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

[falcolombardi]

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."?

This is how i feel about the shai nitpicking tbh

Only player to win a ring and have people move him down relatively to the guy (jokic) he beat/outplayed

Results be damned

[eminence]

Decided to stick with CP3 as my #3, added Tatum in at #4.

11. Kobe Bryant - 2009 - Great/versatile scorer and overall offensive talent. Generally an underrated playmaker for others imo. Defensively fine (not All-D worthy). Great ballhandling/turnover control with strong scoring is a great place to be with your primary perimeter offensive star.

12. Dirk Nowitzki - 2011 - A bit harder to get him the ball than it is a perimeter guy, but provided you can get it to him, Dirk in this era gave you just about the highest offensive baseline there's ever been. When he wasn't being asked to play C and had a real rim protector next to him was plenty useful on defense/on the glass.

13. Chris Paul - 2015 - Good scorer and great playmaker (though I'd stop short of elite). Doesn't turn it over and forces the other team to do so, probably the best at winning the turnover battle in the 21st century. Mid range master. About as good of defender as possible given the combo of size/offensive load.

14. Jayson Tatum - 2024 - A contender for the 2nd widest skillset ever behind KG imo. Good scorer/playmaker/defender/rebounder. Not a master in any area. I'd go even further than saying he has no real weaknesses and say he doesn't have any areas that aren't at least small strengths.

Commenting on other guys - decided I will have Harden/Nash over Manu. KD my next forward, debating Dwight/Dray for next big.

[Owly]

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."?

This is how i feel about the shai nitpicking tbh

Only player to win a ring and have people move him down relatively to the guy (jokic) he beat/outplayed

Results be damned

So....

I don't necessarily agree with all the rankings so far....

I believe that with an RS tilt SGA could end up perhaps not insignificantly higher....

I believe with greater certainty and legacy that might well be coming (though present league rules that seem to mitigate against longer term big spending and therefore against dynastic cores may make it harder) ... SGA could make whatever rating he gets look wild (especially, say, if this is a clearly prime year of a generational-ish, maybe dynasty leading player).

This probably applies especially to the playoffs ... (for those who see variation as more likely to be noise, they may be higher already and see an optimistic long-term)

Measuring playoffs is tricky given very different circumstances. For those weighting it more and in single years this becomes an even bigger issue.


That said
1) players don't "beat" players.
2) I may be misunderstanding but I think the idea of ring suggests the downward movement is from the start of the playoffs (and this seems to me to be the most plausible idea of how his stock moved) - though it's not clear ...
It feels like this is conflating two things. SGA's stock falling over the playoffs and the performance (and outcome) in a particular series

Using one easily available, series level box aggregate (your choice and mileage may vary)
SGA had a (Reference) BPM versus Denver of 11.5.
versus Memphis 6.4
versus Minnesota 7.1
versus Indiana 7.0
Resulting in and 8.3 over the full playoffs (a number that happens to be less than all but one Jokic playoff run - competition, sample etc of course vary). And non-box, on-off (a very crude measure over small samples) ... his being on court is far less obviously correlating with elite performance than was the case in the RS.

If his stock went down over the playoffs (versus his incredible regular season) ... it's probably not because of how he played versus Denver.

I guess if one's process of player evaluation hinges heavily on the top two playing each other in a series (if it happens to happen - what would one do if it doesn't) and what happens there SGA would be expected to benefit. More generally if you are looking at his status before and after that series you might expect a small bump. If you're looking at his performance over the playoffs ... whilst good in absolute terms and the team achieved its end goal ... I think it's understandable if people had expected him to be a be better, felt he dropped a little and therefore dropped him somewhat (how much for these purposes might depend on how much they weight different parts of the season).

[LA Bird]

Copy pasting from last round because none of them made the cut

1. Dirk Nowitzki (11)
2. Chris Paul (15)
3. Kobe Bryant (08)
4. Steve Nash (05)

Spoiler:

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

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

Kobe - probably the most viable peak seasons of any player but he never put everything together from start to finish. His 06 regular season was historic but then he only scored 30 once in seven games against a weak defensive team. In 01, he arguably outplayed Shaq against the West when the Lakers finally lived up to their reputation but the regular season wasn't all that. I'm probably lower on Pau than anyone here so I find the 08-10 success to be the most impressive. Going with 08 for Kobe's peak because I don't want to touch the elephant in the room that is 09 Odom just yet.

Nash - one of the candidates for GOAT offensive peak and the others have already been voted in at #1, #3, #4. He has led the most dominant RS and PO offenses in history which fell apart without him and he is arguably top 2 all time in both passing and shooting. Nash was a weak defender but from a team building perspective, 06 Thomas for Amare kind of showed it can be hidden without too much problem. With almost all of the candidates at this point being heavily offense-first, I don't think Nash is out of place here.

