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

[One_and_Done]

When advanced/impact stats have you thinking Ginobili was secretly better than Duncan, it seems like a good reminder you're probably focussing too much on them.

[Cavsfansince84]

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.

I don't think this is being skeptical of Manu's offense so much as realizing he is going up against Steve Nash, CP3 and James Harden, 3 of the best offensive players of all time and it's mainly based on a playoff run where he's playing beside a top 4 5 player of all time in the middle of his prime. It's not too dissimilar imo to going with 68/69 Hondo except Duncan was much younger than Russell and taking on the bulk of the fga. Part of what keeps Duncan's ORtg down in these samples is him having an usually low fg% likely due to both injury and defenses faced.

[Cavsfansince84]

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.

Couldn't we say the same thing to some degree about Pau in the 2010 playoffs? Kobe was not good in 2 of their 3 biggest series and Pau played well in pretty much all of them. Even Middleton in the 2021 playoffs, the Bucks don't win that title without him having some very big games when they needed him to. Am I saying that they should be considered or above Manu? No, just that it's not unheard of for a #2 guy to come up big during a title run when the #1 guy isn't playing so well.

[lessthanjake]

When advanced/impact stats have you thinking Ginobili was secretly better than Duncan, it seems like a good reminder you're probably focussing too much on them.

So yeah, I can just tell you that this is wrong, because my view about how good Ginobili was literally pre-dates advanced/impact stats (or at least certainly pre-dates my knowledge of them). As I’ve said before in this thread, I absolutely hated that era’s Spurs (which naturally resulted in me hate-watching a large number of their games) and without having any “advanced/impact stats” at my disposal at the time, I can tell you that I absolutely feared Ginobili more than Duncan. Just seeing Ginobili checking into the game used to genuinely make me mad, because I just knew good things would happen for the Spurs. I absolutely instinctively felt like Ginobili was more impactful than Duncan at the time. I just later found that impact data actually agreed with that instinct.

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.

I don't think this is being skeptical of Manu's offense so much as realizing he is going up against Steve Nash, CP3 and James Harden, 3 of the best offensive players of all time and it's mainly based on a playoff run where he's playing beside a top 4 5 player of all time in the middle of his prime. It's not too dissimilar imo to going with 68/69 Hondo except Duncan was much younger than Russell and taking on the bulk of the fga. Part of what keeps Duncan's ORtg down in these samples is him having an usually low fg% likely due to both injury and defenses faced.

So I’d note a couple things:

1. I think there’s a bit of a tension between downplaying what Ginobili did by saying “he’s playing beside a top 4-5 player of all time in the middle of his prime” and noting that Duncan had “an unusually low fg% likely due to . . . injury.” Duncan is a top-tier all-time great. But he was not actually really playing like one in those playoffs—probably in large part because he had only recently come back from injury. Yet the Spurs won the title anyways, because Ginobili played incredibly well (and, indeed, better than Duncan did). This was not an easy situation for Ginobili or the Spurs. It was actually the type of situation where normally a team loses and we just chalk it up to unfortunate injury/health luck that year. But no such excuses are necessary because Ginobili was so good.

2. Ginobili’s offense being more impactful than Duncan isn’t actually contingent on Duncan having an injury or the specific defenses faced in a given year. Even in the largest possible samples you could use, Ginobili’s offense looks more impactful than Duncan’s. Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player than Duncan. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Duncan not being fully healthy didn’t widen the gap in the 2005 playoffs. But I just wanted to clarify that Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player in general.

[One_and_Done]

When advanced/impact stats have you thinking Ginobili was secretly better than Duncan, it seems like a good reminder you're probably focussing too much on them.

So yeah, I can just tell you that this is wrong, because my view about how good Ginobili was literally pre-dates advanced/impact stats (or at least certainly pre-dates my knowledge of them). As I’ve said before in this thread, I absolutely hated that era’s Spurs (which naturally resulted in me hate-watching a large number of their games) and without having any “advanced/impact stats” at my disposal at the time, I can tell you that I absolutely feared Ginobili more than Duncan. Just seeing Ginobili checking into the game used to genuinely make me mad, because I just knew good things would happen for the Spurs. I absolutely instinctively felt like Ginobili was more impactful than Duncan at the time. I just later found that impact data actually agreed with that instinct.

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.

I don't think this is being skeptical of Manu's offense so much as realizing he is going up against Steve Nash, CP3 and James Harden, 3 of the best offensive players of all time and it's mainly based on a playoff run where he's playing beside a top 4 5 player of all time in the middle of his prime. It's not too dissimilar imo to going with 68/69 Hondo except Duncan was much younger than Russell and taking on the bulk of the fga. Part of what keeps Duncan's ORtg down in these samples is him having an usually low fg% likely due to both injury and defenses faced.

