior discussion about Jokic’s on-court rORTGs in the playoffs. I believe it was in the corrupted peaks project threads. So I’d just refer you back to that, with the general note that I believe a big point I made there is that relative ratings will naturally downplay a team like the 2023 Nuggets that faced a slate of playoff opponents that were pretty clearly higher quality in the playoffs than they’d been during the season (due to various things, including major mid-year signings and trades, as well as just clearly being in way better form in the playoffs). We should be sensitive to when context makes a particular type of data likely be biased for or against a player, and this is a good example of that. To try to make this point actually useful to the current thread, I’ll just note that it might be worth people thinking about how this sort of thing would affect players actually under consideration. If we are talking about rORTGs or relative net ratings about players under consideration, do we think any of those are biased against certain players because they faced playoff teams that we have good reason to think were better by the time the playoffs rolled around than they’d generally been in the regular season? And do we have reason to think it might be biased in favor of someone (perhaps due to facing teams we think were playoff paper tigers, or teams with playoff injuries)? It’s something to keep in mind moving forward.

2. As I’ve also previously mentioned in discussion with you about this exact same topic in the corrupted peaks project threads, I have talked about things like rORTGs in reference to other players, but I have also explicitly noted that box data also matters a lot to me but had been amply covered by other peoples’ posts. Saying “Categories A and B both matter to me but Category A was covered in other peoples’ posts so I’ll talk some about Category B” is really not inconsistent with talking about Category A in posts about another player. One can obviously discuss one thing (or compile a particular type of data) without it meaning that other things don’t matter to you. Again, I already explained this to you before in an essentially identical exchange in the project that your buddies corrupted. I have never at any time disclaimed the usefulness of box data, and I post about box data a lot. I also post about various types of impact data, as well as team data. It all matters to me.

3. Related to the above, I think it’s clearly problematic to act like if people have gone through a lot of effort to compile new data that they should only ever talk about that particular type of data and are being inconsistent if they don’t do that. For instance, I have spent many hours compiling Michael Jordan’s on-off data on these forums. Does that mean that on-off data is the only thing that matters to me or that I should be attacked as inconsistent if I deviate from those artificial constraints? Same with Djoker compiling and talking about rORTGs. People should be able to compile information without other people acting like that means that information is the only thing that matters to the person. And I think someone arguing otherwise is really way too focused on trying to catch people out and feeling like they won an argument than on the actual pursuit of knowledge and interesting discussion. Which is the exact type of approach that led to certain individuals wrecking multiple projects on this forum.

4. You quote the phrase “real level” to me, but that’s in reference to something Djoker said. It may surprise you given how prolific your buddies have been with alt accounts, but I am not actually Djoker, so it does not make any sense to quote something Djoker said to me as if it shows me being inconsistent. To be clear, I don’t regard how a player played in the playoffs as necessarily their real level (which is why Djoker and I materially differ on something like 2025 SGA). I think it is definitely more probative of their real level than a similar number of regular season games would be, but it’s also a smaller sample than the regular season overall and therefore noisier, so there’s a balance in how I’d weigh them. I have written about this conundrum many times before: The playoffs matter the most and are when players are definitely going all out but it is inherently a smaller sample, so there’s significant flaws in relying solely on either playoff or regular season data. Similarly, box data doesn’t directly get at impact, but it stabilizes faster than impact data does. Which leaves a conundrum in small-sample data, where you either rely on box data (which is generally inferior to impact data) or impact data (which is really noisy in those sorts of samples). I tend to think box data is probably more useful in assessing the playoffs while multi-season impact data is more useful in assessing the regular season. Again, I’ve written about these data concerns/issues many times on these forums. Your approach to this appears to be to largely rely on small-sample impact data in the playoffs for Jokic. That’s fine if you want to do that, but it’s definitely contrary to what I think makes the most sense and what I’ve posted about over and over again on these forums. I can’t speak for how Djoker thinks about this stuff and his approach really doesn’t have to be consistent with mine.

[homecourtloss]

...

Guys, please move the discussion to another thread, Jokic is already in.

Will do after this response, but just to be clear, the post started when I made a comparison to Jokic when discussing SGA.

This is demonstrably false and super disingenuous. You can just search my post history for “BPM” and find that I have repeatedly talked about it throughout this project in discussions about several players, as have others that my posts have responded to. I’ve even specifically referenced Jokic’s playoff BPM in a voting post for Jokic.

In any event, this thread isn’t about Jokic, so there’s no need to go back and forth about him too much. I just wanted to register the point that it’s wild to act like Jokic hasn’t put together an incredibly impressive playoff run, given how dominant his 2023 playoffs were. Sorry but a guy putting up 30/13.5/9.5 on over 63% TS% while his team easily won the title obviously is an impressive playoff run that more than belongs in a discussion of all-time peaks. I don’t think more needs to be said than that.

Over the past few months, there has been a large effort put together to find on/offs, rORtgs, with conclusions being made about players based on them (i.e., “GOAT offensive player,” etc). Right now you’re using BPM and slash lines, things that haven’t been used in these months discussions. These should apply to Jokic as well.