Kawhi - seems to be the overwhelming favorite this round but I don't think anyone has addressed the 2017 Houston series at all. And roasting a wing rotation of 40yo Vince Carter, James Ennis, and Wayne Selden for a team that played at a 30 win pace post All Star isn't really doing much for me. I am actually switching to 2019 for his peak now since he had better playoff series and the main criticism (lack of RS impact) applied for 2017 too.

In general, I like Ginobili but I can't place him this high with how low his minutes were. Though I guess the same applies for 21 Embiid too so he is also getting dropped ... unless I choose 24 for him but then the missed games are an even bigger problem. Oh well, will leave that for later rounds when he starts getting traction.

[f4p]

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.

where did i say it was a black mark? you are the one saying he's about to win 4-1 over the 2018 warriors. all i pointed out was that ginobili and all his impact was apparently still perfectly capable of losing to much lesser teams.

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?

again, i didn't say it was his fault. but in that 2006 series, tim duncan had one of his best series ever as well. so manu ginobili playing well plus tim duncan playing as well as he can possibly play wasn't enough to beat a team that didn't even win the championship. keep in mind, we're replacing one of the best series of duncan's career with chris paul putting up 20/6 on 52 TS% and we're scaling the 2006 mavs up to a top 10 all time team, so why am i granting ginobili a 3-2 lead on the warriors and then adding his good attributes on top of that and acting like he would beat them, maybe even 4-1. because you just told me he could play really well and not beat nearly as good of a team.

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.

yeah? and harden basically matches ginobili on/off for on/off through their primes. first 12 playoff years for manu, +11. first 13 years for harden, +11. he even had a 4 year, 50 game span early in his career of +18.4. they are actually about as similar as it gets in playoff on/off and where it happened in their careers. it's like you want me to consider harden as some low impact guy when the number don't say that.

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.

how does it work then? they have the same playoff on/off for over a decade. if harden is so much less impactful, shouldn't the on/off be way different? i mean in game 1, the rockets lost by 13 with harden putting up 41/7 on 70+ TS%. am i supposed to grant ginobili another 14 points of impact on top of what was already a great harden game when harden already matches him in on/off?

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.

so where does it end then? by playoff RAPM, manu is 3rd behind lebron and draymond. so why isn't manu above dirk and kobe in this project? why isn't he above shai? why isn't he above garnett and jokic? and duncan? this is what the PC board often does with harden and reminds me of the conversation i had with Doctor MJ in the other harden/ginobili thread from about a month ago. it's not like ginobili is behind all these other guys and just ahead of harden in impact so we can slot ginobili ahead of harden but behind everyone else because of the impact numbers. it's as if when someone like manu is slightly ahead of harden in something like RAPM, i get a lecture that the box score is meaningless and that we have to look at impact. then if i point out that someone like manu is ahead of a whole bunch of other people, people who are sacred cows for the PC board, then we have to broaden our thinking and impact isn't all it's cracked up to be. or if i point out that harden looks better than some of those other people as well because he's not that far behind ginobili, then it's that it's a small sample size and we can't be sure what these impact metrics mean. but we can still stick with manu over harden because they mean something then.

it's not like we can just say "manu has impact" and now replace guys with manu and his results are always better. like i said, the 2018 rockets results are already indicative of harden having impact way, way beyond what you are giving him credit for. well beyond what his career average was, otherwise the 2018 rockets results aren't really explainable. so now you're essentially giving ginobili harden's outsized impact in 2018 and just building on it when it's much more likely that 2018 harden's impact must have been quite high for the rockets to do what they did, higher than a typical or even peak ginobili season.

[Djoker]

Ginobili's minutes are super low so I think it's far too early to consider him. He may make my top 25 and that's already probably higher than the general perception of his impact. As I've said in a few prior discussions, I'm just not convinced that he should be as high as some on here have him. Some good arguments were certainly presented so it's not unreasonable at all but I guess my doubt simply comes from having to accept that one of the greatest coaches ever (if not THE greatest) didn't realize how good Manu was and didn't play him more. I just don't buy it. Dude probably wasn't as good as those impact stats show him to be. There is something...

[One_and_Done]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how Kobe is even better than peak Butler. Does anyone seriously think the 20, 22, or 23 Heat perform better if you switch Butler for Kobe?

What is the argument other than 'but, but, it's Kobe!'

[70sFan]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how Kobe is even better than peak Butler. Does anyone seriously think the 20, 22, or 23 Heat perform better if you switch Butler for Kobe?

What is the argument other than 'but, but, it's Kobe!'

You can first start with explaining why Kobe wouldn't be able to replicate what Butler did in series like 2020 vs Celtics. Butler wasn't even a 2nd scorer on his team in that series.

Or you can tell us what separates Butler's 2023 performance from average Kobe postseason if you look at anything outside of the first round.

Then maybe you'd tell us what Butler did that made the Heat 40+% 3P shooting team against Boston and Milwaukee in 2023.

[falcolombardi]

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."?