So I’d note a couple things:

1. I think there’s a bit of a tension between downplaying what Ginobili did by saying “he’s playing beside a top 4-5 player of all time in the middle of his prime” and noting that Duncan had “an unusually low fg% likely due to . . . injury.” Duncan is a top-tier all-time great. But he was not actually really playing like one in those playoffs—probably in large part because he had only recently come back from injury. Yet the Spurs won the title anyways, because Ginobili played incredibly well (and, indeed, better than Duncan did). This was not an easy situation for Ginobili or the Spurs. It was actually the type of situation where normally a team loses and we just chalk it up to unfortunate injury/health luck that year. But no such excuses are necessary because Ginobili was so good.

2. Ginobili’s offense being more impactful than Duncan isn’t actually contingent on Duncan having an injury or the specific defenses faced in a given year. Even in the largest possible samples you could use, Ginobili’s offense looks more impactful than Duncan’s. Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player than Duncan. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Duncan not being fully healthy didn’t widen the gap in the 2005 playoffs. But I just wanted to clarify that Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player in general.

When you were watching the Spurs in 05 go 9-7 without Duncan, and 50-16 with him, your view was 'well, Manu is the #1 reason they're winning games'? That's quite the take.

[lessthanjake]

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.

Couldn't be say the same thing to some degree about Pau in the 2010 playoffs? Kobe was not good in 2 of their 3 biggest series and Pau played well in pretty much all of them. Even Middleton in the 2021 playoffs, the Bucks don't win that title without him having some very big games when they needed him to. Am I saying that they should be considered or above Manu? No, just that it's not unheard of for a #2 guy to come up big during a title run when the #1 guy isn't playing so well.

The big difference here is that data actually really bears out Ginobili having a good case for being the Spurs best player that year, and it’s in both regular season and playoffs.

In 2005, Manu had a regular season EPM of 6.4, while Duncan had a regular season EPM of 6.0. Ginobili had a playoff EPM of 7.3, while Duncan had a playoff EPM of 1.7. Despite playing fewer minutes per game, Ginobili had higher EPM Wins in both the regular season and the playoffs. Ginobili’s RAPTOR that year was 8.1, compared to 7.1 for Duncan. Duncan did actually have a slightly higher regular season BPM—it was 7.6 for Duncan and 6.9 for Ginobili—but Ginobili had a 9.2 playoff BPM compared to 5.5 for Duncan, and that resulted in Ginobili having a higher RS+Playoff VORP (which is the non-rate-stat counterpart to BPM) despite playing fewer minutes. There’s a very similar story in terms of Win Shares—with Ginobili having higher Win Shares across RS+Playoffs despite playing fewer minutes. RAPM needs a few years to stabilize and not be noisy, but I’ve already mentioned that Ginobili had a higher 2005-2007 RAPM than Duncan, according to NBArapm.

Let’s compare this to your examples:

I’ll first take the 2010 Lakers. Kobe had a higher regular season EPM than Gasol (+3.6 vs. +2.9). Kobe had a higher playoff EPM than Gasol (+4.3 vs. +3.7). Unsurprisingly, Kobe had higher EPM Wins than Gasol in both regular season and in the playoffs. Kobe had a higher RAPTOR than Gasol that year (5.3 vs. 3.2). Gasol did actually have slightly higher regular season BPM than Kobe (4.1 vs. 4.9), but Kobe had higher playoff BPM (7.0 vs. 5.9), and due to playing more minutes also had higher VORP in both regular season and playoffs. Gasol does actually look better in Win Shares in both regular season and playoffs, so that’s one piece of information in his favor. But if we look at RAPM, Kobe is once again ahead.

Now for the 2021 Bucks. Giannis had a far higher regular season EPM than Middleton (+5.1 vs. +1.8). Giannis also had a far higher playoff EPM than Middleton (+5.0 vs. +1.3). Unsurprisingly, Giannis had far higher EPM Wins than Middleton in both regular season and in the playoffs. Giannis had a way higher RAPTOR that year (6.6 vs. 2.2). Giannis had a way higher regular season BPM (9.0 vs. 1.3) and a way higher playoff BPM (9.9 vs. 2.6), and also of course had a way higher VORP in both regular season and playoffs. Giannis has far higher Win Shares in both regular season and playoffs. And Giannis is far ahead of Middleton in RAPM.

As I think these numbers should illustrate, these examples are just not particularly comparable to 2005 Ginobili. Ginobili didn’t just “come up big during a title run when the #1 guy isn't playing so well.” Ginobili actually probably played a bit better than Duncan that year across both regular season and the playoffs, which is something that is pretty clearly not the case at all for 2010 Gasol or 2021 Middleton.

[lessthanjake]

When advanced/impact stats have you thinking Ginobili was secretly better than Duncan, it seems like a good reminder you're probably focussing too much on them.

