Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #11-#12 Spots

[Cavsfansince84]

I don’t think anyone would deny that the Spurs were a good situation. But you said that “the spurs put 2 well fitting teammates together, nothing more.” There’s definitely a lot more to what is going on there than that, given that the Spurs also did great with Ginobili on and the Spurs’ other best players off and that that result holds true even in the most difficult starter states we can look at. And, in any event, the Spurs being a good situation is really not mutually exclusive with Ginobili being a better player than someone else, and you’re acting like it is. Even if you think Ginobili was in a great situation, it is very possible for the better player to also be in a better situation. Your position seems to basically just be that if you think a player was in a better situation, then all evidence that he was also a better player must be ignored because it’s just a product of situation. That seems like it’s clearly not a good approach. And, again, it feels like a particularly bad approach when talking about a guy who did really well against opposing starters without his team’s stars with him (at that point, it’s basically impossible to really keep saying his situation was good), and who also led his country to an Olympic gold medal despite not being American.

I think part of what should happen with Manu is taking a closer look at the Spurs in the 05 season because its kind of an unusual season. Duncan started out in I think the first 40-50 games having one of his best regular seasons and playing big minutes. Then he gets injured, misses I think about a month and then comes back but is on a major minutes restriction the last 15 games or so. I'd be sort of curious if we could break down Manu's 05 season based on those 3 sections of that season and how the Spurs/Manu did after Duncan got injured.

[homecourtloss]

i'm a huge fan of Manu, but playing that many few minutes then the other players that we're talking about here really gives me pause. That said, when watching him, his game, matches the impact numbers since he really has no weaknesses and only strength in just about every aspect of the game.

On another note since it has been mentioned a few times now, xRAPM it's just the newer version of RPM. I recall that RPM used to get cited quite a few times by some posters, but now all of a sudden XRAPM is not liked for obvious reasons.

[One_and_Done]

While it's too soon to vote for Manu, it is definitely accurate to say that the 05 playoffs was a coming out party for him. That playoffs he became a star.

[jalengreen]

In two-year RAPM, Draymond peaks at +8.3 in 2015-2016, 2nd behind LeBron James (+8.6). Manu Ginobili peaks at +7.1 in 2005-2006, 1st.

For three-year RAPM, it's Draymond at +7.7 in 2015-2017, 3rd behind LeBron James (+9.9) and Stephen Curry (+8.1). Manu at +8.0 in 2005-2007 which ranks 1st.

Manu's xRAPM | EPM (EW):

2005: +6.4 | +6.4 (+14.2)
2006: +5.6 | +5.7 (+10.7)
2007: +5.8 | +6.1 (+12.9)

Draymond's xRAPM | EPM (EW):

2015: +5.5 | +4.3 (+12.4)
2016: +7.2 | +5.6 (+16.6)
2017: +6.8 | +4.5 (+12.8)

Regular season rate impact looks better for Draymond by xRAPM while it's better for Manu by EPM, though the minute difference puts Draymond ahead in cumulative impact by EW.

Minute difference also means that despite Manu's EPM in the 2005 playoffs (+7.3) being far ahead of Draymond's in 2016 (+5.1), Draymond is only slightly behind in EW (+5.1 vs +4.9). Both players led their teams in both metrics fwiw.

I think the peak impact profile is similar, I'd probably lean Draymond's way, though. For a project like this, I think it's quite reasonable to prefer Manu because of factors like (a) one won the championship while one didn't (not due to Draymond's lack of trying in Game 7, but still - thanks Steph), (b) Draymond lowered his team's championship odds with the suspension, and (c) 2004 olympics are a great signal for Manu. Main thing in Draymond's favor is the minutes, which is certainly substantial. Ballots get tough here no doubt