As has been discussed, even though Jokic has had a team that is offensively slanted (not my term—others have used these terms about team composition), AND had a teammate have a very good playoffs run who also incidentally had better on/off numbers than Jokic and who was also creating his own offense (63% of his field goals made were unassisted) and yet Jokic didn’t elevate his team offense to the heights others have, which was my original point with regards to what a player’s “real level” was, i.e., what he did in the playoffs. Even though he has things in his favor, to elevate him to the second highest peak, his “real level” has to at some point produce a higher level of team offense and impact than someone like Kobe produced. If we weren’t talking about the highest peaks ever, it wouldn’t matter, but when a player, with a contention being made that he had the second highest peak ever, can’t produce the same even though he’s had many chsnces, well, that’s an issue.

Spoiler:

Okay, Jokic isn’t on topic, but I think there’s some responses that go to a more general question of approach to things, as well as a more Jokic-specific point that I think also leads to an actually forward-looking point:

1. We have actually had prior discussion about Jokic’s on-court rORTGs in the playoffs. I believe it was in the corrupted peaks project threads. So I’d just refer you back to that, with the general note that I believe a big point I made there is that relative ratings will naturally downplay a team like the 2023 Nuggets that faced a slate of playoff opponents that were pretty clearly higher quality in the playoffs than they’d been during the season (due to various things, including major mid-year signings and trades, as well as just clearly being in way better form in the playoffs). We should be sensitive to when context makes a particular type of data likely be biased for or against a player, and this is a good example of that. To try to make this point actually useful to the current thread, I’ll just note that it might be worth people thinking about how this sort of thing would affect players actually under consideration. If we are talking about rORTGs or relative net ratings about players under consideration, do we think any of those are biased against certain players because they faced playoff teams that we have good reason to think were better by the time the playoffs rolled around that they’d generally been in the regular season? It’s something to keep in mind moving forward.

2. As I’ve also previously mentioned in discussion with you about this exact same topic in the corrupted peaks project threads, I have talked about things like rORTGs in reference to other players, but I have also explicitly noted that box data also matters a lot to me but had been amply covered by other peoples’ posts. Saying “Categories A and B both matter to me but Category A was covered in other peoples’ posts so I’ll talk some about Category B” is really not inconsistent with talking about Category A in posts about another player. One can obviously discuss one thing (or compile a particular type of data) without it meaning that other things don’t matter to you. Again, I already explained this to you before in an essentially identical exchange in the project that your buddies corrupted. I have never at any time disclaimed the usefulness of box data, and I post about box data a lot. I also post about various types of impact data, as well as team data. It all matters to me.

3. Related to the above, I think it’s clearly problematic to act like if people have gone through a lot of effort to compile new data that they should only ever talk about that particular type of data and are being inconsistent if they don’t do that. For instance, I have spent many hours compiling Michael Jordan’s on-off data on these forums. Does that mean that on-off data is the only thing that matters to me or that I should be attacked as inconsistent if I deviate from those artificial constraints? Same with Djoker compiling and talking about rORTGs. People should be able to compile information without other people acting like that means that information is the only thing that matters to the person. And I think someone arguing otherwise is really way too focused on trying to catch people out and feeling like they won an argument than on the actual pursuit of knowledge and interesting discussion. Which is the exact type of approach that led to certain individuals wrecking multiple projects on this forum.

4. You quote the phrase “real level” to me, but that’s in reference to something Djoker said. It may surprise you given how prolific your buddies have been with alt accounts, but I am not actually Djoker, so it does not make any sense to quote something Djoker said to me as if it shows me being inconsistent. To be clear, I don’t regard how a player played in the playoffs as necessarily their real level (which is why Djoker and I materially differ on something like 2025 SGA). I think it is definitely more probative of their real level than a similar number of regular season games would be, but it’s also a smaller sample than the regular season overall and therefore noisier, so there’s a balance in how I’d weigh them. I have written about this conundrum many times before: The playoffs matter the most and are when players are definitely going all out but it is inherently a smaller sample, so there’s significant flaws in relying solely on either playoff or regular season data. Similarly, box data doesn’t directly get at impact, but it stabilizes faster than impact data does. Which leaves a conundrum in small-sample data, where you either rely on box data (which is generally inferior to impact data) or impact data (which is really noisy in those sorts of samples). I tend to think box data is probably more useful in assessing the playoffs while multi-season impact data is more useful in assessing the regular season. Again, I’ve written about these data concerns/issues many times on these forums. Your approach to this appears to be to largely rely on small-sample impact data in the playoffs for Jokic. That’s fine if you want to do that, but it’s definitely contrary to what I think makes the most sense and what I’ve posted about over and over again on these forums. I can’t speak for how Djoker thinks about this stuff and his approach really doesn’t have to be consistent with mine.