So yeah, I can just tell you that this is wrong, because my view about how good Ginobili was literally pre-dates advanced/impact stats (or at least certainly pre-dates my knowledge of them). As I’ve said before in this thread, I absolutely hated that era’s Spurs (which naturally resulted in me hate-watching a large number of their games) and without having any “advanced/impact stats” at my disposal at the time, I can tell you that I absolutely feared Ginobili more than Duncan. Just seeing Ginobili checking into the game used to genuinely make me mad, because I just knew good things would happen for the Spurs. I absolutely instinctively felt like Ginobili was more impactful than Duncan at the time. I just later found that impact data actually agreed with that instinct.

I don't think this is being skeptical of Manu's offense so much as realizing he is going up against Steve Nash, CP3 and James Harden, 3 of the best offensive players of all time and it's mainly based on a playoff run where he's playing beside a top 4 5 player of all time in the middle of his prime. It's not too dissimilar imo to going with 68/69 Hondo except Duncan was much younger than Russell and taking on the bulk of the fga. Part of what keeps Duncan's ORtg down in these samples is him having an usually low fg% likely due to both injury and defenses faced.

So I’d note a couple things:

1. I think there’s a bit of a tension between downplaying what Ginobili did by saying “he’s playing beside a top 4-5 player of all time in the middle of his prime” and noting that Duncan had “an unusually low fg% likely due to . . . injury.” Duncan is a top-tier all-time great. But he was not actually really playing like one in those playoffs—probably in large part because he had only recently come back from injury. Yet the Spurs won the title anyways, because Ginobili played incredibly well (and, indeed, better than Duncan did). This was not an easy situation for Ginobili or the Spurs. It was actually the type of situation where normally a team loses and we just chalk it up to unfortunate injury/health luck that year. But no such excuses are necessary because Ginobili was so good.

2. Ginobili’s offense being more impactful than Duncan isn’t actually contingent on Duncan having an injury or the specific defenses faced in a given year. Even in the largest possible samples you could use, Ginobili’s offense looks more impactful than Duncan’s. Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player than Duncan. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Duncan not being fully healthy didn’t widen the gap in the 2005 playoffs. But I just wanted to clarify that Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player in general.

When you were watching the Spurs in 05 go 9-7 without Duncan, and 50-16 with him, your view was 'well, Manu is the #1 reason they're winning games'? That's quite the take.

So I’d say that if you watched every game the Spurs played that year in regular season and playoffs, you’d end up finding that the Spurs did significantly better in minutes with Ginobili on and Duncan off (+9.94) than they did in minutes with Duncan on and Ginobili off (+5.46). And you’d also have noticed that this effect was even more pronounced in the minutes these guys played without the other against starter-heavy opposing units (+18.29 for Ginobili without Duncan against 4 or 5 opposing starters vs. +3.77 for Duncan without Ginobili against 4 or 5 opposing starters). And of course all that data includes what happened in the games Duncan missed. So yeah, I did actually watch the 2005 Spurs a lot and I instinctively ended up fearing Ginobili more, and I’d say that I can look at data now and see that that was a pretty reasonable reaction and is really not “quite the take.”

[f4p]

Not sure if we’re allowed to consider non-NBA stuff,

In the sense that no one can stop you, you can, but you're almost certainly not supposed to.

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.

Why are you more impressed?

Harden: +20 on/off
Paul: +11.7 on/off
Nash: -0.5 on/off

Cp3 30.7 PER (!!), 0.289 WS48, 11.3 BPM
Harden 24.9 PER, 0.163 WS48, 8.1 BPM
Nash: 23.4 PER, 0.164 WS48, 4.7 BPM

Harden: loses 4-3 to top 10 all time team with injury excuse
Cp3: loses 4-3 to fairly good spurs team
Nash: loses 4-1 to title spurs team

He loses every box score stat except tying WS48 with harden, gets basically doubled up by both guys in the one you like the most BPM , is a negative on off guy and his team goes out the most meekly. Hard to see his case.

[One_and_Done]

Plus minus stats can be wrong for so many reasons. If Manu was the Spurs best player then they wouldn't have only gone 9-7 without Duncan.

[lessthanjake]

Not sure if we’re allowed to consider non-NBA stuff,

In the sense that no one can stop you, you can, but you're almost certainly not supposed to.

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.

Why are you more impressed?

Harden: +20 on/off
Paul: +11.7 on/off
Nash: -0.5 on/off

Cp3 30.7 PER (!!), 0.289 WS48, 11.3 BPM
Harden 24.9 PER, 0.163 WS48, 8.1 BPM
Nash: 23.4 PER, 0.164 WS48, 4.7 BPM

Harden: loses 4-3 to top 10 all time team with injury excuse
Cp3: loses 4-3 to fairly good spurs team
Nash: loses 4-1 to title spurs team

He loses every box score stat except tying WS48 with harden, gets basically doubled up by both guys in the one you like the most BPM , is a negative on off guy and his team goes out the most meekly. Hard to see his case.

