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

[Cavsfansince84]

I think Manu vs 2016 Draymond needs to be addressed a bit more before I'd consider voting for Manu yet. Both were #2's on their respective teams. Even if we want to say Manu performed better than Duncan in the 05 playoffs overall Duncan was the one getting by far the most shots attempts while also anchoring the defense(which I think does play into things like ts%). Duncan had 425 fga and 205fta in that playoffs while Manu had 286 & 185. Plus Parker and Horry also played pretty well during that run. I think Duncan may have been the best Spur in two series and Manu in the other two.
I also have some difficulty getting past the 30mpg for Manu and from what I see his mpg didn't go up much after Duncan went out and you'd want Manu to sort of pick up the offensive load. Lastly, despite it saying he played 74 games in that rs it actually has him as not dressing for 8 of them which likley means he played in 66 which is not that great.
Butler is sort of an interesting candidate with the drawback of games played. I think he declined too much during the 2023 run after the 1st rd to use that year which leaves the 2020 season/finals run. He prob does deserve some consideration though it might be too soon.

[One_and_Done]

No rush on Bam's #2.

Bam led the Heat even worse than Kobe last season. 37 wins, and one of the most brutal 1st round sweeps ever.

[jalengreen]

I think Manu vs 2016 Draymond needs to be addressed a bit more before I'd consider voting for Manu yet. Both were #2's on their respective teams. Even if we want to say Manu performed better than Duncan in the 05 playoffs overall Duncan was the one getting by far the most shots attempts while also anchoring the defense(which I think does play into things like ts%). Duncan had 425 fga and 205fta in that playoffs while Manu had 286 & 185. Plus Parker and Horry also played pretty well during that run. I think Duncan may have been the best Spur in two series and Manu in the other two.
I also have some difficulty getting past the 30mpg for Manu and from what I see his mpg didn't go up much after Duncan went out and you'd want Manu to sort of pick up the offensive load. Lastly, despite it saying he played 74 games in that rs it actually has him as not dressing for 8 of them which likley means he played in 66 which is not that great.
Butler is sort of an interesting candidate with the drawback of games played. I think he declined too much during the 2023 run after the 1st rd to use that year which leaves the 2020 season/finals run. He prob does deserve some consideration though it might be too soon.

I don't follow what you're saying here. He didn't dress for 8/82 games, so he played 82-8=74 games, no? Where is this 66 coming from

[lessthanjake]

I think Manu vs 2016 Draymond needs to be addressed a bit more before I'd consider voting for Manu yet. Both were #2's on their respective teams. Even if we want to say Manu performed better than Duncan in the 05 playoffs overall Duncan was the one getting by far the most shots attempts while also anchoring the defense(which I think does play into things like ts%). Duncan had 425 fga and 205fta in that playoffs while Manu had 286 & 185. Plus Parker and Horry also played pretty well during that run. I think Duncan may have been the best Spur in two series and Manu in the other two.
I also have some difficulty getting past the 30mpg for Manu and from what I see his mpg didn't go up much after Duncan went out and you'd want Manu to sort of pick up the offensive load. Lastly, despite it saying he played 74 games in that rs it actually has him as not dressing for 8 of them which likley means he played in 66 which is not that great.
Butler is sort of an interesting candidate with the drawback of games played. I think he declined too much during the 2023 run after the 1st rd to use that year which leaves the 2020 season/finals run. He prob does deserve some consideration though it might be too soon.

He didn’t dress for 8 games, which is why he had 74 games instead of 82 games (82-74=8).

As for the Draymond thing, I’ve talked about my thinking on that a fair bit in this thread already, so won’t belabor the point too much, but basically: (1) Manu actually won the title in his peak year and Draymond did not; (2) Manu was actually probably his team’s best-performing player in his peak year and Draymond was not; and (3) Draymond has to be dinged at least some amount for missing an entire Finals game (even if we just conceptualize that as merely helping to mitigate the minutes issue, it means Manu actually played more minutes in the 2005 Finals than Draymond did in 2016). The fact that 2005 Manu was probably the best player that year on a championship team seems to distinguish him pretty heavily from any Draymond year, even if we might think they have analogous career paths more generally.