This is how i feel about the shai nitpicking tbh

Only player to win a ring and have people move him down relatively to the guy (jokic) he beat/outplayed

Results be damned

So....

I don't necessarily agree with all the rankings so far....

I believe that with an RS tilt SGA could end up perhaps not insignificantly higher....

I believe with greater certainty and legacy that might well be coming (though present league rules that seem to mitigate against longer term big spending and therefore against dynastic cores may make it harder) ... SGA could make whatever rating he gets look wild (especially, say, if this is a clearly prime year of a generational-ish, maybe dynasty leading player).

This probably applies especially to the playoffs ... (for those who see variation as more likely to be noise, they may be higher already and see an optimistic long-term)

Measuring playoffs is tricky given very different circumstances. For those weighting it more and in single years this becomes an even bigger issue.


That said
1) players don't "beat" players.
2) I may be misunderstanding but I think the idea of ring suggests the downward movement is from the start of the playoffs (and this seems to me to be the most plausible idea of how his stock moved) - though it's not clear ...
It feels like this is conflating two things. SGA's stock falling over the playoffs and the performance (and outcome) in a particular series

Using one easily available, series level box aggregate (your choice and mileage may vary)
SGA had a (Reference) BPM versus Denver of 11.5.
versus Memphis 6.4
versus Minnesota 7.1
versus Indiana 7.0
Resulting in and 8.3 over the full playoffs (a number that happens to be less than all but one Jokic playoff run - competition, sample etc of course vary). And non-box, on-off (a very crude measure over small samples) ... his being on court is far less obviously correlating with elite performance than was the case in the RS.

If his stock went down over the playoffs (versus his incredible regular season) ... it's probably not because of how he played versus Denver.

I guess if one's process of player evaluation hinges heavily on the top two playing each other in a series (if it happens to happen - what would one do if it doesn't) and what happens there SGA would be expected to benefit. More generally if you are looking at his status before and after that series you might expect a small bump. If you're looking at his performance over the playoffs ... whilst good in absolute terms and the team achieved its end goal ... I think it's understandable if people had expected him to be a be better, felt he dropped a little and therefore dropped him somewhat (how much for these purposes might depend on how much they weight different parts of the season).

Is not that i rank shai above jokic as much as that i am surprised how little shai season + ring + head to head with jokic did to change the perception that jokic is head and shoulders above him

Neither did matching or beating jokic in all sort of impact stats last season

I dont like bpm as i consider it overrewards certain archetypes too much and gives arbitraliy high value to centers rebounding in principle, but even in your example you would be comparing plenty of jokic 1/2 rounds runs to a full 4 round run by shai, not exactly a good comparision (and again i kinda hate bpm lol)

Usually correctly or incorrectly a title/mvp winning player gets a huge boost in reputation and a player who loses specially in early rounds gets a (deserved or undeserved) reputation hit

Neither of which seem to have happened regarding jokic and shai respecrively

[70sFan]

I don't want to focus too much on Manu here, because I just don't think he already deserves the mention. Don't get me wrong, you have made a lot of great points regarding his impact and synergy with Duncan (I wonder why it's always attributed to Manu, but not to Duncan, we have seen earlier in the project that people doubt in Duncan's scalability and I don't remember the references to ridiculous ON/OFF numbers with Manu). The problem is just that we are far, far too early in the project for him. I know that some argue 2005 Manu is the closest to "best player on title team" left (after Dirk and Kobe) but I disagree with this description for two reasons:

1. I don't believe Manu was the Spurs best and most important player.

2. I don't think being on a title team automatically makes your individual season more impressive.

The first objection might be controversial, but I don't see any reason to believe that Manu was the guy on the Spurs team in the RS. Of course, he was really good in the playoffs and you can give him the edge there, especially with Duncan's injury issues. That doesn't make him a clearcut best player on the team though and it certainly doesn't make it more impressive than the efforts from Nash, Harden, Paul etc. F4p mentioned a few very important points and I think they got dismissed too easily. Manu played on extremely good teams and he had the luxury to play limited minutes and limited role. Defenses rarely game planned against him relative to guys we're comparing him to here. If you take a look at the famous 2005 finals, the Pistons actually did a lot more to stop Duncan than Manu. I don't say that to suggest that Manu just played off Duncan, but he had that luxury to shine against teams that treat him like a secondary option.

Another thing that is very important to mention is about his consistency - f4p is right that Manu was quite mediocre for basically half of the series. I see people talking about this 2005 finals performance like he did things similar to 2006 Wade but that's just not true. He was really good considering the context, but it's not some kind of all-time performance. He had some really rough games in that series and as we shouldn't just look at them only, we shouldn't focus just on the good ones either.

I don't see any case for Manu over Paul or Durant. I think you need to assume a gigantic defensive gap between him and Nash to put him above, because there is no way that Manu is even close to Nash offensively. It's not unreasonable, but I don't see any popularity of such approach throughout the project (most people focus on offense, especially for perimeter players). I think his case over Harden and Luka isn't that strong, although you can entertain some room to debate here. Then there's Davis, who I have no idea what to do with.