[homecourtloss]

1. 2011 Dirk: provided high end lift for nearly his entire career that reached some real highs with his rather unique skill set of efficient scoring on high difficult shots and overall + defense. +7.8 rORtg and -6.8 rDRtg, +14.6 rNRtg on court in the 2011 playoffs (-14.2 rORtg and -4.9 rDRtg without him). Frankly, I trust Dirk’s playoffs offense more than anyone else’s anything in the playoffs out of those left.
2. 2009 Kobe: Kobe has become underrated as a reaction to some ridiculous positions taken by the diehard Kobe fandom, but 2008-2010 Kobe away from Shaq was anchoring resilient offenses. 2009 Kobe’s run is underrated. +8.4 rORtg, -6.2 rDRtg on court through the 2009 playoffs after a very good regular season.
3. 2021 Giannis: I had some hesitations here since the playoffs offense at the team level doesn’t hold up and it didn’t vs. the Nets and one could argue that the Nets were better and should have won that series. But I can see Giannis in slightly different team contexts reaching even greater heights.
4. 2017 Kawhi: It’s a shame he got injured, but this version was right in the sweet spot for his offense and defense and was a better player than the 2019 version though both were good. His on/off and other impact metrics doesn’t stand out due to some specific circumstances but I feel this was the best version of him.

Had SGA had a better playoffs, he would be here and probably really should be. CP3, Nash and Durant also very well could be argued here with zero problems. There’s just too much talent in this era.

Since you didn't mention him, what do you think about Wade at this point?

I think Wade is next right below those guys.

[lessthanjake]

My voting post below. Will be a bit light on details now, in part because I’ve already set forth my thought process in prior threads and in a post earlier in this thread:

1. 2006 Dwyane Wade

2. 2011 Dirk Nowitzki

3. 2025 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

4. 2019 Kawhi Leonard

I’ve already talked a lot about Dwyane Wade in prior threads. Basically, I think his 2006 playoffs was one of the most impressive playoff runs in the history of the NBA. He led a team to the title that I thought had no business winning it, and he did so while being really dominant, particularly in the latter half of the playoffs against two great opponents. I wouldn’t say his regular season stands out amongst this cohort of players, but I also would say it’s right there with everyone I’m considering except for 2025 SGA (whose playoff performance really was far below 2006 Wade’s IMO).

After 2006 Wade, it all gets very close for me. The next spot goes to 2011 Dirk by a hair. Basically, I think his playoff performance was in the top tier amongst the other guys I’m considering for this spot, and his regular season was at least in line with all but 2025 SGA (and probably actually better than the others). That gets him just above SGA for me. And when compared to guys like 2019 Kawhi, 2009 Kobe, and 2021 Giannis, I also just don’t have as big a concern/caveat in the back of my mind about them. Kawhi missed a lot of regular season games in 2019. Giannis missed time in the business end of the playoffs. And Kobe just doesn’t ever have super inspiring impact data. My concern with 2011 Dirk is just that he was not amazing in the Finals, but the playoff performance as a whole was really good, and it’s not like he didn’t have great performance against really good teams in those playoffs. The other thing here is that it doesn’t feel to me like the 2011 Mavericks were the most talented team in the league, and I think they beat multiple more talented teams in the playoffs. I feel like the 2011 Mavericks were better than the 2006 Heat and I think Wade was better in the 2006 playoffs than Dirk was in the 2011 playoffs, but Dirk’s achievement in winning a title that year was kind of like a 2006-Wade-lite to me, if that makes sense. While I think it’s close, I feel good about Dirk at this spot.

So then we get to the group of 2025 SGA, 2019 Kawhi, 2009 Kobe, and 2021 Giannis. This is splitting hairs for me. I ultimately go with 2025 SGA next. I think the others all played better in the playoffs, so that’s a pretty big deal. But SGA’s regular season was honestly just way better than these guys. I think it was a historically great regular season that was in line with the type of seasons we have seen from genuine GOAT candidates at their best. And it resulted in 68 wins and the highest SRS ever. Of course, the playoffs were not at that level. But he did nevertheless lead his team to the title, while clearly being their best player in the playoffs. So there’s a limit to how much I feel like he can be docked for it—it still was obviously a good playoff run for him and his team. I guess I just feel like he deserves to be bitten on fairly soon here, particularly when the remaining guys I’m considering have things that concern me anyways beyond just not being at 2025 SGA’s level in the regular season.

As for the final spot, I’m going with 2019 Kawhi, but it’s so close. I think 2019 Kawhi, 2009 Kobe, and 2021 Giannis were at pretty similar levels in the regular season. I guess I’d probably put Kobe the highest in the regular season, but it is all close. In the playoffs, I think Kawhi was probably the best. Giannis was incredible in the Finals, but he wasn’t quite as good before that and missed time in the conference finals. Kobe was very good in the playoffs, but I just think Kawhi was a bit better. And what solidifies it here for me is that I think Kawhi was better in the playoffs while having a more difficult path in the playoffs. In particular, I think the 2019 Bucks were better than any team 2009 Kobe or 2021 Giannis played (though the 2009 Magic aren’t far off). It’s just that little bit more impressive for that reason IMO. But I also don’t really feel strongly about this vote at all, and I don’t feel all that great about it.

[iggymcfrack]

Can you explain why BPM sees Shai as better in the playoffs than Kobe, despite so many evidences suggesting something else?