Yeah, so, as I’ve said to you before, I don’t care much about single-playoff on-off data, since that is just subject to a ton of noise, and particularly so when a guy played as high of minutes as someone like Nash did in those playoffs. The “off” sample there for Nash is only 114 minutes (only 13 minutes of which were actually against 4 or 5 opposing starters).

As for the other stats you gave, I think it’s fairly obvious that those stats undersell Nash. Heck, the actual “About Box-Plus Minus” write up even specifically calls out that the metric simply is not able to adequately credit Nash for how good he was offensively. I don’t quite understand why box stats undersell Nash so much, but there’s just a big disconnect between what they say and what RAPM says. And when my eye test agrees much more with RAPM and the creator of one of the box stats in question makes clear that he too agrees much more with RAPM when it comes to Nash, then I think I’m coming to the right conclusion.

Anyways, as alluded to, my view on this is primarily an eye test thing. If you watched Nash’s 2005 playoff run, I find it very hard to imagine you wouldn’t come away thinking he had played outrageously well. And, of course, the fact that the Suns had the best playoff rORTG in NBA history (and I believe Nash also had the highest playoff on-court rORTG on record) definitely bears that out. The Dallas series in particular was just completely ridiculous. But yeah, to put some numbers on this, in the WCSF and WCF against great opponents, Nash averaged 27.1 PPG, 11.4 APG, and 5.3 RPG on 61.3% TS% (against opponents that gave up 51.9% and 50.2% opponent TS% in the regular season). And that’s in a low-pace, low-scoring era. Not coincidentally, his team had a +14.71 and +17.16 rORTG with him on the court in those series. It was just astounding basketball from him, and I just don’t see 2018 Harden or 2008 Chris Paul as having been as good as Nash was in the playoffs.

[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 realize another reason this take makes no sense. You are essentially starting Manu's baseline from the 2018 rockets ridiculous team results and overperformance. And then just finding things Manu does better than harden and saying "the results could be even better"!

You say manu could fit really well with cp3. Well you know who also fit well with him. James harden in real life. They won 90% of their games together (44-5). There's no way to argue Manu could have somehow fit even better. I'm guessing that's one of the best duo records in league history for so many games in a season. "Manu will form an all time duo" can't be the assumption.

And then in the playoffs the rockets went toe to toe with an all time great warriors team and were up 3-2. That warriors team went 28-3 in the 7 series they played that weren't against the rockets. 2-3 against the healthy rockets. We can't just give Manu those 3 wins, lol. I'm guessing based on your evaluation of harden and most of the worlds evaluation of harden, the rockets baseline was to get beaten by the warriors 4-0 or maybe 4-1, like LeBron was getting beat. No one had them up 3-2. So add some off ball movement and defense from ginobili and maybe you get a 4-1 series and a competitive 2nd game, or maybe, maybe 4-2. But now you've got Manu wiping the floor with them in 5.

We have ginobilis career to look at. He played his whole career with peak/prime Tim Duncan. The best teams he ever beat were the 2003 Mavs, an all offense team featuring Steve Nash that was more pretender than contender and that lost dirk halfway through the series. And Manu was a role player. They beat the 2005 suns, another all offense Steve Nash team. And they beat the 2007 suns, another all offense Steve Nash team that they got lucky with some suspension help for. And I don't think anyone would put any of those teams closer than within 3 tiers of the 2018 warriors. So now we're replacing prime 2003/2005/2007 Tim Duncan with early 30s Chris Paul and ramping up those solid contenders to all time top 10 teams and Manu is beating them, maybe wiping the floor with them? Come on.

Shouldn't the rockets ridiculous team results be a reason to think "maybe I've underrated harden's peak" and not "Manu could easily replicate that baseline plus he's got other skills.so he'd probably surpass it."?

[Cavsfansince84]

So I’d note a couple things:

1. I think there’s a bit of a tension between downplaying what Ginobili did by saying “he’s playing beside a top 4-5 player of all time in the middle of his prime” and noting that Duncan had “an unusually low fg% likely due to . . . injury.” Duncan is a top-tier all-time great. But he was not actually really playing like one in those playoffs—probably in large part because he had only recently come back from injury. Yet the Spurs won the title anyways, because Ginobili played incredibly well (and, indeed, better than Duncan did). This was not an easy situation for Ginobili or the Spurs. It was actually the type of situation where normally a team loses and we just chalk it up to unfortunate injury/health luck that year. But no such excuses are necessary because Ginobili was so good.