I don't think I will consider Manu before the end of top 20. In fact, I am almost certain I won't have him inside top 20. It's not detrimental to his greatness, he's an amazing player. Top 20 of the century is just a ridiculous bar.

[lessthanjake]

Ginobili's minutes are super low so I think it's far too early to consider him. He may make my top 25 and that's already probably higher than the general perception of his impact. As I've said in a few prior discussions, I'm just not convinced that he should be as high as some on here have him. Some good arguments were certainly presented so it's not unreasonable at all but I guess my doubt simply comes from having to accept that one of the greatest coaches ever (if not THE greatest) didn't realize how good Manu was and didn't play him more. I just don't buy it. Dude probably wasn't as good as those impact stats show him to be. There is something...

So I think it’s perfectly reasonable to just see the minutes issue as a dealbreaker for Ginobili at this point. It’s certainly my biggest concern with him. My concern is mitigated just enough to vote for him now because he did actually play pretty normal minutes in the business end of the playoffs in the year I’m voting for (over 36 MPG in the last 14 games of the 2005 playoffs). I feel like if he was able to ramp up to normal minutes in the highest-leverage games of the year and still played great, then the minutes issue isn’t *that* big a deal. But people’s mileage can reasonably vary on this issue.

And it sounds like you’re coming at it from less of a “His lower minutes mean he didn’t accumulate as much total value” or “I don’t think he could’ve been nearly as good if he had to play more minutes” perspective and more from a “If he were really that good, he’d have been given more minutes” perspective. On that front, I do understand feeling like a great coach like Popovich wouldn’t have given an all-time player so few minutes. But, to echo a couple things I’ve seen DoctorMJ say about this: (1) we should probably keep in mind that every coach in that era—even the very best ones—were very wrong about a lot of things, since they were all having their teams play in very suboptimal ways; and (2) Popovich actually was a bit of an innovator in giving low minutes to great players, with guys like Duncan, Kawhi, and Parker all at various times having minutes in the low 30s and high 20s MPG. Point #2 admittedly doesn’t exactly mitigate the concern, since Ginobili’s minutes were still generally lower than those guys’ minutes, but I think it’s definitely an important background fact. As for Point #1, I think it certainly is the case that we shouldn’t assume that coaches from back then didn’t make huge mistakes, because we definitely know that they all did. And that seems particularly relevant as to Ginobili, because a significant part of what made Ginobili so valuable was that he had a very futuristic shot diet (for instance, in the 2005 season I’ve voted for, 70% of his FGAs were either from three-point range or from 0-3 feet—which is high even by today’s standards). We know coaches back then (including Popovich and everyone else) *really* didn’t properly understand the value of modern shot diets, so it makes some sense that they wouldn’t understand how good a guy was who was really leveraging that kind of shot diet. Of course, the fact that it’s very plausible that Popovich could’ve made a significant mistake regarding Ginobili doesn’t mean that he actually did, so I’m not suggesting your conclusion must be wrong. But I just don’t really look at what happened and say I must be missing something because Popovich couldn’t have misfired on this.

[Djoker]

Ginobili's minutes are super low so I think it's far too early to consider him. He may make my top 25 and that's already probably higher than the general perception of his impact. As I've said in a few prior discussions, I'm just not convinced that he should be as high as some on here have him. Some good arguments were certainly presented so it's not unreasonable at all but I guess my doubt simply comes from having to accept that one of the greatest coaches ever (if not THE greatest) didn't realize how good Manu was and didn't play him more. I just don't buy it. Dude probably wasn't as good as those impact stats show him to be. There is something...

So I think it’s perfectly reasonable to just see the minutes issue as a dealbreaker for Ginobili at this point. It’s certainly my biggest concern with him. My concern is mitigated just enough to vote for him now because he did actually play pretty normal minutes in the business end of the playoffs in the year I’m voting for (over 36 MPG in the last 14 games of the 2005 playoffs). I feel like if he was able to ramp up to normal minutes in the highest-leverage games of the year and still played great, then the minutes issue isn’t *that* big a deal. But people’s mileage can reasonably vary on this issue.