Sure, just looking at per 100 possession numbers for the 2024 and 2025 playoffs for Shai and the 2008 and 2009 playoffs for Kobe, we get:

Shai: 39.0/7.7/8.4/2.0/1.5 with 3.2 turnovers
Kobe: 38.5/7.0/7.0/2.1/0.8 with 3.7 turnovers

There’s no one category that’s glaring, but SGA has more rebounds, more assists, more blocks, and less turnovers while being pretty much equal on steals and points. Add up those little edges and they more than make up for Kobe’s smallish edge in shooting efficiency.

Ok, so now can you tell me why do you think Shai having an 0.7 rebounds per100 should matter in this discussion? Do you genuinely believe that makes him better rebounder? Or is it the case that Kobe played in a completely different era with massive frontcourts that did most of that job?

More assists is again, mostly based on the role. Kobe played in a triangle system that lowers the individual assist numbers, while Shai played on spread out offense as a ball-dominant scorer.

The one notable thing is indeed turnover economy, I think Shai clears Kobe on that, especially because he handles the ball much more. I also prefer Shai on defense, but the gap isn't drastic either way.

I think I might take Shai due to his remarkable RS performance, but there is absolutely nothing suggesting that Shai played substantially better in the playoffs than Kobe.

I would agree that the turnover economy is the post important stat followed by the blocks. I feel like the assists are important, but more in the ratio to turnover than anything else.

Also though, I don’t feel like the bar is that Shai needs to have played “substantially better in the playoffs than Kobe”. SGA played substantially better in the regular season than Kobe ever did. Kobe made the playoffs in 12 prime-ish years.

If Kobe’s 2 best prime years out of 12 just barely match SGA’s only 2 prime years in the playoffs while SGA’s massively better in the regular season, that’s still a big edge to SGA.

[70sFan]

1. 2011 Dirk: provided high end lift for nearly his entire career that reached some real highs with his rather unique skill set of efficient scoring on high difficult shots and overall + defense. +7.8 rORtg and -6.8 rDRtg, +14.6 rNRtg on court in the 2011 playoffs (-14.2 rORtg and -4.9 rDRtg without him). Frankly, I trust Dirk’s playoffs offense more than anyone else’s anything in the playoffs out of those left.
2. 2009 Kobe: Kobe has become underrated as a reaction to some ridiculous positions taken by the diehard Kobe fandom, but 2008-2010 Kobe away from Shaq was anchoring resilient offenses. 2009 Kobe’s run is underrated. +8.4 rORtg, -6.2 rDRtg on court through the 2009 playoffs after a very good regular season.
3. 2021 Giannis: I had some hesitations here since the playoffs offense at the team level doesn’t hold up and it didn’t vs. the Nets and one could argue that the Nets were better and should have won that series. But I can see Giannis in slightly different team contexts reaching even greater heights.
4. 2017 Kawhi: It’s a shame he got injured, but this version was right in the sweet spot for his offense and defense and was a better player than the 2019 version though both were good. His on/off and other impact metrics doesn’t stand out due to some specific circumstances but I feel this was the best version of him.

Had SGA had a better playoffs, he would be here and probably really should be. CP3, Nash and Durant also very well could be argued here with zero problems. There’s just too much talent in this era.

Since you didn't mention him, what do you think about Wade at this point?

I think Wade is next right below those guys.

So you'd have Wade roughly around ~15th place? Sounds quite low relative to the rest of voting panel, why is that?

[70sFan]

I would agree that the turnover economy is the post important stat followed by the blocks. I feel like the assists are important, but more in the ratio to turnover than anything else.

Also though, I don’t feel like the bar is that Shai needs to have played “substantially better in the playoffs than Kobe”. SGA played substantially better in the regular season than Kobe ever did. Kobe made the playoffs in 12 prime-ish years.

If Kobe’s 2 best prime years out of 12 just barely match SGA’s only 2 prime years in the playoffs while SGA’s massively better in the regular season, that’s still a big edge to SGA.

Yeah, but we don't know if Shai continues to play below his RS standards for the remaining of his career. It's not impossible that we'll never see a better PS run than 2025 from Shai, so it's a moot point to me.

I do agree that Shai's RS advantage matters a lot and that's why I will vote him over Kobe in the end. The discussion is about the playoffs though and I don't see anything suggesting that BPM is right on 2025 Shai > 2008 Kobe.

[LA Bird]

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo (22)
2. Dwyane Wade (06)
3. Dirk Nowitzki (11)
4. Chris Paul (15)

Giannis - find 2021 a bit overrated relative to surrounding seasons because of the ring. 2020 started incredible (70+ win pace with league leading box and +/- stats) but ended weak in the bubble. 2022 is my personal peak pick. Within surrounding years (20-24), it was the only season Giannis didn't miss a single playoffs game, it's his clear best FT% (63, 66, 72, 64, 66), and probably the best combination of his early DPOY level defense and later offense. A second round exit doesn't look great this early but the 22 Celtics had the #1 RS defense, completely shut down Durant in R1, and Giannis was playing without his #2 option and no shooters besides Connaughton.

Wade - clear #1 on title team (+17.3 one on one off vs 06 Shaq) and Walker/Williams/Haslem to round out the starting lineup is pretty tragic. His first step and strength was a tough combination to stop and he was also low key pretty good from 3 when left open in the playoffs (47-121 non heave for 38.8% in 06/09/10). Lack of dominant team offense has always been a criticism of Wade's but given his supporting cast and offensive on/off both RS/PO, I am not sure there's much more he could have done.