2. Ginobili’s offense being more impactful than Duncan isn’t actually contingent on Duncan having an injury or the specific defenses faced in a given year. Even in the largest possible samples you could use, Ginobili’s offense looks more impactful than Duncan’s. Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player than Duncan. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Duncan not being fully healthy didn’t widen the gap in the 2005 playoffs. But I just wanted to clarify that Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player in general.

I don't think recognizing how good Duncan was still in 05 is somehow downplaying what Manu did. Just as me pointing out that Duncan was still taking way more shots in the 05 playoffs wasn't meant to say he was better offensively than Manu which is how some took it. Sometimes it's just a matter of bringing something up for context. It's difference for instance to win as the clear cut best player on a team than it is while playing next to someone like Duncan or LeBron or Kobe even which is part of why it will be hard for Pau to get votes. Then on top of that we have the minute side of it and some other stuff. I'm not saying that voting for Manu here is wrong. I'm just discussing it.

[lessthanjake]

So I’d note a couple things:

1. I think there’s a bit of a tension between downplaying what Ginobili did by saying “he’s playing beside a top 4-5 player of all time in the middle of his prime” and noting that Duncan had “an unusually low fg% likely due to . . . injury.” Duncan is a top-tier all-time great. But he was not actually really playing like one in those playoffs—probably in large part because he had only recently come back from injury. Yet the Spurs won the title anyways, because Ginobili played incredibly well (and, indeed, better than Duncan did). This was not an easy situation for Ginobili or the Spurs. It was actually the type of situation where normally a team loses and we just chalk it up to unfortunate injury/health luck that year. But no such excuses are necessary because Ginobili was so good.

2. Ginobili’s offense being more impactful than Duncan isn’t actually contingent on Duncan having an injury or the specific defenses faced in a given year. Even in the largest possible samples you could use, Ginobili’s offense looks more impactful than Duncan’s. Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player than Duncan. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Duncan not being fully healthy didn’t widen the gap in the 2005 playoffs. But I just wanted to clarify that Ginobili was simply a more impactful offensive player in general.

I don't think recognizing how good Duncan was still in 05 is somehow downplaying what Manu did. Just as me pointing out that Duncan was still taking way more shots in the 05 playoffs wasn't meant to say he was better offensively than Manu which is how some took it. Sometimes it's just a matter of bringing something up for context. It's difference for instance to win as the clear cut best player on a team than it is while playing next to someone like Duncan or LeBron or Kobe even which is part of why it will be hard for Pau to get votes. Then on top of that we have the minute side of it and some other stuff. I'm not saying that voting for Manu here is wrong. I'm just discussing it.

Yeah, I get that, but if Ginobili was actually a bit better and more impactful than Duncan that year, then I think the force of that point is dramatically lower. This isn’t Gasol on the 2010 Lakers. I don’t even think it’s like Durant on the 2017 Warriors or Davis on the 2020 Lakers. I get the point that we shouldn’t treat Ginobili as the total top dog when at the very least there was someone on the team that was almost as good as him that year. But I’ve actually voted for everyone that was the total top dog on a title-winning team before I voted for Ginobili! Ginobili wasn’t that, but I think he is the closest thing left to that IMO (at least once Dirk and Kobe get in, and I’ve voted for them above Ginobili in this thread).

[f4p]

And for all the people voting for 2005 ginobili. Here's his all world 2005 finals. He had a sparkling 63.6 TS% but he put up 19/6/4 with 3.3 TO per game. That doesn't seem like an all time peak from the past 25 years.

Ginobili was very good in games 1 and 2, shooting 16 for 24 overall. But then in games 3-6, he averaged 14/6/4 with the same 3.3 TO per game on 37.5 FG% and 20 3P%. If Robert horry doesn't go ham and have one of the craziest role player 4th Q/OT in finals history to save game 5, the spurs probably lose the last 4 games after having a 2-0 lead (like they lost in 2004) with ginobili having 4 terrible games to close it out. That doesn't seem as amazing as the overall story we got. And it's because horry saved the season. And it doesn't seem like it's beating the 2018 warriors.

For all of the people voting for 2005 ginobili, is there anyone else who has been voted in or is about to be voted in who has a 14/6/4 stretch on 37/20/79 shooting splits for 4 games of the biggest series of their peak season?

[f4p]

Not sure if we’re allowed to consider non-NBA stuff,

In the sense that no one can stop you, you can, but you're almost certainly not supposed to.

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.

Why are you more impressed?

Harden: +20 on/off
Paul: +11.7 on/off
Nash: -0.5 on/off

Cp3 30.7 PER (!!), 0.289 WS48, 11.3 BPM
Harden 24.9 PER, 0.163 WS48, 8.1 BPM
Nash: 23.4 PER, 0.164 WS48, 4.7 BPM

Harden: loses 4-3 to top 10 all time team with injury excuse
Cp3: loses 4-3 to fairly good spurs team
Nash: loses 4-1 to title spurs team

He loses every box score stat except tying WS48 with harden, gets basically doubled up by both guys in the one you like the most BPM , is a negative on off guy and his team goes out the most meekly. Hard to see his case.