All this seems pretty reasonable to me. I will say that the factors you list at the bottom of your post are certainly a much bigger factor here for me than parsing through impact data and deciding I think Ginobili looks a bit better. I do look at the panoply of impact data and box-correlated impact data and conclude that I think peak Ginobili’s data looks better on balance than peak Draymond’s, but as I noted in my prior post I don’t think Ginobili is light years ahead. One could even potentially look at the difference in minutes and decide that they’re similar (or even that Draymond looks better at that point). My view that 2005 Ginobili was solidly greater than 2016 Draymond hinges much more on the fact that peak Ginobili won a title and I think he was his team’s best player that year, while peak Draymond did not win a title and was never his team’s best player. The fact that Manu has that 2004 Olympics signal is also a minor factor, and the point you mentioned of Draymond missing a Finals game also has to be a factor. I dinged 2021 Giannis a fair bit for missing two conference finals games, and I think 2016 Draymond missing a Finals game is a similarly serious issue (particularly when the game Draymond missed was much higher leverage—a later round, against a tougher opponent, in a closer series).

One other thing I will say is that I just really don’t like xRAPM. I’ve cited it occasionally when listing data, but Engelmann using a prior that is previous years’ RAPM basically makes for some very weird results that seem to have lagged effects while he’s purporting to report things out for specific years. Like, if a measure is telling me that LeBron was better in 2011 than 2009 (which xRAPM does), then I think there’s a problem. The problem here often comes when there’s a significant change in a player’s quality year to year. The measure just does a really bad job at picking up on that. And I definitely think 2005 Ginobili is a good example of that. Draymond improved quickly too, but peak Draymond (i.e. 2016) at least had a very good runway of 2015 to improve his numbers (i.e. since 2015 Draymond was better than 2004 Ginobili, this has a big effect on the data that Engelmann is reporting out for 2016 Draymond vs. 2005 Ginobili). I talk about this issue a lot with Engelmann’s stuff, but it’s a pretty persistent issue that I think creates problems quite a lot with that measure. There’s not a lot riding on that particular issue here, since peak Draymond is higher than Ginobili but it’s pretty close regardless, so it doesn’t move the needle a whole lot. But I just feel the need to raise this issue again, as I very frequently do when people cite to xRAPM data that seems to implicate this major issue with the measure.

Yeah I certainly think those factors I listed are more than relevant (why I listed them really).

I don't like to focus on any single metric anyway. I prefer to look at multiple metrics whenever I can. EPM is probably my favorite overall but I don't actually like it for defense so there's nothing I'm in love with. In this case, Draymond's cumulative impact looks better by EPM (via EW) anyway (+16.6 in 2016 for Dray vs +14.2 in 2005 for Manu - not sure if Manu has another season that's higher, haven't checked) so the full picture looks good.

Ultimately I'm not voting, but I'm pretty confident that over the course of 722 additional minutes (that's like ~24 games of playing 30 minutes per), 2016 Draymond had a greater impact than 2005 Ginobili. But this is a point that can be disagreed on, similarly with whether Manu was the best player on the 2005 Spurs. While the championship variable naturally can't be, and you've made it clear how you view the "greatness" component of this project so I think you *should* have Manu over Dray as a result.

[lessthanjake]

I don’t think anyone would deny that the Spurs were a good situation. But you said that “the spurs put 2 well fitting teammates together, nothing more.” There’s definitely a lot more to what is going on there than that, given that the Spurs also did great with Ginobili on and the Spurs’ other best players off and that that result holds true even in the most difficult starter states we can look at. And, in any event, the Spurs being a good situation is really not mutually exclusive with Ginobili being a better player than someone else, and you’re acting like it is. Even if you think Ginobili was in a great situation, it is very possible for the better player to also be in a better situation. Your position seems to basically just be that if you think a player was in a better situation, then all evidence that he was also a better player must be ignored because it’s just a product of situation. That seems like it’s clearly not a good approach. And, again, it feels like a particularly bad approach when talking about a guy who did really well against opposing starters without his team’s stars with him (at that point, it’s basically impossible to really keep saying his situation was good), and who also led his country to an Olympic gold medal despite not being American.

I think part of what should happen with Manu is taking a closer look at the Spurs in the 05 season because its kind of an unusual season. Duncan started out in I think the first 40-50 games having one of his best regular seasons and playing big minutes. Then he gets injured, misses I think about a month and then comes back but is on a major minutes restriction the last 15 games or so. I'd be sort of curious if we could break down Manu's 05 season based on those 3 sections of that season and how the Spurs/Manu did after Duncan got injured.