Dirk - underwhelming box scores at this stage of his career but the mid range shooting and +/- numbers were through the roof. The single biggest shift in public perception after winning a ring I have ever seen and well deserved even if he got a bit lucky with LeChoke giving the Finals away. While the better offense can be explained by better shooting, the better defense is a bit of a mystery. Adding Chandler helped but the defense still tanked in the 9 games Dirk missed and WOWY lineups says the same too.

Paul - questionable playoffs health but within surrounding years (13-17), he only had one other postseason injury. Compare that to Giannis' playoffs history and is it really that bad? #1 offense over Curry Warriors, excellent defense, +20 on/off, playoffs win over defending champ Spurs in peak form, came back from injury and would have made conference Finals if Josh Smith hadn't turned into Dirk. Think Paul's offensive package gets underrated because he is sandwiched between two point guards who are literally the two best shooters ever and the GOAT on and off ball players.

Other considerations:

Kobe - up next and could easily replace Paul if he isn't getting traction

SGA - may prove me wrong in the future but for now, I am not sold on him in the playoffs. Last two postseasons, OKC offense have completely fallen off a cliff from +8 to 0 with him on, as have his individual +/- (+11 to +1 on/off). This is not some tiny dip. Harden gets roasted for smaller dropoffs. The #1 RS SRS argument is also pretty lazy for the same reasons I have brought up with 17 Kawhi's off court ratings. Is a +16 on impressive? Absolutely. But there is another player who literally did it a couple years earlier who won't even be top 25 because of their playoffs resiliency.

Embiid - bit tricky picking a season but will likely vote for him in next round or two.

[Cavsfansince84]

ok, I think I am ready to post a ballot for this one

7. 2017 Kawhi(19). To me he has the highest two playoff impact of anyone left. Top 3 mvp/dpoy. Excellent half court/3 pt/off ball scorer which he more than kept up in the playoffs. Near 10.0 rs bpm, played a career high 74g, led the Spurs to 61 wins and wcf loss where he all know the context. So he's #1 for me now.
8. 2025 SGA(24). Leads the all time srs team despite only 2 teammates playing over 2000 minutes in the rs. I would say excellent two way impact though he sort of runs out of gas towards the end but still pulls off the mvp/fmvp double.
9. 2006 Wade(09). Between he and Giannis for this spot for me and I think his rs somewhat easily cleared Kobe's 08 or 09 so he's my pick here. I don't think that much needs to be said about him. Ahead of Giannis because i think his playoffs stands out more happening in 06 than Giannis' did in 2021 due to how the game is called.
10. 2021 Giannis(20). Dinged a bit for missing some games in the playoffs but still near mvp/dpoy level play in the rs and some good to great play in the playoffs that got him a ring.

Next up for me are Dirk, Kobe, Harden and CP3 in some order. Dwight and TMac aren't that far off either imo.

[DraymondGold]

Voting Post

Now we get to the next tier. Here are some of the likely candidates, ordered chronologically:
-Wade, Kobe, Dirk, Chris Paul, Durant, Kawhi, Giannis (all of these players except Dirk/Paul were listed in the last thread, and Dirk's starting to get mentioned in this thread)

There's a few more candidates who may sneak into the conversation, depending on what people value (Nash, Harden, Shai), although I expect a few others to go before they really get steam. For Nash, people presumably have concerns about the defense. For Harden, presumably it's scalability/resilience. For Shai, presumably it's sample size / resilience. Shai's regular season suggests he may be truly special, and a similar regular,ar season with a slightly better playoffs next year (with a bit more experience to help empower that) might have us retroactively raising 2025 Shai. At the same time, plenty of people have had great single regular seasons without ever sustaining longer runs, while others never put together a dominant playoff run. When evaluating players, I'd rather underestimate them to start and wait for the larger sample, than preemptively reward them for what ends up being something unsustainable/noisy.

To get a rough estimate of value, let's look at EPM (looking at volume rather than rate using their volume stat, Estimated Wins). I’ve also looked at nbaRAPM across a range of sample sizes, AuPM, On/off, and a little WOWY — there’s broad trends for some of these guys, and some disagreement. As we get further down the list, the players get closer together, so the error bars will eventually make it hard for any player to clearly stand out. I do still think there’s some trends in the impact data though. Let’s focus on EPM, since it’s measured to be the most accurate stat in the modern era, although other stats show somewhat similar trends.