Yeah, so, as I’ve said to you before, I don’t care much about single-playoff on-off data, since that is just subject to a ton of noise, and particularly so when a guy played as high of minutes as someone like Nash did in those playoffs. The “off” sample there for Nash is only 114 minutes (only 13 minutes of which were actually against 4 or 5 opposing starters).

I mean hes not up there with them in prime playoff on/off either.

As for the other stats you gave, I think it’s fairly obvious that those stats undersell Nash. Heck, the actual “About Box-Plus Minus” write up even specifically calls out that the metric simply is not able to adequately credit Nash for how good he was offensively. I don’t quite understand why box stats undersell Nash so much, but there’s just a big disconnect between what they say and what RAPM says. And when my eye test agrees much more with RAPM and the creator of one of the box stats in question makes clear that he too agrees much more with RAPM when it comes to Nash, then I think I’m coming to the right conclusion.

Well, I didn't realize BPM had a favorite player exception to it. I guess I withdraw my objection. Steve Nash can't be measured by the box score. Not by the on/off. Not by a stat you yourself quote all the time. Not by team results. I guess I lost the argument before I started.

[lessthanjake]

And for all the people voting for 2005 ginobili. Here's his all world 2005 finals. He had a sparkling 63.6 TS% but he put up 19/6/4 with 3.3 TO per game. That doesn't seem like an all time peak from the past 25 years.

Ginobili was very good in games 1 and 2, shooting 16 for 24 overall. But then in games 3-6, he averaged 14/6/4 with the same 3.3 TO per game on 37.5 FG% and 20 3P%. If Robert horry doesn't go ham and have one of the craziest role player 4th Q/OT in finals history to save game 5, the spurs probably lose the last 4 games after having a 2-0 lead (like they lost in 2004) with ginobili having 4 terrible games to close it out. That doesn't seem as amazing as the overall story we got. And it's because horry saved the season. And it doesn't seem like it's beating the 2018 warriors.

For all of the people voting for 2005 ginobili, is there anyone else who has been voted in or is about to be voted in who has a 14/6/4 stretch on 37/20/79 shooting splits for 4 games of the biggest series of their peak season?

So a few things on this:

1. You’re cherry-picking out Ginobili’s best games in the series. Obviously you can make anyone look worse by only looking at their least impressive games. In this particular case, you’re ignoring three Finals games where Ginobili was amazing and led the Spurs to victories. That’s a lot to ignore!

2. The 2005 Finals was an incredibly defensive series, against one of the greatest playoff defenses ever (that era’s Pistons are right up there amongst the very top teams in NBA history in terms of three-year playoff rDRTG). The Spurs won the series while having a 102.3 offensive rating. Duncan and Parker both had a 47.1% TS% in the series. The Pistons had a 48.4% TS% as a team. And the pace was a glacial 81.8. This was an incredibly slow and defensive series. Which is extremely important context in which to see the numbers you listed. Like, even in those games you listed with those shooting efficiency numbers you gave, Ginobili *still* scored more efficiently in those games than Duncan or Parker did for the series and more efficiently than the Pistons did for the series. So yeah, as bad as those numbers look to a 2025 eye, it actually really wasn’t bad efficiency in the context of that series.

3. You talk about Horry “hav[ing] one of the craziest role player 4th Q/OT in finals history to save game,” but half of Horry’s points in that timeframe were assisted by…Manu Ginobili (and I’ll note that another basket came off an offensive rebound Horry got off a Ginobili miss because Horry’s man had stepped up to help on Ginobili’s drive). Which is perhaps not surprising, since Ginobili had almost half the Spurs’s assists in that game. The game-winning shot that “saved the season” was literally the Pistons hard doubling Ginobili, leaving Horry wide open and Ginobili getting Horry the ball!

[lessthanjake]

In the sense that no one can stop you, you can, but you're almost certainly not supposed to.



Why are you more impressed?

Harden: +20 on/off
Paul: +11.7 on/off
Nash: -0.5 on/off

Cp3 30.7 PER (!!), 0.289 WS48, 11.3 BPM
Harden 24.9 PER, 0.163 WS48, 8.1 BPM
Nash: 23.4 PER, 0.164 WS48, 4.7 BPM

Harden: loses 4-3 to top 10 all time team with injury excuse
Cp3: loses 4-3 to fairly good spurs team
Nash: loses 4-1 to title spurs team

He loses every box score stat except tying WS48 with harden, gets basically doubled up by both guys in the one you like the most BPM , is a negative on off guy and his team goes out the most meekly. Hard to see his case.