I think Duncan’s actually significant injury came on March 20 that season, so it was pretty far into the year. And he was only back (and on a minutes restriction) for the last four games of the year, so there’s not much of anything there and there wasn’t a whole lot riding on those four games (indeed, there was literally nothing at all riding on the last game, and it was very unlikely by the second-to-last game that anything would be riding on it). In the 12 games Duncan missed with that injury, though, the Spurs went 8-4, and they had a +11.60 net rating in Ginobili’s minutes on the court.

[lessthanjake]

i'm a huge fan of Manu, but playing that many few minutes then the other players that we're talking about here really gives me pause. That said, when watching him, his game, matches the impact numbers since he really has no weaknesses and only strength in just about every aspect of the game.

On another note since it has been mentioned a few times now, xRAPM it's just the newer version of RPM. I recall that RPM used to get cited quite a few times by some posters, but now all of a sudden XRAPM is not liked for obvious reasons.

Okay, so this time you only lasted a matter of hours before proving once again how right I was to be skeptical that you could manage to stop:

If you think my post wasn’t accurately assessing your behavior, then not making rude posts referring to me should be easy enough for you to do. Let’s see if you can manage it. I’m not going to hold my breath, but maybe you’ll surprise me.

Anyways, while Engelmann did both, xRAPM and RPM are obviously very different, and particularly so with regards to the specific issue I identified. The poster-child example I use about the issues with lagged effects in xRAPM is the fact that it has 2011 LeBron over 2009 LeBron. But RPM had 2009 LeBron miles above 2011 LeBron (+10.05 in 2009 vs. +5.74 in 2011). It’s really not the same measure (nor is it just a mildly updated version like you appear to be suggesting) and it evidently does not have the same issue. I don’t know whether that’s because RPM didn’t use previous years’ RAPM as a prior or what (because Engelmann’s stuff is a black box, so it’s hard to know anything for sure). But yeah, I’m obviously not going to have the same criticism for a measure that doesn’t appear to have the same issue!

For what it’s worth, unlike xRAPM, RPM has 2005 Ginobili higher than 2016 Draymond (+5.94 for Ginobili vs. +3.90 for Draymond), and actually by enough of a margin that Ginobili is also higher in RPM Wins despite playing fewer minutes.

[f4p]

But also, yeah, winning the title matters in an assessment of the greatness of a player’s year, even though different players obviously don’t have the same teammates or face the same opponents.

So they don't face the same opponents or have the same teammates but we'll reduce it to something that essentially treats them like they do, winning a title or not. That doesn't seem fair.

Comparing ginobili to people like cp3 and harden and dirk feels like an insult to those guys. If Manu wants to be compared to those guys, he should have thrown a franchise on his back for a decade, played the big minutes, answered all the tough questions, had his game dissected on talk shows, and led a team deep in the playoffs. Or averaged more than 21/6/4. But muh rate statistics isn't going to cut it. 2005 Manu is the supporting actor who stole a movie one time. And maybe even made the movie when we watch it again on TV. And could steal entire scenes in any movie. But there's a reason his name isn't above the title when the studio needs the big opening weekend. Because everyone knows people aren't going to see the movie if it is. And he doesn't get clowned if the movie flops. Manu above those guys is really saying "Manu +Duncan" above those guys and that's not fair to those guys.

Being the main guy means everyone gets to see all your warts because there's no where to hide. Being Manu means being able to take a back seat any time you need if you know Parker or Duncan have it going. It's an easier role that doesn't come with the pressure of the top role.

So I don’t actually entirely disagree with this (though I think a lot of the precise wording goes too far).

I probably held back in the wording.

It’s basically why I intend to vote for someone like 2009 Kobe and 2011 Dirk over Ginobili, even though I’m not entirely certain I think those guys were better players than peak Ginobili.

It feels like peak ginobili and his agent should have asked for max contracts like these other guys.