The other thing that moves me a little bit regarding Draymond and Ginobili is that I am more impressed by the consistency of Ginobili’s impact. This is probably a bit unfair to Draymond in a peaks project, because I do genuinely think he was probably materially better in 2016 than he was in any other year, but I look at something like five-year RAPM on NBArapm and see Draymond having 3 full five-year spans in his career in the top 10 in the NBA, while Ginobili has 11 of those. The fact that Ginobili had such consistent top-tier impact across his entire career, while Draymond’s top-tier impact was a bit more short-lived does give me even more confidence in the impact numbers Ginobili had in his peak.

The final thing I’d note is the Olympics piece. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to directly consider that, but it was actually a major achievement that Ginobili had within the same one-year span as the 2005 season, which has independent value itself, while also providing some pretty compelling evidence of him being really successful as the clear best player on a team—which is something we do not have from Draymond, since he’s basically always been with Steph (except for a disastrous 2020 season).

[Cavsfansince84]

11. 2011 Dirk(06). I don't think Dirk needs much explanation at this point.
12. 09 Kobe(03). see above
13. 2020 AD(15). I can't overlook the two way play and how good he was in both the rs and ps. Arguably on the same level as LeBron throughout that playoff run. Hit some big shots. Maybe a bit of a ding for the weirdness of the season but he got it done.
14. 2014 KD(16). Just a monster season. Led Okc to the 3rd best srs even with Russ missing 36 games. Then overall a strong playoff run imo before losing in 6 to the Spurs in the wcf. 384 ts add even without WB and everyone knowing he was going to beat them.

[Cavsfansince84]

I don't follow what you're saying here. He didn't dress for 8/82 games, so he played 82-8=74 games, no? Where is this 66 coming from

He only has 74 games total listed on his game log. 8 of which say he only dressed. If it were 82 minus 8 then it should show him playing in 74 which it doesn't. It shows 74 total which includes 8 no dress. I could be wrong but that is what it shows.

[jalengreen]

He didn’t dress for 8 games, which is why he had 74 games instead of 82 games (82-74=8).

I don't follow what you're saying here. He didn't dress for 8/82 games, so he played 82-8=74 games, no? Where is this 66 coming from

He only has 74 games total listed on his game log. 8 of which say he only dressed. If it were 82 minus 8 then it should show him playing in 74 which it doesn't. It shows 74 total which includes 8 no dress. I could be wrong but that is what it shows.

When it says that Manu Ginobili played in 74 games, it is referring to the number of games in which he played in

What you see on the game log does not count the ones he did not dress for

[Doctor MJ]

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.

So you and I think very similarly on Ginobili, and yeah, it comes down to minutes, and I'm frustrated in my own analysis not being able to point to anything to give me what I'd consider to be a satisfactory approach to factoring in the minutes.

I will say that I expect to have Kobe #1 on my ballot this time around, but that I'd have Ginobili above him on a per possession basis, so I'm already holding Ginobili back because of the minutes issue. The problem comes from not knowing how much to penalize him.

Last ballot I had Kobe, KD & Nash and not Manu, and the same arguments for them over Manu (minutes) apply to most everyone else, so where will it make sense to slot him in?

I'll be thinking about it more.

[Doctor MJ]

A good question worth thinking through.

I'll point out briefly that since the MVP ballot only goes 5 deep, placement beyond the Top 5 really isn't anything to take seriously - but as I say this, it's not like I think voters thought of him as a top 10 player.

Re: should Manu gotten far more accolades? Absolutely, the voters in general underrated him by a massive margin... and so did the rest of us.

Re: best player on his team? Over the course of the complete '04-05 season I'd say he was. Generally though he wasn't, because Duncan was. This was a team winning generally with defense, and Duncan was the defensive anchor of the team.

Re: arguing him over MVPs or top 2-3 MVP finishers. This is too general of a statement to get fully addressed, but if you're asking whether I rank him over peak Westbrook or Rose, yes, absolutely. Ginobili's lesser minutes would always hinder his actual MVP candidacy, but there's no question in my mind who I'd rather have if I were trying to win a championship.

Ya, I mean I'd probably take him over WB or Rose at their peaks as well. Also though, keep in mind we're not really that close to WB&Rose getting serious talk yet. We still have Harden, CP3, KD, Nash& Dwight who all won mvps or came close to it. Draymond may also have an argument over Manu as well tbh. On top of Kobe&Dirk.

so my response to jake gives the essence of my minutes dilemma. I don't have a clear cut place to slot Ginobili in as a result, and so I'm kinda reluctant to present something that would be taken as my argument for Manu when I'm not sure I'll be voting for Manu before these other guys.

What I can say though is that I think Ginobili was the best per possession player of the bunch, and I'd expect that by itself to be seen as a pretty goofy perspective compared to norms.