Yeah, so, as I’ve said to you before, I don’t care much about single-playoff on-off data, since that is just subject to a ton of noise, and particularly so when a guy played as high of minutes as someone like Nash did in those playoffs. The “off” sample there for Nash is only 114 minutes (only 13 minutes of which were actually against 4 or 5 opposing starters).

I mean hes not up there with them in prime playoff on/off either.

As for the other stats you gave, I think it’s fairly obvious that those stats undersell Nash. Heck, the actual “About Box-Plus Minus” write up even specifically calls out that the metric simply is not able to adequately credit Nash for how good he was offensively. I don’t quite understand why box stats undersell Nash so much, but there’s just a big disconnect between what they say and what RAPM says. And when my eye test agrees much more with RAPM and the creator of one of the box stats in question makes clear that he too agrees much more with RAPM when it comes to Nash, then I think I’m coming to the right conclusion.

Well, I didn't realize BPM had a favorite player exception to it. I guess I withdraw my objection. Steve Nash can't be measured by the box score. Not by the on/off. Not by a stat you yourself quote all the time. Not by team results. I guess I lost the argument before I started.

Yeah, so this is kind of a frustrating response, because you’re acting like I’m refusing to actually believe any data, when actually you’re quoting a post where I specifically called out that his RAPM looks a lot better than the stats you quoted. And it’s made worse when you claim I say Steve Nash can’t be measured by team results, when you’re quoting a post that literally cited some incredible team offensive stats. Team-wide data is actually a huge part of any case for Nash! You seem to have quoted a portion of my post and responded with stuff that is pretty obviously refuted by the rest of my post that you didn’t bother quoting.

Anyways, I quote a lot of different stats. And the vast majority of the time they’re broadly consistent with each other, which means one doesn’t have to really pick what to believe. The data usually provides a pretty consistent overall picture. Nash is the rare case where the number diverge a lot depending on what type of data you’re looking at. As I said in my prior post, RAPM is quite a lot higher on Nash than box data is. In the rare cases where there’s big divergence between different stats about the same player, we have to actually decide what pieces of data our assessment of the player should be anchored to. We could anchor to one type of data, the other type of data, or split the baby and say it’s probably something in the middle. Often, I’d just throw my hands up and go with the latter approach. But here I don’t find it super difficult to decide to anchor much more to RAPM. For one thing, if we have large samples, I think RAPM is just better than box stats. We do not have a large enough sample for playoff RAPM specifically, but we do have RAPM for Nash across multi-year spans, and his large-sample RAPM looks great while the box metrics in those same years don’t look nearly so great. Which makes me not be all that concerned if I see his playoff box metrics not looking so great either. Basically, Nash’s box metrics not looking super great really doesn't seem to be mutually exclusive with him actually being super impactful. Of course, the decision to trust large-sample RAPM over box metrics in the case of Steve Nash is further bolstered by the fact that, in his writeup introducing BPM, the actual creator of BPM set forth some RAPM data and then literally said: “Yes, Steve Nash was ridiculous on offense, and no, the box score still can’t fully capture that fact.” Even all that might not be enough to make me really anchor fully on the RAPM side of things, but I watched a huge amount of Suns games in that era, and so I have quite a lot of eye test to work with on Nash, and my eye test comports very strongly with what the RAPM data is saying.

So yeah, basically, different types of data don’t usually massively diverge, but for Steve Nash they do. And when I have large-sample RAPM and my own extensive eye test on one side and box metrics on the other side, I’m going to go with the former, especially when the creator of one of the box metrics clearly believes large-sample RAPM over his own metric in this particular case. I don’t think the response to this can really be to criticize me for ignoring certain types of data for Nash, because it’s not really possible to come to a conclusion about him without it being pretty inconsistent with some type of data.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

I don't think this is being skeptical of Manu's offense so much as realizing he is going up against Steve Nash, CP3 and James Harden, 3 of the best offensive players of all time and it's mainly based on a playoff run where he's playing beside a top 4 5 player of all time in the middle of his prime. It's not too dissimilar imo to going with 68/69 Hondo except Duncan was much younger than Russell and taking on the bulk of the fga. Part of what keeps Duncan's ORtg down in these samples is him having an usually low fg% likely due to both injury and defenses faced.

Ah so fair enough being skeptical that Ginobili was better on offense than the guys you mention. So, in the nbarapm 4year peaks study I did, here's how the guys you mention rank along with Ginobili on Offensive RAPM:

1. Nash 9.3
6. Harden 6.8
7. Paul 6.4
17. Manu 5.6

And because it'd be weird not to share the overall:

5. Paul 9.1
7. Nash 8.8
8. Manu 7.9
22. Harden 6.4

Now, that data certainly doesn't point us to voting for Ginobili over Nash & Paul, but:

1. We're not doing a 4-year peak study in this project, but instead focuses on particular seasons. Shorter sample leads to more noise, and so should not be taken as decisively more accurate, but in the 2-year, Ginobili not only peaks higher than the other 3, but his he ranks 1st in that '04-06 span in the entire NBA (with Duncan 2nd & Nash 3rd).