The issue is that the guys beyond that all fall into one of a few buckets: (1) great players who unquestionably led their team but didn’t actually win a title with their team (and, in most cases, didn’t even make the Finals);

Is there any reason to believe peak ginobili could replace 2018 harden and knock off the warriors with one hand tied behind his back?

[lessthanjake]

But also, yeah, winning the title matters in an assessment of the greatness of a player’s year, even though different players obviously don’t have the same teammates or face the same opponents.

So they don't face the same opponents or have the same teammates but we'll reduce it to something that essentially treats them like they do, winning a title or not. That doesn't seem fair.

Yeah, I’m not suggesting winning a title or not is the only thing that matters. That should be obvious by the fact that I’m not anywhere near voting for 2024 Tatum, for instance. But yeah, winning a title does matter for an assessment of greatness. I don’t think that’s particularly controversial. More generally, everyone is inherently in a different situation but we can only really judge them on what actually happened, which means that there can’t actually be a level playing field. Judging NBA basketball players will never allow for that. Trying to level the playing field with speculation of how well one player would do in another player’s situation amounts to primarily judging players based on fan fiction that one has created for one’s self. You’re free to take that approach and I even think discussion about such speculation can be fun, but it’s not an approach I’m keen on for the purposes of voting in this project.

The issue is that the guys beyond that all fall into one of a few buckets: (1) great players who unquestionably led their team but didn’t actually win a title with their team (and, in most cases, didn’t even make the Finals);

Is there any reason to believe peak ginobili could replace 2018 harden and knock off the warriors with one hand tied behind his back?

I don’t see why there’s much reason we should care essentially at all about the answer to that hypothetical for the purposes of assessing the greatness of Ginobili’s 2005 year. I have no idea exactly how well peak Ginobili would do on the 2018 Rockets, and neither do you. Ginobili was not on the 2018 Rockets.

If we want to go down the pure-speculation route, I actually think that that team would be a pretty good situation for him, because (1) his playstyle would probably fit that team pretty well; (2) you could very likely get away with not playing him super high minutes without much loss on a team that really feasted on doing well with its stars staggered; and (3) Ginobili did very well in minutes surrounded by quality role players. Whether that means it would be enough to beat the 2018 Warriors, who knows. If he played like he did in the 2005 playoffs, maybe! But it’s all just speculation. What I know for sure is what Ginobili did on the 2005 Spurs and what Harden did on the 2018 Rockets, and my vote will be based on that.

[iggymcfrack]

i'm a huge fan of Manu, but playing that many few minutes then the other players that we're talking about here really gives me pause. That said, when watching him, his game, matches the impact numbers since he really has no weaknesses and only strength in just about every aspect of the game.

On another note since it has been mentioned a few times now, xRAPM it's just the newer version of RPM. I recall that RPM used to get cited quite a few times by some posters, but now all of a sudden XRAPM is not liked for obvious reasons.

Manu played heavy enough minutes when the Spurs needed him to. In his peak season of 2005, he played 37 and 36 minutes Games 5 and 6 against the Sonics after Pop decided he needed him in the starting lineup. Then he averaged 37 MPG in the conference finals and 36 MPG in the Finals. That’s more MPG than Curry played in the conference finals and finals in 2016 for instance.

[iggymcfrack]

But also, yeah, winning the title matters in an assessment of the greatness of a player’s year, even though different players obviously don’t have the same teammates or face the same opponents.

So they don't face the same opponents or have the same teammates but we'll reduce it to something that essentially treats them like they do, winning a title or not. That doesn't seem fair.

Comparing ginobili to people like cp3 and harden and dirk feels like an insult to those guys. If Manu wants to be compared to those guys, he should have thrown a franchise on his back for a decade, played the big minutes, answered all the tough questions, had his game dissected on talk shows, and led a team deep in the playoffs. Or averaged more than 21/6/4. But muh rate statistics isn't going to cut it. 2005 Manu is the supporting actor who stole a movie one time. And maybe even made the movie when we watch it again on TV. And could steal entire scenes in any movie. But there's a reason his name isn't above the title when the studio needs the big opening weekend. Because everyone knows people aren't going to see the movie if it is. And he doesn't get clowned if the movie flops. Manu above those guys is really saying "Manu +Duncan" above those guys and that's not fair to those guys.