And it sounds like you’re coming at it from less of a “His lower minutes mean he didn’t accumulate as much total value” or “I don’t think he could’ve been nearly as good if he had to play more minutes” perspective and more from a “If he were really that good, he’d have been given more minutes” perspective. On that front, I do understand feeling like a great coach like Popovich wouldn’t have given an all-time player so few minutes. But, to echo a couple things I’ve seen DoctorMJ say about this: (1) we should probably keep in mind that every coach in that era—even the very best ones—were very wrong about a lot of things, since they were all having their teams play in very suboptimal ways; and (2) Popovich actually was a bit of an innovator in giving low minutes to great players, with guys like Duncan, Kawhi, and Parker all at various times having minutes in the low 30s and high 20s MPG. Point #2 admittedly doesn’t exactly mitigate the concern, since Ginobili’s minutes were still generally lower than those guys’ minutes, but I think it’s definitely an important background fact. As for Point #1, I think it certainly is the case that we shouldn’t assume that coaches from back then didn’t make huge mistakes, because we definitely know that they all did. And that seems particularly relevant as to Ginobili, because a significant part of what made Ginobili so valuable was that he had a very futuristic shot diet (for instance, in the 2005 season I’ve voted for, 70% of his FGAs were either from three-point range or from 0-3 feet—which is high even by today’s standards). We know coaches back then (including Popovich and everyone else) *really* didn’t properly understand the value of modern shot diets, so it makes some sense that they wouldn’t understand how good a guy was who was really leveraging that kind of shot diet. Of course, the fact that it’s very plausible that Popovich could’ve made a significant mistake regarding Ginobili doesn’t mean that he actually did, so I’m not suggesting your conclusion must be wrong. But I just don’t really look at what happened and say I must be missing something because Popovich couldn’t have misfired on this.

Good post but let me clarify a bit more why I'm thinking the way I am...

NBA coaching staff have had a plethora of stats including tracking stats (charges, loose balls, deflections etc,) before they were tracked by the NBA, plus impact stats including all kinds of advanced analytics that their statistics guys concoct which aren't publicly available. For example RAPM was first publicly developed in 2004 but it was used by NBA teams before then. They used every tool and just a **** of man hours to figure out anything that would help them get an edge on other teams. While I do think something COULD pass by Popovich, I just find it extremely unlikely that he (or maybe any competent NBA coach for that matter) wouldn't play a bonafide superstar more. If Manu was that good, he quite simply would have been played more. There's no other explanation unless there is an actual legit reason why he wasn't played more like unpublicized injury issues that warranted more rest or issues with stamina but if any of those are the case, they don't exactly help his argument. Injuries or lack of conditioning are reasons to penalize a player.

And yes, in 2005, Manu played solid minutes (~36 mpg) down the stretch of the playoffs but a) that's still a lot less than contemporary superstars who were often pushing 40+ mpg and b) as 70sFan said, the consistency of his performances is IMO a bit overrated. He had a few downright poor games in those same Finals.

[One_and_Done]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how Kobe is even better than peak Butler. Does anyone seriously think the 20, 22, or 23 Heat perform better if you switch Butler for Kobe?

What is the argument other than 'but, but, it's Kobe!'

You can first start with explaining why Kobe wouldn't be able to replicate what Butler did in series like 2020 vs Celtics. Butler wasn't even a 2nd scorer on his team in that series.

Or you can tell us what separates Butler's 2023 performance from average Kobe postseason if you look at anything outside of the first round.

Then maybe you'd tell us what Butler did that made the Heat 40+% 3P shooting team against Boston and Milwaukee in 2023.

This is just a strange response. It seems to proceeds from a premise you likely don’t even believe, which is that Butler wasn’t the driver of the Heat’s success on those 3 playoff runs. That would be a strange position to take, because Butler was the common denominator for all 3 runs (other than Bam), and if it was Bam then you wouldn’t have seen the Heat win 37 games after Butler bailed (and get utterly destroyed in the playoffs last season).

Butler is giving you enough of Kobe’s scoring, on better efficiency, but is supplementing that with elite D, and a vastly better floor game, that just leads to more winning. I’m not entirely sure why we’d focus on things like “ppg” in 1 series is a sensible response.

Sometimes stats aren’t everything, because volume stats can’t always capture the impact a guy is having. That said, when you look at say Jimmy Butler’s 2022 playoffs it looks better than Kobe’s 09 playoffs.

Butler 22 PS per 100: 38/10/6, on 604 TS%
Kobe 09 PS per 100: 39/7/7, on 564 TS%

Even raw numbers, which don’t capture Butler’s D and floor game, seem to favour him.

[lessthanjake]

I don't want to focus too much on Manu here, because I just don't think he already deserves the mention. Don't get me wrong, you have made a lot of great points regarding his impact and synergy with Duncan (I wonder why it's always attributed to Manu, but not to Duncan, we have seen earlier in the project that people doubt in Duncan's scalability and I don't remember the references to ridiculous ON/OFF numbers with Manu). The problem is just that we are far, far too early in the project for him. I know that some argue 2005 Manu is the closest to "best player on title team" left (after Dirk and Kobe) but I disagree with this description for two reasons:

I think my views/responses on the rest of what you’ve said is well-encompassed in other posts I’ve made in this thread, so I’ll only respond by addressing the bolded, which is something I definitely don’t think accurately portrays how I’ve talked about this stuff.