A way to put it in terms of my support for Kobe:

I like that Kobe was a guy without glaring limitations to his game. Players of wing height (like Kobe & Manu) are generally the ones most able to be versatile in who they can match up with on both sides of the floor so long as they have the athleticism, motor, and intelligence, and I'd say all the other guys in that list have some kind of limitation.

From there, I see Manu as in some ways what Kobe could have played like if he were less focused on rep and more focused on just making the right play, but then his minutes hold him back.

So with this in mind - with me fully acknowledging the minutes issue - is there any part of that that cries out for more explanation to you?

[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

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.

So first, I"m surprised you'd call this a "very aggressive tone". I'd consider it pretty tame compared to what we're seeing from you in this thread. If this isn't something you're recognizing in yourself, you really need to.

Second, one thing I feel I should make clear is that my criticisms of Englemann aren't directed at you. I've got a complicated one-way relationship with the dude because I have complete confidence in his ability to, say, develop an RAPM algorithm with weighting optimized for predictive purposes that I wouldn't hesitate to use, but I don't see our goals of analysis as aligned and some of his haughty APBRmetric posts toward people humbly seeking his advice really soured me on trying to reach out to him.

[Doctor MJ]

I think Manu vs 2016 Draymond needs to be addressed a bit more before I'd consider voting for Manu yet. Both were #2's on their respective teams. Even if we want to say Manu performed better than Duncan in the 05 playoffs overall Duncan was the one getting by far the most shots attempts while also anchoring the defense(which I think does play into things like ts%). Duncan had 425 fga and 205fta in that playoffs while Manu had 286 & 185. Plus Parker and Horry also played pretty well during that run. I think Duncan may have been the best Spur in two series and Manu in the other two.
I also have some difficulty getting past the 30mpg for Manu and from what I see his mpg didn't go up much after Duncan went out and you'd want Manu to sort of pick up the offensive load. Lastly, despite it saying he played 74 games in that rs it actually has him as not dressing for 8 of them which likley means he played in 66 which is not that great.

I'm really not sure I'm going to vote Manu over Dray, but I will say I'm pretty confident in Manu being the MVP of the Spurs in the 2005 playoffs.

You refer to Duncan taking the most shots and that's true, but because he's an interior scorer, we're not talking about Duncan being left to create for himself and calling his own number. Rather we're talking about an offensive scheme that actively tried to get Duncan the ball as the first option, so the fact that they did and then Duncan shot it, doesn't really tell us anything about how well that approach worked.

All of the impact data sides hard with Ginobili over Duncan in that post-season (I think that stuff has already been posted in this thread, but I could post more if there's a specific want), and it's specifically coming with a good amount of commentary about Duncan's struggles. While voters back then weren't comfortable with giving Ginobili the Finals MVP, that didn't mean that they saw Duncan as performing at anything like the level he did at his best.

Re: MPG & offensive load. I'd push back against conflating these things. As I've said elsewhere, fine to knock Manu for the limited minutes, but that was Pop's call, not a question of whether Manu took on more primacy in the minutes without Duncan.

In the regular season, Ginobili had a Usage of 26.346 sans Duncan (3.46 higher than when he played).
In the post season, Ginobili had a Usage of 32.250 sans Duncan (8.45 higher than when he played).

This then to say that I do see what I'd expect to see if Ginobili were showing himself capable of more primacy than what he takes when the prescribed first option is out there.

[One_and_Done]

I think calling Manu the Spurs MVP, even limiting it to the 05 playoffs where Duncan wasn't 100%, is still a stretch. Duncan was still anchoring the leagues best defence, and that's worth even more than Manu's star breakout. It's not like Duncan wasn't still having a big impact on offense either. The other team's D was so focussed on Duncan it helped create alot of the space Manu used to score.

Let's remember the Spurs were 9-7 in games Duncan missed that year, and 50-16 in games he played. If Manu was secretly the Spurs best player that wouldn't happen.

[Cavsfansince84]

I'm really not sure I'm going to vote Manu over Dray, but I will say I'm pretty confident in Manu being the MVP of the Spurs in the 2005 playoffs.

You refer to Duncan taking the most shots and that's true, but because he's an interior scorer, we're not talking about Duncan being left to create for himself and calling his own number. Rather we're talking about an offensive scheme that actively tried to get Duncan the ball as the first option, so the fact that they did and then Duncan shot it, doesn't really tell us anything about how well that approach worked.