Being the main guy means everyone gets to see all your warts because there's no where to hide. Being Manu means being able to take a back seat any time you need if you know Parker or Duncan have it going. It's an easier role that doesn't come with the pressure of the top role.

So I don’t actually entirely disagree with this (though I think a lot of the precise wording goes too far).

I probably held back in the wording.

It’s basically why I intend to vote for someone like 2009 Kobe and 2011 Dirk over Ginobili, even though I’m not entirely certain I think those guys were better players than peak Ginobili.

It feels like peak ginobili and his agent should have asked for max contracts like these other guys.

The issue is that the guys beyond that all fall into one of a few buckets: (1) great players who unquestionably led their team but didn’t actually win a title with their team (and, in most cases, didn’t even make the Finals);

Is there any reason to believe peak ginobili could replace 2018 harden and knock off the warriors with one hand tied behind his back?

Yeah, absolutely. Manu would be an amazing fit next to CP3 since he’s better at playing off ball and they’d be a ridiculous defensive backcourt together. I mean IDK if Manu could finish off the Ws in 5 before Chris Paul got hurt, but I think he’d do at least well as Harden on that team and he’d be a lot less likely to choke in Games 6 and 7.

[TrueLAfan]

#11 Dirk 2011. Again, I think 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. I mean, Rashard Lewis could hit threes at efficiently as Dirk--but he wasn’t as much of a big or scorer. Same with Keith Van Horn. And they were kind of combo forwards; Dirk was a big that could and did defend pretty well on the low post. I remember the “irk” jokes (i.e. “Dirk has no D”), but he improved as he got older and, in his peak period, was above average there. (The fact that the game moved toward his strengths was a factor, but still.) In other words, I think dinging Dirk for not being a rim protector is missing the forest for the trees. And count me in for considering the “how would he have fit in for the Warriors?” to be a nothing burger.

#12 Kobe 2009. I’m open to changing this and will understand if Kobe doesn’t get in here. It’s tough for me to distinguish between peak CP3 and Dirk and Kobe and Durant and (now) Manu here. But of those three, I think Kobe had the most consistency and impact. I’m aware of the statistical analysis and evidence regarding his impact. There’s so much any viewpoint or side can find/pin numbers to justify having him higher or lower. It becomes more of an exercise in “who you like,” imo. And that's fine. (And I also agree that Manu is an especially additive player, and that has intrinsically high value.) But I still go with Kobe, which kind of surprises me. I am not particularly a Kobe fan. But Kobe’s gravity seemed to be greatest in the second championship runs, and he simply played a lot with great effect. 3000 minutes as a top 7 caliber player on both ends for a team that was Top 3 in offensive and defensive rating, and carrying that through the playoffs and finals—there’s too much there there. I’ll give him the nod for that.

#13 Durant 2017. I get that his team was loaded. I get he got opportunities that other players being mentioned may have not. I get that he “only” played 68 games. But he was the best player on one of the great teams of all time that had *another* great player, and faced off against *another* great player in the finals. And in the postseason in particular, I thought Durant was the best in his group. Kind of a dead heat between this season and 2014—Durant may have been a fraction *better* in 2014. But he got a title in 2017, and for “peak” that barely scrapes that year up for me.

#14 Manu 2005. Color me convinced. I get the comments that consider Manu not to be an alpha player carrying a team, and that he was a sixth man. And, yes, I think he was a role player. But I’d also say that Manu’s gift was to fill so many roles, so that he was a massive floor lifter in virtually any circumstance. And he was better than good in all those situations. And the minutes/amount of play is less important, partly because of that extreme portability, partly because Pop was shifting into the reduced minutes/games scheme for player time in his coaching career so the Spurs frequently had key players between 27 and 20 mpg, and partly because it simply worked. You can’t argue with success, and Manu was key to that success.

