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

[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:

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.

DraymondGold had a short discussion with me in the first thread about Duncan's scalability issues in comparison to Kevin Garnett. In general, I struggle to understand the whole idea of Garnett being more scalable and portable based on the 2008 Celtics run when Duncan showed significantly longer period of dominance with good teammates, in different roles and different systems. I don't want to turn this into another KG vs TD battle, but it's something I just can't understand.

Regarding Manu, I will have him in my ballot at some point. Just not yet, there are bigger names left still.

[70sFan]

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.

I am glad that you mentioned that we are forced to nitpick in this project, because I don't want to be called out a Manu hater or anything like that. Manu was an amazing player throughout his whole career and I know about that as well as anyone, being a Spurs fan during their glory days.

I also don't want to discredit 2005 finals performance as not worthy the FMVP. Unlike some others, I don't find Duncan's choice a robbery (his defense was critical for the Spurs success), but Manu was certainly the best offensive player of the series and the Spurs needed him badly.

My point is just that this wasn't an ultra-dominant performance like Wade the year after. Now sure, Wade is already in, but I think there are other players left that have their own amazing performances.

About consistency - it's true that you don't need to win every game to win the series. The less variability your performance has, the more likely you are to get the win on the road though. I don't deny, this is just my personal preference and I don't have anything to back it up, but I prefer players who deliver every game. That's why things like RS performance, injuries, inconsistency matter to me. This is why I haven't voted in CP3 yet, that's why I don't push Shaq inside top 5 all-time. That's also why I don't have Manu as top 15 player of this century. His RS just isn't on that level and the postseason run, although fantastic, doesn't scream like something that would push him above players who I just believe are better in bigger samples.

When we have guys with very well defined peaks, I sometimes try to go away from this best scenario situation and ask myself - where would I put his 2nd best year on that list? I did that with Anthony Davis and I realized I should wait a little more for him. I am doing that with Manu and I definitely wouldn't consider 2007 for top 20. Is there really that massive gap between 2005 and 2007? I don't think so.

What are your thoughts on that?

[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.

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.

When you do it for 2 finals runs and an ECF run over a 4 year stretch I don't think you can call it an outlier. That was just the level Jimmy was carrying that team to.

[70sFan]

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.

When you do it for 2 finals runs and an ECF run over a 4 year stretch I don't think you can call it an outlier. That was just the level Jimmy was carrying that team to.

What's the difference between Butler and Kidd then? Or maybe you also consider Kidd a better player than Kobe?

[One_and_Done]

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.

When you do it for 2 finals runs and an ECF run over a 4 year stretch I don't think you can call it an outlier. That was just the level Jimmy was carrying that team to.

What's the difference between Butler and Kidd then? Or maybe you also consider Kidd a better player than Kobe?

What did Kidd do? When he took the Nets to the finals the East was utterly pathetic. Jimmy Buckets was beating real teams like the Celtics, Bucks, and Sixers. Those Nets teams wouldn’t even make the playoffs today.

[70sFan]

When you do it for 2 finals runs and an ECF run over a 4 year stretch I don't think you can call it an outlier. That was just the level Jimmy was carrying that team to.

What's the difference between Butler and Kidd then? Or maybe you also consider Kidd a better player than Kobe?

What did Kidd do? When he took the Nets to the finals the East was utterly pathetic. Jimmy Buckets was beating real teams like the Celtics, Bucks, and Sixers. Those Nets teams wouldn’t even make the playoffs today.

You mean the Sixers with injured Embiid and Milwaukee with injured Giannis? The Nets beat 2003 Pistons, which are considerably stronger than these injured teams.

[-Luke-]

11. Dirk Nowitzki 2011
Not his athletic peak, 13 years after he was drafted. But this is the year when Dirk became almost inevitable. The 'he did it without another All-Star' stance is very much overrated, and I had this opinion for a very long time as a big Dirk fan.

However, the lift he gave the team when on the court is still very impressive. I won't overrate the losing in the regular season while Dirk was injured, because Caron Butler went down almost at the same time. Playing without your two (or two of the top 3 if we include Terry) best scorers isn't an easy task for any team. But Dirk's on-off data is very impressive. In the playoff run he had arguably the best series of his career (OKC) and the series that made him a beloved champion (Miami) was arguably his worst series that season.

12. Kobe Bryant 2008 (2009)
I had Dirk and Kobe on my Ballot in the last thread, in this same order. I'm not changing the order, but I'm changing Kobe's peak year from 2009 to 2008, although both years are pretty close. After reading some of the posts in this thread and in the last, I looked into 2008 more and came away more impressed with his 2008 playoffs.

I think the reason why I ignored his 2008 season in the last thread is because of some bias because of the way it ended. Huge blowout in game 6 against the Celtics with Kobe not at his best in the latter part of the series. But overall, I'm more impressed with the playoff run and the competition in 2008. Not that the years matters a whole lot, as I had Kobe in this place anyway.