I’ve stated in this thread and many other times in the past on these forums that I give major credit to *both* players when they reach these kinds of heights together. And I’ve often used Duncan and Ginobili as an example. For instance, I said in this thread: “Yeah, for me this kind of symbiotic relationship where two great players maintain their impact while on the court together is a really big deal, because it is rare and is basically a sure-fire way to have a historically great team. I give a lot of credit to both sides of such duos.” I’ve stated similar things in other discussions here over the years. For instance, see the below quote of me from a couple years ago, explicitly giving Duncan credit for being able to synergize really well with Ginobili (and I talk about Parker as well):

Spoiler:

A player who is GOAT-level in a particular area and extracts full value from that while giving space for other great players on his team to handle things that they’re great at is typically the formula to optimal ceiling raising. Magic extracted full value from his GOAT-level passing while his great teammates handled a lot of the scoring duties. Bill Russell extracted full value from his GOAT-level defense and rebounding, while his great teammates handled primary duties in terms of scoring and playmaking. Steph Curry extracted full value from his GOAT-level shooting (and therefore on- and off-ball gravity) while a guy like Draymond extracted full value with his great passing and defense, and eventually Durant got huge value from his on-ball iso scoring that was compounded by Steph’s gravity. Tim Duncan extracted full value from his GOAT-level defense (I have him as the #2 defender all time, behind only Russell) while stepping back enough on offense that guys like Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker were able to still get immense impact from their offensive skill sets (Ginobili through his weirdly effective brand of playmaking, and Parker through his amazing ability to get to the hoop). Michael Jordan extracted full value from his GOAT-level scoring, while Pippen was able to still get massive value from his unique brand of playmaking and his defense (as well as other players getting big value, like Rodman dominating the boards).

I didn’t focus on how well Ginobili and Duncan did together in the first thread in this project (where Duncan was discussed) because Duncan’s peak was 2002 and 2003—which were years Ginobili wasn’t in the NBA and Ginobili’s rookie year. So Duncan’s synergy with Ginobili didn’t really directly come into play nearly so much when it came to Duncan’s peak. Which isn’t to say it is wholly irrelevant. I’d certainly disagree with anyone who would try to suggest peak Duncan was difficult to fit with other great players. That’s not only because he later fit so well with Ginobili, but also because he fit really well with Robinson as well. I’ll point out that the latter is something I’ve also noted earlier in this project—stating “twin towers setups on defense (such as Duncan + Robinson) have often fit well together.” I don’t recall seeing anyone in the first thread of this project actually suggesting peak Duncan was difficult to fit with, though. But yeah, if I had seen that then I’d certainly say it was wrong.

[falcolombardi]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how Kobe is even better than peak Butler. Does anyone seriously think the 20, 22, or 23 Heat perform better if you switch Butler for Kobe?

What is the argument other than 'but, but, it's Kobe!'

You can first start with explaining why Kobe wouldn't be able to replicate what Butler did in series like 2020 vs Celtics. Butler wasn't even a 2nd scorer on his team in that series.

Or you can tell us what separates Butler's 2023 performance from average Kobe postseason if you look at anything outside of the first round.

Then maybe you'd tell us what Butler did that made the Heat 40+% 3P shooting team against Boston and Milwaukee in 2023.

This is just a strange response. It seems to proceeds from a premise you likely don’t even believe, which is that Butler wasn’t the driver of the Heat’s success on those 3 playoff runs. That would be a strange position to take, because Butler was the common denominator for all 3 runs (other than Bam), and if it was Bam then you wouldn’t have seen the Heat win 37 games after Butler bailed (and get utterly destroyed in the playoffs last season).

Butler is giving you enough of Kobe’s scoring, on better efficiency, but is supplementing that with elite D, and a vastly better floor game, that just leads to more winning. I’m not entirely sure why we’d focus on things like “ppg” in 1 series is a sensible response.

Sometimes stats aren’t everything, because volume stats can’t always capture the impact a guy is having. That said, when you look at say Jimmy Butler’s 2022 playoffs it looks better than Kobe’s 09 playoffs.

Butler 22 PS per 100: 38/10/6, on 604 TS%
Kobe 09 PS per 100: 39/7/7, on 564 TS%

Even raw numbers, which don’t capture Butler’s D and floor game, seem to favour him.

You probably should use relative ts here which shrinks the efficiency gap almost completely

And per 100 stats favors butler a bit as he plays in a higher scoring per possesion era

[DraymondGold]

Voting Post

1. 2015 Chris Paul (> 2014)
2. 2008 Kobe Bryant (> 2009)
3. 2016 Kevin Durant (> 2017 > 2014)
4. 2005 Steve Nash (> 2007)

Most of my reasoning is explained in my previous post: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119671334#p119671334 .

Regarding some of the other players in this thread, I'd be especially interested in some comparison of Dirk vs Nash, as I think Dirk was the closest and could switch in.

I see Harden, AD, and Embiid (how do we deal with Embiid's health?) as the next candidates after that.