[Doctor MJ]

On another note since it has been mentioned a few times now, xRAPM it's just the newer version of RPM. I recall that RPM used to get cited quite a few times by some posters, but now all of a sudden XRAPM is not liked for obvious reasons.

I’m sorry but you don’t have a sense of the timeline at all.

Xrapm came before rpm. Rpm began as the ESPN branded version of xrapm, with Englemann attached to both. When Englemann created a new site separate from ESPN, he re-emphasized the xrapm brand.

And as far as criticisms go, I was critical of xrapm from the moment it came out all those years for specific reasons

What Englemann was interested in was creating something to predict future results using no other data but his algorithm, which is just not how basketball analysts work.

Hence, he was doing stuff like including height into his metric. From his perspective, any information that could have correlation should get factored in, and understandably so, but he’s also not a guy anyone should be asking what actually happened on the court.

So yeah, many of us have always been reluctant to use his xrapm data, from a time before we saw how given players ranked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[homecourtloss]

On another note since it has been mentioned a few times now, xRAPM it's just the newer version of RPM. I recall that RPM used to get cited quite a few times by some posters, but now all of a sudden XRAPM is not liked for obvious reasons.

I’m sorry but you don’t have a sense of the timeline at all.

Xrapm came before rpm. Rpm began as the ESPN branded version of xrapm, with Englemann attached to both. When Englemann created a new site separate from ESPN, he re-emphasized the xrapm brand.

And as far as criticisms go, I was critical of xrapm from the moment it came out all those years for specific reasons

What Englemann was interested in was creating something to predict future results using no other data but his algorithm, which is just not how basketball analysts work.

Hence, he was doing stuff like including height into his metric. From his perspective, any information that could have correlation should get factored in, and understandably so, but he’s also not a guy anyone should be asking what actually happened on the court.

So yeah, many of us have always been reluctant to use his xrapm data, from a time before we saw how given players ranked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting use of a very aggressive tone you don't use with others. Kind of surprised here.

In any case, current xRAPM isn't the same as the first xRAPM that came out a long time ago that most people here know, and we have multiple old threads about. ESPN and JE began publishing RPM, a version of his original and particular that metric went through at least four or five different formula changes with drastically different results (I don't recall the people who posted about RPM discuss how different the model was with each generation with quite different results). now he has published his tweaked xRAPM that's built upon his previous models.

[f4p]

But also, yeah, winning the title matters in an assessment of the greatness of a player’s year, even though different players obviously don’t have the same teammates or face the same opponents.

So they don't face the same opponents or have the same teammates but we'll reduce it to something that essentially treats them like they do, winning a title or not. That doesn't seem fair.

So I don’t actually entirely disagree with this (though I think a lot of the precise wording goes too far).

I probably held back in the wording.

It’s basically why I intend to vote for someone like 2009 Kobe and 2011 Dirk over Ginobili, even though I’m not entirely certain I think those guys were better players than peak Ginobili.

It feels like peak ginobili and his agent should have asked for max contracts like these other guys.

The issue is that the guys beyond that all fall into one of a few buckets: (1) great players who unquestionably led their team but didn’t actually win a title with their team (and, in most cases, didn’t even make the Finals);

Is there any reason to believe peak ginobili could replace 2018 harden and knock off the warriors with one hand tied behind his back?

Yeah, absolutely. Manu would be an amazing fit next to CP3 since he’s better at playing off ball and they’d be a ridiculous defensive backcourt together. I mean IDK if Manu could finish off the Ws in 5 before Chris Paul got hurt, but I think he’d do at least well as Harden on that team and he’d be a lot less likely to choke in Games 6 and 7.

I can't tell if some of you guys are serious or I'm being trolled. Yeah Manu is just superman now and can do anything. The 2004 spurs couldn't keep from losing 4 straight to the finals runner up and the 2006 spurs couldn't beat the mavs with Duncan having one of his greatest series ever, but now he might just wipe the floor with a top 5 team in 5 games, lol. MVP harden with his league leading box score stats and +20 on/off in the playoffs is nothing compared to peak Manu. And even better, without cp3 he'd totally win the series against a far, far better team than the spurs ever beat. Also, i love how moving off ball has become a catch all term for infinite value, kind of like gravity.