All of the impact data sides hard with Ginobili over Duncan in that post-season (I think that stuff has already been posted in this thread, but I could post more if there's a specific want), and it's specifically coming with a good amount of commentary about Duncan's struggles. While voters back then weren't comfortable with giving Ginobili the Finals MVP, that didn't mean that they saw Duncan as performing at anything like the level he did at his best.

Re: MPG & offensive load. I'd push back against conflating these things. As I've said elsewhere, fine to knock Manu for the limited minutes, but that was Pop's call, not a question of whether Manu took on more primacy in the minutes without Duncan.

In the regular season, Ginobili had a Usage of 26.346 sans Duncan (3.46 higher than when he played).
In the post season, Ginobili had a Usage of 32.250 sans Duncan (8.45 higher than when he played).

This then to say that I do see what I'd expect to see if Ginobili were showing himself capable of more primacy than what he takes when the prescribed first option is out there.

I wasn't equating Duncan's greater fg attempts as working better. I'm just saying he was the central option on offense and Manu as a result could be a bit more selective on his own shots. Duncan obviously wasn't at his best in the 05 playoffs. He did have a very strong wcf though and was close to his usual self in the 1st/2nd rds. On top of being one of the great def anchors in nba history.

[Doctor MJ]

Hey so, lemme share something relating to minutes & possessions with Ginobili.

I went on pbpstats and calculated various guys possessions per playoff game. I didn't do a complete study, but let me share some of the top guys that we have from the 2021 playoffs on.

Iverson (2001) 84.7 poss/g
Kobe (2002) 83.7
Durant (2014) 83.4
Nowitzki (2003) 82.9
Nash (2005) 81.1
Shaq (2001) 81.0
Garnett (2004) 80.7
Duncan (2003) 80.5
Harden (2015) 80.2

So what we're seeing here is - by my quick study - is about the range for peak possession numbers per game among the stars of the 21st century. The list is dominated by guys in the 2000s rather than 2010s/20s despite the slower pace back then because guys played more.

Okay now zeroing in on the 2005 post-season, which represents both the top candidacy for Nash & Manu, here are some key player names from that post-season:

Marion 83.7
Nowitzki 82.5
Nash 81.1
Amar'e 78.7
Wade 78.0
Hamilton 76.9
Duncan 67.7
Parker 67.5
Ginobili 62.6
Shaq 61.2

So what we're seeing here on one level is a gap between Ginobili and the guys around that 80 standard, which it certainly seems to make sense compared to them.

However, we also see that the gap between Manu & his teammates is pretty small. While Duncan in 2003 played big possessions, in 2005 Pop is doing something very different, and so the first thing need to recognize is that if we're holding this against 2005 Manu, we should probably hold it against other Spurs who are experiencing the same thing, such as Duncan that year.

Thing is, this basically continues through the end of the Spurs relevance with Kawhi's departure.

In 2017, Kawhi was at 66.0 poss/g, which was considerably less than the 77.5 he'd post with Toronto.

For this reason, I'd say it makes sense to largely knock 2017 Kawhi relative to 2019 Kawhi for the same reasons we'd knock Ginobili relative to those other fellas.

But, while I wouldn't fault those who do this, I do think we need to acknowledge that in practice, most don't tend to knock Spurs like Duncan or Kawhi for playing less minutes in San Antonio in most/all of their years, and I'd say the reason is that we're confident that these are players who could play more if the coach asked them to do it.

So then what I'd point out is this:

There's one perspective where - with say Ginobili vs Nash - it makes sense to compare that 62.6 to 81.1, and frankly I think it's pretty dang hard to justify the 62.6.

But there's another perspective where Ginobili is basically just playing 5 possessions per game less than what he was looking to play anyone, and this really isn't that big of a deal. Like, in a game where probably no one is giving you 10 points of impact per 100 possessions, we're talking about less than .5 points less impact than what he'd give without the most-than-normal Pop minutes restriction.

Further, I think we really have to ask ourselves whether Pop gave Manu 5 less possessions than Duncan based on any kind of pre-meditated design, or if that's just what happened to happen when he staggering Manu's minutes in the name of giving Manu his time to dictate offense while Duncan rested.

The fact that Duncan/Parker/Ginobili were playing way less in 2005 than Duncan did in 2003 tells us pretty clearly that Pop is purposefully conserving all his players minutes consciously, but did he really find a sweet spot for Duncan at 68 possessions per game while Ginobili played 63? I'm skeptical there was anything so clear in Pop's mind.