I'm not quite ready to vote Manu personally. I think he's really impactful, and seriously underrated by the general opinion, and may well have been the most impactful player on the 05 Spurs (if we punish Duncan for injury). At the same time, his limited minutes do limit his per game impact. Taking EPM's RS Estimated Wins just to get a ballpark of per-season volume (imperfect stat, particularly as we go earlier, but one of the most accurate around in modern day, and still pretty good earlier)... Paul has 9 seasons over 05 Manu, Kobe has 5 (and EW doesn't go back to 01), Durant has 6 seasons, Nash has 3, Dirk has 10. Harden has 7 fwiw.
I do think Manu was capable of upping his minute load in stretches, as he did in the playoffs. So I could be somewhat amenable to curve things up a little bit. But Manu also benefited from load management, with plenty of missed games due to injury, and it's natural to think that over a large enough game load, that there'd be some decline in per-possession impact under a higher minute load due to stamina... even if Manu could maintain his great impact in short spurts like the playoffs. Great player, should crack my top 25, but probably after this crop of players.

[One_and_Done]

You can first start with explaining why Kobe wouldn't be able to replicate what Butler did in series like 2020 vs Celtics. Butler wasn't even a 2nd scorer on his team in that series.

Or you can tell us what separates Butler's 2023 performance from average Kobe postseason if you look at anything outside of the first round.

Then maybe you'd tell us what Butler did that made the Heat 40+% 3P shooting team against Boston and Milwaukee in 2023.

This is just a strange response. It seems to proceeds from a premise you likely don’t even believe, which is that Butler wasn’t the driver of the Heat’s success on those 3 playoff runs. That would be a strange position to take, because Butler was the common denominator for all 3 runs (other than Bam), and if it was Bam then you wouldn’t have seen the Heat win 37 games after Butler bailed (and get utterly destroyed in the playoffs last season).

Butler is giving you enough of Kobe’s scoring, on better efficiency, but is supplementing that with elite D, and a vastly better floor game, that just leads to more winning. I’m not entirely sure why we’d focus on things like “ppg” in 1 series is a sensible response.

Sometimes stats aren’t everything, because volume stats can’t always capture the impact a guy is having. That said, when you look at say Jimmy Butler’s 2022 playoffs it looks better than Kobe’s 09 playoffs.

Butler 22 PS per 100: 38/10/6, on 604 TS%
Kobe 09 PS per 100: 39/7/7, on 564 TS%

Even raw numbers, which don’t capture Butler’s D and floor game, seem to favour him.

You probably should use relative ts here which shrinks the efficiency gap almost completely

And per 100 stats favors butler a bit as he plays in a higher scoring per possesion era

1) I don't agree with a flat TS% adjustment as I've discussed before many times
2) per possession inherently factors in pace

Players today are better at scoring than in Kobe’s day, but I fail to see why Butler should be punished for the fact that he plays in a more skilled era.

[Doctor MJ]

Ginobili's minutes are super low so I think it's far too early to consider him. He may make my top 25 and that's already probably higher than the general perception of his impact. As I've said in a few prior discussions, I'm just not convinced that he should be as high as some on here have him. Some good arguments were certainly presented so it's not unreasonable at all but I guess my doubt simply comes from having to accept that one of the greatest coaches ever (if not THE greatest) didn't realize how good Manu was and didn't play him more. I just don't buy it. Dude probably wasn't as good as those impact stats show him to be. There is something...

So, I just want to make sure you see part of this prior post of mine Djoker on possessions played, putting everything else in spoilers if it helps for context, this is the possessions per game for Duncan in 2003, and the core 3 Spurs in the 2005 playoffs:

Spoiler:

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

Spoiler:

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

Spoiler:

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.

Does that strike you as "super low" for Ginobili? If it does, would you be looking to knock '05 Duncan almost the same way given that he's much closer to Ginobili than he is to his '03 self?

I think one of the things people have to keep in mind here is that Pop specifically goes on his ahead-of-the-curve conservation of player minutes. So Duncan sees his MPG drop by about 6 in the span of 4 years while he's still in his 20s, but even more interestingly imho, Parker ends up peaking in MPG when he's 21 years old in '03-04. That's certainly not what I'd expect for a young player I know is being positioned to be a star of a legendary core.

Hence the question of why we'd knock Ginobili hard and completely let other players off the hook for seemingly much the same sin.

And here's where I'd answer:

I think people don't tend to think about minutes unless something makes them notice it, and so it becomes a tiered hierarchy where players deemed deficient must be below those not deficient that are also on their mind.

And what I'm trying to do is to figure out how to ding Ginobili for this in proper proportion to how much it would expect to harm any team he was on, and especially the teams he was actually on.

If I look at Ginobili's playoffs minutes relative to his contemporary rivals on other teams, it does looks like pretty significant.
If I look at Ginobili's playoffs minutes relative to his fellow star Spurs though, it really doesn't.

I'd say there's good reason to believe that much of Ginobili's minutes deficit is simply Pop's new strategy in action for all of his key players.