Keep in mind, the rockets lost game 6 by about 30 with harden putting up something like 32/8/7 so Manu would need about a 60 spot. And harden went for 32/6/6 in game 7 and the rockets lost by 9 so we're gonna need at least a 42/6/6 to win even by 1 point. Against the best defense in the playoffs. Let me check all the Manu 40 point playoff games he had. Hmm, zero of them. Did score 39 against the mighty 2005 sonics though, I'm sure that's the same thing. Otherwise, nothing over 34. I'm sure playing 33 minutes and letting Trevor ariza run the offense for the other 15 minutes would have gotten it done.

Maybe Manu should have been an alpha for one series win ever before we start bestowing such hypothetical accomplishments upon him.

[f4p]

. What I know for sure is what Ginobili did on the 2005 Spurs and what Harden did on the 2018 Rockets, and my vote will be based on that.

Isn't that just the ringz argument?

[ReggiesKnicks]

. What I know for sure is what Ginobili did on the 2005 Spurs and what Harden did on the 2018 Rockets, and my vote will be based on that.

Isn't that just the ringz argument?

Harden injured CP3

[lessthanjake]

. What I know for sure is what Ginobili did on the 2005 Spurs and what Harden did on the 2018 Rockets, and my vote will be based on that.

Isn't that just the ringz argument?

Umm, no? “What Ginobili did on the 2005 Spurs and what Harden did on the 2018 Rockets” certainly includes how they played individually. What that sentence means is simply that I am going to base my vote on what actually happened in reality rather than on speculative fan fiction hypotheticals that I cannot really know the answer to. How I might think 2005 Ginobili would do if transported into a fictional world where he’s on the 2018 Rockets may be an interesting thought experiment, but it will not figure into my actual vote. Refusing to base my argument on hypotheticals like that is not “just the ringz argument.”

[lessthanjake]

Okay, so I’m going to put down my vote now, but it’s not really set in stone and I think this round is very difficult:

My Vote

1. 2011 Dirk Nowitzki

2. 2009 Kobe Bryant

3. 2005 Steve Nash

4. 2005 Manu Ginobili

I think putting Dirk and Kobe at the top is pretty straightforward and is explained in my posts in prior threads. To give a really shortened version, they played really well in the regular season and then played really well in the playoffs to lead their teams to the title. That is kind of the essence of a great year IMO, and with everyone else, there’s some caveat where they didn’t quite do that. I’ve been voting for the guys who did that, and these are the ones that are left.

The votes after that are really difficult for me. The players I’m seriously considering for these spots include 2005 Nash, 2005 Ginobili, 2018 Harden, 2008 Chris Paul, 2017 Durant, and 2020 Anthony Davis. I don’t think there’s a particularly easy answer here. What we have are a set of players that are either (1) MVP-level players that had amazing years but couldn’t quite lead their team to a title; and (2) great players that won a title and played great doing so but weren’t necessarily their team’s best player. I don’t really think either one of those categories is inherently better than the other, so it’s not immediately easy to parse through.

As an initial matter, the first two that I cut out of my thinking were 2017 Durant and 2020 Anthony Davis. My line of thinking there is basically that I just don’t quite see the pure impact from them over larger samples. They played amazingly in the relevant playoffs, but I just look at RAPM and see them as the least impactful. This is particularly true of Anthony Davis, but Durant doesn’t quite peak out at the same large-sample impact that the others do either.

So that leaves Nash, Chris Paul, Ginobili, and Harden. I could talk myself into voting for any of these guys.

I think Harden’s case here is that the 2018 Rockets regular season was just incredibly impressive, his box numbers were amazing, and he can’t really be dinged much for the playoff loss given that it was in 7 games to the Durant Warriors with his co-star getting injured while they were ahead in the series. It’s a really strong year for Harden.