3-year RS Average EPM Estimated Wins:
13-15 Paul +17.9 [08-10 Paul +18.6]
06-08 Kobe +17.7 [07-09 +16.9]
15-17 Kawhi +16
06-09 Wade +15.7 (skipping 08 as it’s an injury year)
16-18 Durant +15.2 [14-16 +15.8]
19-21 Giannis +14 [15.2 in 82-game pace]
06-08 Nash +14.8
10-12 Dirk +13.3 [05-07 +19]

3-year PS Average EPM per Game:
16-19 Kawhi 7.3 (6.6 accounting for missed games)
14-16 Paul +5.9 (5.2 accounting for missed games)
16-18 Durant +4.8 (4.6 accounting for missed games)
= 09-12 Dirk +4.8
~= 08-10 Kobe 4.7
= 19-21 Giannis 4.7 (4.4 accounting for missed games)
05-07 Nash +2.8
05-07 Wade 2.4
[I don't have access to playoff Estimated Wins, so have averaged and converted to per game to get a volume stat for the playoffs]

So looking at each Player’s impact rankings: In EPM (and across other impact metrics like multi-year nbaRAPM), Chris Paul seems like the clear most valuable player in the regular season, and longer samples seem to favor Clippers Chris Paul specifically. Paul is still among the more impactful in the playoffs when playing, but some players are comparable. Paul also gets injured in numerous playoffs, and people may have varying scalability/resilience concerns.

Kawhi seems like the most impactful playoff player during his peak (noting that small playoff samples have more noise), although like Paul he suffers from untimely playoff injuries. His regular season is still impactful, among the top few.

Kobe surprisingly has the 2nd most Estimated Wins in the regular season and is right in the middle of this group in the playoffs, despite his reputation by for being relatively poorer in impact metrics. Looking at EPM per 100, Kobe’s closer to last. Turns out Kobe has quite the season volume advantage over the competition — he plays 82 games in both 08/09, averaged 79 games played across 06-10, and did so at 39 minutes per game (helped by a slightly slower pace). So a lesser per possession impact is partially compensated by playing more possessions per game and particularly being more durable each season. That health also shows up in the playoffs, where Paul and Kawhi and others struggle.

Wade looks better than Kobe per possession, but worse than Kobe per season (as above, Wade‘s impact advantage in rate stats are less than Kobe’s durability/volume advantage) and Wade looks last in multi-year playoff runs. Now Wade has the 2nd best playoff run of these players in 06 behind 17 Kawhi, but he also looks much worse in other (albeit quite small and occasionally injured) samples. In multi-year runs this pulls him down. Wade has a steeper decline outside short sample peaks. This is presumably partially driven by injuries, but also raises a concern that his best playoff runs in 06/09 are boosted a touch by small sample noise, or whether he could scale his impact with more talented teammates.

Durant isn’t the most impactful, but it also seems like Durant > Dirk and Giannis in this stat. Arguments to take him higher would probably focus on scalability — he had great playoff impact on arguably the best team ever. Arguments against him would say the situation was easier as teams focused on Curry, and that Durant didn’t show as much resilience in other scenarios. Durant seems more durable than Paul, Kawhi, Wade, or Giannis (he doesn’t seem to wear down under long playoff runs or over successive years), but still has more durability compared to Dirk and Kobe.

Giannis has less impact than one would expect given his reputation. He is partially held back but having his playoff peak and regular season peak in different years (which does not seem to be caused by injury or dramatic teammate changes like Curry, and regardless Giannis doesn’t have quite as much of an impact advantage relative to the completion like Curry). I also have resilience and scalability concerns with him, for reasons I described in an earlier post.

Dirk is also held back by having a regular season and playoff peak in different years. His run in 05-07 would be the best regular season run of anyone here, but if we force the run to include 2011, he’s last in the regular season. This seems like a classic case of player evolution (I would argue like Giannis). When a player is younger, they have more athletic stanina and motor to try in the regular season. As they get older, they develop more counters and gain more experience, and thus get more resilient in the playoffs, at the cost of regular season effort. Different players peak at different points in these arcs, and this development can make it interesting to choose a single stretch as their peak. I agree with the data that Dirk was more impactful in the regular season while he was younger, and better in the playoffs as he was older. I think this evolution to maintain impact over the years helps give him one of the better primes of this group, and gives him one of the better careers, but I do think it holds him back a bit with his peak.

One theme when comparing this tier: most player has great impact in some sample/stat, but are inconsistent in other scenarios.
-Health: Paul, Kawhi, Wade, Giannis, and Durant all have injuries to differing extents. Wade has general durability issues throughout his prime. Paul, older Kawhi (starting in late 2017), and Giannis seem to wear down over longer playoff runs. Durant doesn’t wear down during his peak, but is still somewhat susceptible to month-scale injuries.
-Stamina/motor: Kawhi, Giannis, and Dirk seem to have their regular season and playoff peak in different seasons, in part due to stamina/motor. One of my bigger issues for Kawhi is his lack of stamina; his best regular season is 2016, while his best playoffs ignoring injury is probably 2017. I do think there’s an offensive development and shift from speed to strength that helps unlock the playoff impact in 2017, but I also think a lack of motor means he can’t combine his defensive and offensive peak at once, and I do think some coasting is required for the playoff rise. Giannis lost some of his athletic motor of 2019/2020 as he developed the experience and counters that helped his 21/22 runs. Dirk had a similar development to Giannis, albeit with a larger separation between his regular season and playoff peak.
Kobe doesn’t have as many health issues, or have as much of a separated regular season and playoff peak due to motor/development. However, I do still see a lack of motor limiting his regular season defense given the offensive load and the lack of coasting/load management. It would have been interesting to see if a more load managed Kobe had more in the tank defensively, or looked better per possession.