So what should we do with that in the context of a project like this? Up to each of us to decide, but I'll say I'm struggling to find the right razor to cut through this knot.

[Doctor MJ]

Another thing that is very important to mention is about his consistency - f4p is right that Manu was quite mediocre for basically half of the series. I see people talking about this 2005 finals performance like he did things similar to 2006 Wade but that's just not true. He was really good considering the context, but it's not some kind of all-time performance. He had some really rough games in that series and as we shouldn't just look at them only, we shouldn't focus just on the good ones either.

So I've been meaning to touch on this specifically within the project - I think you've already seen my post on this some so thank you for your forbearance 70s.

Because legacy is determined in modern NBA circles by playoff success, and because the playoffs are played in series, game-to-game consistency is considerably less important than it would be if it were a single elimination tournament.

Becoming the champion in the modern NBA is about being able to beat four opponents in a row at least 57% of the games, and this allows for teams and players to pace their efforts.

The 2005 finals was one of the craziest in history in terms of the way the teams seemed to be reserving energy to "hold serve" at home through the first 4 games of the series in which every single game was won by 15 or more points, and Game 4 saw the Spurs lose by 31 points... only to win 2 of the last 3 and thus take the series.

Fine to say it wasn't exactly the most dominant Finals performance in NBA history, but it did the trick.

And how was said trick done? In the 4 games the Spurs won, here were the totals for the Spurs Big 3:

Duncan 168 MP, 93 Pts, 58 Rbds, 8 Asts, 10 Blks, +36
Parker 152 MP, 49 Pts, 9 Rbds, 11 Asts, +10
Ginobili 150 MP, 91 Pts, 23 Rbds, 22 Asts, 6 Stls, +60

Had people been in the habit of thinking of things more in these terms, rather than by overall averages, I believe they'd have voted for Ginobili for Finals MVP.

Now, in the name of consistency as a virtue folks can disagree with me on this, but I'd ask more than anything else that people ruminate on the idea that it's actually smart in a best-of-7 for players to allocate their efforts.

One can say "That's fine, but I'd rate higher the guys doing all Ginobili did, but without the down days.", but that player doesn't exist. Ginobili has the impact data he does with his worst days factored in just as much as his best days, just like everyone else, and when we do that, he looks incredible, and incredible particularly in the playoffs, and in the process of his career, it was a vital component of 4 NBA champions to say nothing of everything else the guy accomplished playing here, there, and everywhere.

I realize that a project like this means we have to nitpick, and it is right to knock Manu for playing less minutes, but I think we need to recognize that what Ginobili did, resulted in astonishing success for his teams in a way that frankly isn't true to for all the other guys we're talking about.

Ginobili's career gives us something truly unique to consider.

[70sFan]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how Kobe is even better than peak Butler. Does anyone seriously think the 20, 22, or 23 Heat perform better if you switch Butler for Kobe?

What is the argument other than 'but, but, it's Kobe!'

You can first start with explaining why Kobe wouldn't be able to replicate what Butler did in series like 2020 vs Celtics. Butler wasn't even a 2nd scorer on his team in that series.

Or you can tell us what separates Butler's 2023 performance from average Kobe postseason if you look at anything outside of the first round.

Then maybe you'd tell us what Butler did that made the Heat 40+% 3P shooting team against Boston and Milwaukee in 2023.

This is just a strange response. It seems to proceeds from a premise you likely don’t even believe, which is that Butler wasn’t the driver of the Heat’s success on those 3 playoff runs. That would be a strange position to take, because Butler was the common denominator for all 3 runs (other than Bam), and if it was Bam then you wouldn’t have seen the Heat win 37 games after Butler bailed (and get utterly destroyed in the playoffs last season).

Butler is giving you enough of Kobe’s scoring, on better efficiency, but is supplementing that with elite D, and a vastly better floor game, that just leads to more winning. I’m not entirely sure why we’d focus on things like “ppg” in 1 series is a sensible response.

Sometimes stats aren’t everything, because volume stats can’t always capture the impact a guy is having. That said, when you look at say Jimmy Butler’s 2022 playoffs it looks better than Kobe’s 09 playoffs.

Butler 22 PS per 100: 38/10/6, on 604 TS%
Kobe 09 PS per 100: 39/7/7, on 564 TS%

Even raw numbers, which don’t capture Butler’s D and floor game, seem to favour him.

I'd say 3P shooting variance was the main driving force of the Heat in those runs. I'd say that Spoelstra was the main star of this team. I don't deny that Butler was their best player, I just don't agree that he played with scrubs and carried them through all these series.

Sometimes the raw stats aren't everything and that's why all you do is post the raw (per100) numbers again. Of course, you only use 2022 run (the only one when the Heat didn't make the finals), because 2020 and 2023 look clearly worse than Kobe's best runs.

It's not the time for Butler yet and nobody treats your another Kobe post seriously. I hope we'll have Kobe in this time, so you will finally stop comparing everyone to him and focus on something else.