13. Kevin Durant 2017
I find it pretty difficult to choose a peak season for KD. While I agree that Steph was the driving force behind that championship run, Curry is already in (for the same season) and another player for the same year and the same team in the top 15 isn't as crazy as it sounds if we have an all-time dominant team. In the playoffs he's averaging 28.5 ppg on 68 TS% while being a plus defender and adding some rim protection.

14. Chris Paul 2015 (2008)
Another player where it's not easy to pick a peak. He's the definition of the high-impact over many years player, but with a few scars in all the seasons. As with other players (LeBron, Dirk to name two) I'm leaning to pick the older, more experienced version over the athletic peak. Paul was still a pretty good point guard defender. I have 2015 as the most well-rounded season of one of the most well-rounded Point guards in NBA history.

[lessthanjake]

When you do it for 2 finals runs and an ECF run over a 4 year stretch I don't think you can call it an outlier. That was just the level Jimmy was carrying that team to.

What's the difference between Butler and Kidd then? Or maybe you also consider Kidd a better player than Kobe?

What did Kidd do? When he took the Nets to the finals the East was utterly pathetic. Jimmy Buckets was beating real teams like the Celtics, Bucks, and Sixers. Those Nets teams wouldn’t even make the playoffs today.

So Jimmy Butler is really good and I will probably end up voting for him eventually. But the Heat never beat the 76ers or Bucks in a series where Embiid or Giannis were actually healthy (or even managed to play every game). Because of that, the Heat’s most impressive playoff victories were very easily the ones against the Celtics in 2020 and 2023. And Butler wasn’t actually particularly good in either of those series. In the 2020 series, Butler was absolutely not the team’s best player in the series, and honestly there’s an argument he was only their 4th best player in the series. Meanwhile, in 2023, he was okay, but was very inefficient with his scoring (51.9% TS%), and easily the main thing that won them the series really was that the role players were incredibly hot from three. It’s a little hard to give Butler outsized credit for what the Heat did when easily their most impressive playoff series wins came despite him struggling. It makes the narrative that he carried the team seem obviously flawed.

[jalengreen]

What's the difference between Butler and Kidd then? Or maybe you also consider Kidd a better player than Kobe?

What did Kidd do? When he took the Nets to the finals the East was utterly pathetic. Jimmy Buckets was beating real teams like the Celtics, Bucks, and Sixers. Those Nets teams wouldn’t even make the playoffs today.

So Jimmy Butler is really good and I will probably end up voting for him eventually. But the Heat never beat the 76ers or Bucks in a series where Embiid or Giannis were actually healthy (or even managed to play every game). Because of that, the Heat’s most impressive playoff victories were very easily the ones against the Celtics in 2020 and 2023. And Butler wasn’t actually particularly good in either of those series. In the 2020 series, Butler was absolutely not the team’s best player in the series, and honestly there’s an argument he was only their 4th best player in the series. Meanwhile, in 2023, he was okay, but was very inefficient with his scoring (51.9% TS%), and easily the main thing that won them the series really was that the role players were incredibly hot from three. It’s a little hard to give Butler outsized credit for what the Heat did when easily their most impressive playoff series wins came despite him struggling. It makes the narrative that he carried the team seem obviously flawed.

I think the 2020 win against Milwaukee is still pretty impressive. GIannis did tweak his ankle in Game 3 but played normal minutes and said he was fine. Makes sense to knock it for not needing 4 wins against Giannis but ultimately when the Heat were up 3-0 the real time narrative had nothing to do with GIannis' injury and everything to do with "holy cow the Heat are up 3-0".

And this series is one that Giannis has sort of made excuses about later on, but not about the injury - said "Year 7. Ended with Miami. I don’t make excuses as an athlete, but it wasn’t a satisfying year for me because I felt like if it was a normal situation, it wouldn’t end up like that. But at the end of the day, I felt like Miami was built to be an NBA bubble team, you know?" So even though he did seek to diminish the Heat's win, even he focused on the setting (bubble) and didn't feel like the injury was worth bringing up.

Anyway it still wasn't a carry job to your point, though it was a great Butler series

[lessthanjake]

What did Kidd do? When he took the Nets to the finals the East was utterly pathetic. Jimmy Buckets was beating real teams like the Celtics, Bucks, and Sixers. Those Nets teams wouldn’t even make the playoffs today.