I think my top group will be Chris Paul, Kawhi, Durant, and Kobe. They’re roughly the most impactful according to EPM (again with Kobe making up a per possession disadvantage with more minutes/games played). I like much of this group from a scalability / team building perspective compared to say Wade or Giannis or Dirk. Wade’s lack of shooting and ball dominance makes it hard to maximize offensive impact with another ball dominant star. Giannis’ insistence to play on-ball rather than focus on more traditional big skills (screens, rolls, lobs, midrange counters) has made his chemistry with Lillard a bit disappointing. Dirk is pretty great offensively, but is a bit limiting to a team defensively given his lack of impact at his position. Team-wise, Kawhi, Durant, and Kobe all were key players on teams that were clearly more impactful, which supports the idea that their more scalable playstyle can lead to more dominant top-end teams.

1. 2017 Kawhi Leonard
Of these four guys, I could be swayed multiple ways. At the moment, I’m leaning 17 Kawhi. I do think Kawhi still has motor issues limiting how well he could combine his peak offense/defense and regular/post season, and I do think he was already showing some durability concerns (he had already missed 2nd round games before going down to Zaza). But I don’t think he was as injury-prone or load-management-reliant as he would become, and from a probabilistic perspective, he was just as likely to make it through in a 2019-style run in 2017 as he was going down to the ankle injury.

And when he wasn’t injured, he might be the best playoff player of the bunch, and the impact data seems to support that. An all-time playoff scoring threat, with shooting that could be catch and shoot off-ball, fantastic resilient midrange that could come in isolation and off the dribble, and some basket pressure. This three-level diverse scoring package, combined with active off-ball action and a robust handle, drove some incredible playoff offenses. His lack of playmaking and lesser activity off-ball meant he wasn’t quite the offensive player of KD or Paul or Kobe. But he was still highly impactful, and could fit well alongside other ball-dominant playmakers. And he was the best of the bunch defensively. Not quite 2016 or 2014 levels, with the heavier build and offensive load, but still a clear positive with his hands in isolation and in passing lanes, and with solid rebounding.

It’s a tough choice, and I could definitely be swayed otherwise. The treatment of the injury seems like the key question here — by some criteria, the injury would discount this year altogether. One could also argue that the regular season specifically had too little impact to be chosen here (the +1.6 on/off is pretty pathetic, even with bad shooting luck; although his 3-year on/off is +6 with an on rating of +11.5, which is more respectful, and his Goldstein RAPM is 7th in the league that season which isn’t bad). One could argue that Kawhi’s defense had fallen off by 2017, or that his lack of motor/IQ/playmaking justify picking someone else. But even so, he seems like the most valuable playoff performer when healthy, which I find compelling.

2. 2015 Chris Paul (> 2014 Chris Paul)
His regular season impact metrics are the clear best of this group. He’s one of the best playmakers and passers ever — with a massive advantage in playmaking over Wade, Kobe, Dirk, Durant, Kawhi, and Giannis. Then we add that Paul had strong playoff scoring (22 Pts/75 at +6 rTS% in 2014; +23 Pts/75 at +10 rTS% in 2015), with near all-time midrange and positive 3 point spacing, and give him the best IQ of this group, and Paul looks to be contending for the best offensive player here ( I’d hear arguments for Kobe/Dirk/Durant too). Then add in that Paul is more consistent in his defensive value than Kobe and Durant, and it becomes clear why he seems like the most impactful player of the bunch.

I do think he doesn’t level up his game as much as other players here in the playoffs, but it’s the absolute value (not the relative change) that’s important. He starts at a higher place in the regular season than anyone here, so take a little off the top from him or give a little on the top to someone else… and Paul’s still up there competing to be the most impactful.

I have health concerns for him, like Kawhi. For greatest peaks, I’m most interested in figuring out which player was the best at their best, which gives some reasoning to down weighting peaks (especially ones from unlikely/freak accidents). At the same time, if players show consistent injury concerns in the playoffs e.g. from wearing down under the strain, then that is a concern. With Paul, he was reasonably healthy in the 2014 playoffs and performed great (Thinking Basketball’s recent podcast talked about his impressive defense on both Curry and Durant). In 2015, I think he was a little better overall. Although he did go down in the playoffs, he also played 82 games, which is unusual for a lot of these guys — a bit more load management from a bit more forward-looking coach than Doc Rivers might have helped him remain healthy for a full playoff run.

HM: 2008 and 2009 Kobe, 2016 and 2017 Durant.
Open to arguments for both players and somewhat to others as well.

3. 2008 Kobe Bryant (> 2009)

As above, this seems like the tier where limited stamina/motor cause players’ offensive and defensive peaks to not be simultaneous (Kobe, Kawhi), players’ regular season and postseason peaks to not be simultaneous (Dirk, Giannis), or durability causes players to wear down over continuous runs (Wade, Paul, Kawhi, Giannis). The players that don’t have these issues as severely seem slightly less impactful in a plus minus sense per possession (Kobe, Durant).

With Kobe, I do think his per possession (particularly regular season) impact was lesser than some of his competitors, particularly because he seemed to be a neutral defender on average in the regular season. But one thing this project has made me appreciate is Kobe’s durability and volume advantage compared to his contemporaries. He actually played far more possessions per season, primarily due to his high percentage of games played (although he also had a respectably high minute load). In peak seasons, this games-played volume advantage seems to be greater than his per-possession impact disadvantage, to the extent where something like his total EPM volume over peak seasons looks to be among the best in this group.