For Chris Paul, his case would be that his long-term impact numbers are always amazing, box data really likes him from that era (for instance, he had a 10+ BPM that year), and he was really good in the playoffs and can’t be dinged for losing in 7 games to a more talented team.

For Nash, his case is primarily that he led the best offense ever, simultaneously putting up the highest on-court rORTG we have ever seen in the regular season and I believe also the highest on-court rORTG we have ever seen in the playoffs (and I know the Suns as a team overall had the highest playoff rORTG). Basically, there’s a good argument that no team has ever played as well on offense with their star player on the court as the 2005 Suns did with Nash. Yes, they played a lot of offensively slanted lineups (i.e. Amare at center). But Nash’s offense was unbelievably good, and it was true for that entire era, not just that year. I tend to think that that era’s Nash was probably the best offensive player ever and for me this was his best year. His defense definitely left something to be desired, but the overall impact was still massive. And he had an incredible playoff run individually—particularly in the Dallas series, which was amongst the best series I’ve ever seen someone play, especially since he had to actually take on a big scoring load and proved that he could play very well that way too.

For Ginobili, I’ve been making his case throughout this thread, so I won’t repeat it all. Basically, I think 2005 Ginobili was probably the most impactful player in the NBA on a per-possession or per-minute basis (even over Nash IMO, though it’s close). And he played incredibly well in the playoffs and won the title. So there’s actually a pretty good argument that he should be squarely put in the group of players we’ve already voted in or are about to vote in (assuming Dirk and Kobe will make it this round) that played great in the regular season, played great in the playoffs, and led their team to the title as their team’s best player. The main caveat with Ginobili is the minutes. And it does matter. Without that, I’d have been voting for Ginobili multiple threads ago and would have no problem putting him above these other three guys. With the minutes issue, it becomes difficult. One thing that moves me a bit on the importance of that issue is that in the business end of the playoffs that year, Ginobili’s minutes weren’t all that low. Indeed, from the point they were tied 2-2 in the second round and Popovich opted to give Ginobili heavier minutes, Ginobili averaged 36.2 minutes per game the rest of the playoffs. 2008 Chris Paul and 2005 Nash did play 40+ MPG in the playoffs, so there’s still a difference even then, but 2018 Harden played 36.5 MPG in the playoffs (and both of them played fewer minutes in part due to lower minutes in blowout games), so I’d say 2005 Ginobili was able to scale up to pretty normal minutes in the business end of the playoffs. At which point, I don’t think the minutes issue can be held against him *too* much. It’s still an issue, since the regular season happened and so did the early stages of the playoffs where his minutes were lower, but I do think it matters that he scaled up in the highest-leverage games and was still amazing. As a minor issue, I do also slightly consider the 2004 Olympics—which happened right before the 2005 season. Not sure if we’re allowed to consider non-NBA stuff, and it’s not getting much weight from me, but if we’re allowed to consider it then it does add to how great his year was (and if we’re not allowed to, then at least it provides a very good signal).

The decision between these four is difficult. In terms of going with Nash, I am very taken by the ridiculous offense, and I was more impressed by how he played in the playoffs than I was by 2018 Harden or 2008 Chris Paul, so he feels like he is the choice over them by a hair. Meanwhile, with Ginobili, the fact that I think he was the best player on a championship team is a big deal, since I’ve already pretty systematically voted for everyone else I thought that about because I think that is such a great achievement. Admittedly, I also think that I’m probably a bit influenced by the fact that that era’s Nash and Manu are the two players here that I definitely watched the most (since the Nash Suns were my favorite NBA team ever and that era’s Spurs was my most hated team ever), so they just had the most opportunity to impress me in terms of eye test. That probably does affect my vote, but then again being extremely impressed by someone with the eye test (which I was, for both Nash and Ginobili) is certainly a valid consideration.

[One_and_Done]

If you put 09 Kobe in place of Butler for the three runs in 20, 22, and 23, there's really no doubt the Hewt do worse. Kind of baffling Kobe is getting votes while Jimmy gets zero traction.

[eminence]

No rush on Bam's #2.