None of this gives us a definitive answer to the questions here though, they just allow us to see more what decisions the coaches made, and then it's up to us in this project to allocate credit.

For Ginobili, the question of whether he could have played considerably more lingers, and it's a reason to put him below a number of stars not yet in...

but I don't think the minutes issue give us a reason to insist that 2005 Duncan contributed more value than Ginobili, because that minutes gap is pretty small, and Ginobili's advantage in the impact data there is really not.

[lessthanjake]

I think calling Manu the Spurs MVP, even limiting it to the 05 playoffs where Duncan wasn't 100%, is still a stretch. Duncan was still anchoring the leagues best defence, and that's worth even more than Manu's star breakout. It's not like Duncan wasn't still having a big impact on offense either. The other team's D was so focussed on Duncan it helped create alot of the space Manu used to score.

Let's remember the Spurs were 9-7 in games Duncan missed that year, and 50-16 in games he played. If Manu was secretly the Spurs best player that wouldn't happen.

The thing is that impact data takes defense into account as well as what happened in games without Duncan, and it still tells us Ginobili was the more impactful player that year.

The other thing is that if Manu was just dependent on Duncan “creat[ing] a lot of the space Manu used to score” then we wouldn’t see the Spurs doing super well with Ginobili on and Duncan off. Ginobili was really impactful and very successful with the Spurs regardless of whether Duncan was on the floor.

I also think it’s worth noting that we have a very robust amount of evidence that Ginobili was a very positive-impact defender. So when you say the Spurs had the league’s best defense, you’re talking about something that is itself influenced to a significant degree by Ginobili too. Duncan was the team’s best defender but he was far from the only positive-impact defender on the Spurs and he absolutely should not just reflexively be given all the credit for the quality of their defense.

In any event, obviously Duncan was a really good player. But 2005 was not Duncan at his best, particularly in the playoffs. And yet the Spurs won the title. And it’s because Ginobili was so good.

[Doctor MJ]

I think calling Manu the Spurs MVP, even limiting it to the 05 playoffs where Duncan wasn't 100%, is still a stretch. Duncan was still anchoring the leagues best defence, and that's worth even more than Manu's star breakout. It's not like Duncan wasn't still having a big impact on offense either. The other team's D was so focussed on Duncan it helped create alot of the space Manu used to score.

Let's remember the Spurs were 9-7 in games Duncan missed that year, and 50-16 in games he played. If Manu was secretly the Spurs best player that wouldn't happen.

On the bold: Do recall that plenty of people have already explained with plenty of data that Manu's success was not dependent on Duncan's presence on the court.

Further: Think back to every single thread where Ginobili's name has come up in this kind of rare air, and understand that all of us who bring him up already checked this stuff before bringing him up. More generally, strongly consider that if something occurs to you, it probably occurred to others before you.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm really not sure I'm going to vote Manu over Dray, but I will say I'm pretty confident in Manu being the MVP of the Spurs in the 2005 playoffs.

You refer to Duncan taking the most shots and that's true, but because he's an interior scorer, we're not talking about Duncan being left to create for himself and calling his own number. Rather we're talking about an offensive scheme that actively tried to get Duncan the ball as the first option, so the fact that they did and then Duncan shot it, doesn't really tell us anything about how well that approach worked.

All of the impact data sides hard with Ginobili over Duncan in that post-season (I think that stuff has already been posted in this thread, but I could post more if there's a specific want), and it's specifically coming with a good amount of commentary about Duncan's struggles. While voters back then weren't comfortable with giving Ginobili the Finals MVP, that didn't mean that they saw Duncan as performing at anything like the level he did at his best.

Re: MPG & offensive load. I'd push back against conflating these things. As I've said elsewhere, fine to knock Manu for the limited minutes, but that was Pop's call, not a question of whether Manu took on more primacy in the minutes without Duncan.

In the regular season, Ginobili had a Usage of 26.346 sans Duncan (3.46 higher than when he played).
In the post season, Ginobili had a Usage of 32.250 sans Duncan (8.45 higher than when he played).

This then to say that I do see what I'd expect to see if Ginobili were showing himself capable of more primacy than what he takes when the prescribed first option is out there.

I wasn't equating Duncan's greater fg attempts as working better. I'm just saying he was the central option on offense and Manu as a result could be a bit more selective on his own shots. Duncan obviously wasn't at his best in the 05 playoffs. He did have a very strong wcf though and was close to his usual self in the 1st/2nd rds. On top of being one of the great def anchors in nba history.