2. I believe Ginobili was often able to raise his game on the bigger stage in a way that few others of his stature do. In all 4 playoff runs the Spurs won the title in the 21st century, Ginobili was the one leading the team in +/-, and as was the case in all 4 of their finals series, and that's the leaderboard for career Finals +/- has him topping the list over Duncan despite Duncan having played a winning finals before Ginobili.

Re: "Part of what keeps Duncan's ORtg down in these samples is him having an usually low fg% likely due to both injury and defenses faced." So, I'd agree with the truth of this statement, but I'm not sure why you said it.

Yes, Duncan being injured, and this has everything to do with why I favor Ginobili for that season over him.

Yes, defenses in general were quite good at defending against interior post scoring, which is why NBA offenses changed their strategy toward other things (pace & space, etc).

[iggymcfrack]

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.



I probably held back in the wording.



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




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.

2004 was the second season of Manu's career and he had a higher playoff BPM than Kobe had in his first 10 postseasons. The Spurs were +11.0 with him on the floor and -7.3 with him on the bench. And you want to act like this is a black mark because they didn't beat the superteam Lakers while Malone and Payton were still healthy? You can NOT be serious.

In 2006, Dirk had arguably the best series of his entire career putting up 27 PPG on .654 TS% and carried the Mavericks to Game 7 where they held a 9 point lead with 8:30 left. From that point on, Manu scored 12 of the Spurs' final 21 points for the period including a clutch 3 with 30 seconds left to give the Spurs the lead. Unfortunately for him, Dirk came up even more clutch, made a 3-point play to tie, and then won it in OT.

But yeah, it's Manu's fault they didn't win after he put up 23 points on .769 shooting in Game 7 and had 21 PPG on .640 TS% for the series. Has Kobe ever shot that well for a series? Has he ever shot that well in a Game 6 or 7?

You bring up Harden having a +20 plus/minus in 2017. That's cool he did it 2 different times across his career. But guess what? Manu had a plus/minus of +21.6 over the first FOUR postseasons of his career combined. That spans 70 total games.

It's cute how you add up Harden's slash lines and then estimate what kind of slash lines Manu would need to receive the same results if he got the same impact per box stat that Harden does. That's not how it works. The whole point about Manu is he does the things that DON'T show up in the box score. One of the best wing defenders of all-time. Makes quick decisive passes that create opportunities for teammates without needing to slow down the offense. Manu could score 10 PPG less than Harden, get less rebounds and less assists and still have a greater impact on the game than Harden would do excelling at some things and failing at others.

[Jaivl]

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.



I probably held back in the wording.



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




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 realize another reason this take makes no sense. You are essentially starting Manu's baseline from the 2018 rockets ridiculous team results and overperformance. And then just finding things Manu does better than harden and saying "the results could be even better"!

You say manu could fit really well with cp3. Well you know who also fit well with him. James harden in real life. They won 90% of their games together (44-5). There's no way to argue Manu could have somehow fit even better. I'm guessing that's one of the best duo records in league history for so many games in a season. "Manu will form an all time duo" can't be the assumption.

And then in the playoffs the rockets went toe to toe with an all time great warriors team and were up 3-2. That warriors team went 28-3 in the 7 series they played that weren't against the rockets. 2-3 against the healthy rockets. We can't just give Manu those 3 wins, lol. I'm guessing based on your evaluation of harden and most of the worlds evaluation of harden, the rockets baseline was to get beaten by the warriors 4-0 or maybe 4-1, like LeBron was getting beat. No one had them up 3-2. So add some off ball movement and defense from ginobili and maybe you get a 4-1 series and a competitive 2nd game, or maybe, maybe 4-2. But now you've got Manu wiping the floor with them in 5.

We have ginobilis career to look at. He played his whole career with peak/prime Tim Duncan. The best teams he ever beat were the 2003 Mavs, an all offense team featuring Steve Nash that was more pretender than contender and that lost dirk halfway through the series. And Manu was a role player. They beat the 2005 suns, another all offense Steve Nash team. And they beat the 2007 suns, another all offense Steve Nash team that they got lucky with some suspension help for. And I don't think anyone would put any of those teams closer than within 3 tiers of the 2018 warriors. So now we're replacing prime 2003/2005/2007 Tim Duncan with early 30s Chris Paul and ramping up those solid contenders to all time top 10 teams and Manu is beating them, maybe wiping the floor with them? Come on.

Shouldn't the rockets ridiculous team results be a reason to think "maybe I've underrated harden's peak" and not "Manu could easily replicate that baseline plus he's got other skills.so he'd probably surpass it."?

Can I give half an upvote (just for the Harden thing)?