Now we’re talking about a player who’s a neutral-ish defender on average over the regular season. The recent Thinking Basketball peaks podcast talked about how Kobe would seem like an outright negative defender during an unimportant regular season game against middling teams, then then it up for important matchups, then turn it up more for the playoffs. Now I’m not saying he’s the best defender of the group in 08/09. But I do think that change in defensive value based on effort is enough to boost him up a bit if he had more stamina.

In other words, I think if he had more stamina to play full-effort defense, I see that as enough of a boost to shrink some of his per-possession impact disadvantage. And while he didn’t have the motor/stamina to maintain such effort while playing 80 regular season games per season. And when the competition didn’t have the stamina to play so many games, used load management to help boost their per possession impact, or didn’t have the durability and would wear down under longer runs like Kobe had, then it feels wrong to punish Kobe. All else being roughly equal, I’d rather someone be available to play but coast defensively in less important regular season games than skip games or wear down and not be able to play.

Kobe’s at the intersection of being neutral to positive in both resilience (he retains value as the competition gets better) and scalability (he retains value as his teammates get better). That’s pretty important from a championship odds perspective. I’ve already touched on his defensive improvements in the playoffs (which admittedly come partially from flawed stamina than having a resilient defensive playstyle). But he’s also one of the most resilient shot makers ever. This combines to show some signal for resilience when comparing regular season and playoff data. Taking 10-year on/off in the RS, PS:

Spoiler:

On-Off (10 year)
Player: RS On-off per 100. PS On-off per 100. Percent improvement.
99–08 Garnett: +12.4. +15.2. Improves 23%.
97–06 Shaq: +10.5. +12.9. Improves 23%. (note: missing 94–96 prime).
01–10 Kobe: +7.5. +9.0. Improves 20%.
99–08 Duncan: +10.4. +9.7. Worsens -7%.
09–18 LeBron: +13.4. +9.9. Worsens -26%.
14–23 Curry: +14.6. +10.7. Worsens -27% [If ’13 replaces missing ’20, Curry’s +13.1. +12. Worsens -8%]
14–23 Kawhi: +7.4. +4.7. Worsens -36%
01–10 Nash: +7.3. 4.6. Worsens -37% [02–11 Nash’s +5.8. +8.1. Worsens -28%]
08–17 Paul: +13.8. +7.1. Worsens -48%.
12–21 Durant: +8.0. +4.1. Worsens -49%.
05–14 Wade: +8.1. +4.0. Worsens -51%.
03–12 Dirk: +11.7 +5. Worsens -57%.
Source: Basketball reference. Imperfect lace estimates, but good enough for a ballpark number

These are noisy numbers, and for long prime durations. Rotations change on the playoffs, and minutes go up, so I wouldn’t take the raw change too literally. Context like playing through injury or missing a playoffs in a certain year can also cause things to change. But relative to the competition, Kobe’s clearly in the upper echelon of playoff improvers.

In terms of ceiling raising, Kobe’s showed some great chemistry with his all star teammates in all of his championship runs. He was always too focused on scoring, but his blend of on-ball and off-ball action allows him to fit next to other ball dominant players. And he was always fairly cerebral, capable of good passes, and running more complex offensive schemes. Impressively, the 2009 Lakers are a top 20/25 team where, which is very respectable to do in your multi-year peak. I see 2008 as a slightly better version of 2009 Kobe, even if the 2009 team achieved more. So I went with 2008, although I see them as quite similar players, and I’m open to the argument that 2009 is better in the playoffs if anyone wants to make it.

4. 2016 Kevin Durant (> 2017 > 2014)
My post is getting long, so I’ll be briefer. Not quite an impact king, but better regular season performance than Dirk around his postseason peak, and more consistent playoffs than Wade (who had great runs in 06/09 but struggled in adjacent years, potentially due to health/durability issues) or Giannis. Not as great of a floor raiser due to limitations on his handle/playmaking, but definitely the most scalable of the remaining players in this tier. Fits great with surrounding talent offensively with his all-time shooting, spacing, hybrid on/off-ball scoring style, and defensive versatility. I like his ceiling raising offensively more than Wade, and his defensive versatility and team building more than Dirk. He is somewhat injury prone, but I do think he has better stamina/motor than some of the competition, and I don’t think he’s as injury prone under high load as a few other players either.

His team level performance is great
Two teams in the top 10. Of course, those teams were led by Curry, but putting that aside, he had the 2016 Thunder in the top 30.

[One_and_Done]

It strikes me that we're now getting to the point where the ballots are starting to diverge enough that we may need to start to consider a different voting mechanism, or else people are going to potentially going to get voted in with a small minority of voters.

I'm not sure anything major is needed, maybe just expand ballots to 5 or 6 votes.

[eminence]

Doesn't seem like a real problem yet at least, 4 players currently appear on the majority of ballots: Giannis, Kawhi, Dirk, Wade.

SGA/Kobe/CP3/KD/Nash the others receiving votes that I've seen.