Sure, which would be more of a concern if Ginobili wasn't taking a bigger primacy without Duncan, and if the Spur offense wasn't better in those minutes than when they force-fed the ball into a post player. I think those numbers have been posted already but just so we're clear:

In the 2005 playoffs, the Spurs OffRtg was:

114.25 with both Duncan & Manu
113.95 with Manu no Duncan
102.59 with Duncan no Manu

The fact that Ginobili is the one whose presence is leading to effective offense regardless of Duncan's presence is key to why those of us who bring him up feel a need to do so.

[Cavsfansince84]

Sure, which would be more of a concern if Ginobili wasn't taking a bigger primacy without Duncan, and if the Spur offense wasn't better in those minutes than when they force-fed the ball into a post player. I think those numbers have been posted already but just so we're clear:

In the 2005 playoffs, the Spurs OffRtg was:

114.25 with both Duncan & Manu
113.95 with Manu no Duncan
102.59 with Duncan no Manu

The fact that Ginobili is the one whose presence is leading to effective offense regardless of Duncan's presence is key to why those of us who bring him up feel a need to do so.

It's not really a concern per se. I'm simply stating that Duncan was still the main guy the offense was being run through. It's quite possible to give both players credit at time without attempting to take away anything from either guy. I am hardly anti Manu in general. I've been high on him for 20 years in term of what he could do on the court. It's just idk that he should be ranked ahead of other guys for reasons we've already brought up in this thread.

[Doctor MJ]

Sure, which would be more of a concern if Ginobili wasn't taking a bigger primacy without Duncan, and if the Spur offense wasn't better in those minutes than when they force-fed the ball into a post player. I think those numbers have been posted already but just so we're clear:

In the 2005 playoffs, the Spurs OffRtg was:

114.25 with both Duncan & Manu
113.95 with Manu no Duncan
102.59 with Duncan no Manu

The fact that Ginobili is the one whose presence is leading to effective offense regardless of Duncan's presence is key to why those of us who bring him up feel a need to do so.

It's not really a concern per se. I'm simply stating that Duncan was still the main guy the offense was being run through. It's quite possible to give both players credit at time without attempting to take away anything from either guy. I am hardly anti Manu in general. I've been high on him for 20 years in term of what he could do on the court. It's just idk that he should be ranked ahead of other guys for reasons we've already brought up in this thread.

I get the wish for positivity, but those bringing up Ginobili are specifically asking why he should be considered next to alpha stars given that Duncan was on the team and Duncan was a clear cut superstar that got voted in a while ago.

Duncan has both one of the greatest defensive and overall peaks, and I don't mean to try to take that away from him, but there's a constant confusion on the offensive side of the ball that he was more effective than he actually was because of the overall team success driven by his defense.

People are skeptical of Ginobili's offense for reasons that at their roots are about Duncan's defense, and that doesn't actually make sense.

[lessthanjake]

I think we should ask ourselves why it matters if an offense was run through a guy or not. I think the reason we care about this is rooted in the idea that the guy who the offense is run through must be impactful (even if they don’t actually shoot well on a given night), because their presence is enabling everyone else. Basically, the guy who the offense is run through is probably the one demanding attention from the defense and thereby creating openings for everyone else, resulting in the team doing better.

The flip side is that someone who the offense is not run through probably wasn’t that impactful because they are not the one systematically creating openings for the team, but rather are the beneficiary of things created by others. Intuitively, we’d generally assume that that makes that player easier to replace, since you can just slot someone else in who can convert on those same openings in a pretty similar way.

However, these are just general assumptions. They are not going to be right in all cases. And I think this is pretty demonstrably one of those cases. The Spurs offense was run through Duncan, but it was still Ginobili’s presence on the court that demonstrably had more impact offensively.

So that leads back to the initial question: Why should we care if the offense was run through Ginobili or not, when we know he was having huge offensive impact regardless (and that this impact existed whether Duncan was on the court or not)? If Ginobili was having offensive impact up there with top-tier offensive stars that did have their offense run through them, then I’m not sure I see why it should matter whether the offense was run through Ginobili. If it wasn’t, then it just means he was deriving his huge offensive impact in a somewhat unique way, but that’s not a bad thing (and, in fact, may be a good thing, if it provides room for someone else to derive impact through having a higher offensive load—this is where the symbiotic-relationship stuff may come in).