So Jimmy Butler is really good and I will probably end up voting for him eventually. But the Heat never beat the 76ers or Bucks in a series where Embiid or Giannis were actually healthy (or even managed to play every game). Because of that, the Heat’s most impressive playoff victories were very easily the ones against the Celtics in 2020 and 2023. And Butler wasn’t actually particularly good in either of those series. In the 2020 series, Butler was absolutely not the team’s best player in the series, and honestly there’s an argument he was only their 4th best player in the series. Meanwhile, in 2023, he was okay, but was very inefficient with his scoring (51.9% TS%), and easily the main thing that won them the series really was that the role players were incredibly hot from three. It’s a little hard to give Butler outsized credit for what the Heat did when easily their most impressive playoff series wins came despite him struggling. It makes the narrative that he carried the team seem obviously flawed.

I think the 2020 win against Milwaukee is still pretty impressive. GIannis did tweak his ankle in Game 3 but played normal minutes and said he was fine. Makes sense to knock it for not needing 4 wins against Giannis but ultimately when the Heat were up 3-0 the real time narrative had nothing to do with GIannis' injury and everything to do with "holy cow the Heat are up 3-0".

And this series is one that Giannis has sort of made excuses about later on, but not about the injury - said "Year 7. Ended with Miami. I don’t make excuses as an athlete, but it wasn’t a satisfying year for me because I felt like if it was a normal situation, it wouldn’t end up like that. But at the end of the day, I felt like Miami was built to be an NBA bubble team, you know?" So even though he did seek to diminish the Heat's win, even he focused on the setting (bubble) and didn't feel like the injury was worth bringing up.

Anyway it still wasn't a carry job to your point, though it was a great Butler series

Yeah, I think one could definitely argue that they basically won the 2020 series with Giannis there, because they did get a 3-0 lead. As you say, though, it’s still the case that they didn’t need to get four wins against Giannis (and I’d say that, after 2023, I don’t exactly have confidence that it’d be impossible for the Heat to blow a 3-0 lead). So yeah, I do think the Celtics wins were more impressive. The win against the 2020 Bucks was impressive though and Butler was really good in that series, so it’s a very valid point.

[Owly]

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.

Whilst I am, in general, pro-Manu ...

"in wins" can be a slippery slope.

You don't know which game you're going to win. No game (or pretty few games) is (/are) truly dead until pretty late.

If you could co-ordinate all your players to have their best games aligned and have at least 4 in each series that'd be a really efficient way of winning. That isn't terribly realistic though.

I'd suspect -without any study - that energy conservation by the players on the court in the NBA finals is pretty low. Probably even lower for Manu, who I've typically understood as having a higher revving motor than most.


Regarding the Wade ('06) comp ...
... somewhat moot with Wade in 2 rounds ago;
... insofar as comp is finals only Wade has a multiplier with a rate-production lead and a minutes lead
... the rate-production lead does not necessarily exist over the full playoffs (e.g. 9.2 BPM for Manu, 9.3 for Wade)

[One_and_Done]

I think it's fair to say the Bucks weren't 100%. Ditto the Sixers. Those qualified wins were still more impressive than anything those Nets teams ever did. Heck, beating Brunson's Knicks is more impressive than anything those Nets ever did.

Butler was the best player on the Heat each of those years. If you think he wasn't because of volume scoring or whatever, you're looking at it wrong. I also find it to be such a weird criticism in a comparison with Kobe, who often had bad series. Nobody here us arguing that it made him not the best Laker (post Shaq).

[Cavsfansince84]

I think it's fair to say the Bucks weren't 100%. Ditto the Sixers. Those qualified wins were still more impressive than anything those Nets teams ever did. Heck, beating Brunson's Knicks is more impressive than anything those Nets ever did.

Butler was the best player on the Heat each of those years. If you think he wasn't because of volume scoring or whatever, you're looking at it wrong. I also find it to be such a weird criticism in a comparison with Kobe, who often had bad series. Nobody here us arguing that it made him not the best Laker (post Shaq).

I think there's a rationale for being pro Jimmy here. He was a very impactful rs player as well as having 2 finals runs where he for the most part was very good. The main thing working against him is missing so many rs games and being pretty up and down in the playoffs. Maybe lack of star power also hurts him in these kinds of things where it's hard to convince ourselves that Jimmy's peak could really be better than some other guy's who are still being voted on. The main thing for me though is I don't think his rs+ps+overall health ever align quite well enough to get him a vote yet. If his 2023 rs could be aligned with his 2020 playoffs or if he'd also played more games in that rs I think I'd be voting for him right now or close to it. So I can see why you are bringing him up but to me he fell off too much in the 2023 finals to vote for him right now and then he only played in 64g in the rs. Which isn't a huge deal but it's part of Jimmy's package whether you go with 2020 or 2023. I would have Jimmy higher than Embiid though.

[One_and_Done]

I think it's fair to say the Bucks weren't 100%. Ditto the Sixers. Those qualified wins were still more impressive than anything those Nets teams ever did. Heck, beating Brunson's Knicks is more impressive than anything those Nets ever did.

Butler was the best player on the Heat each of those years. If you think he wasn't because of volume scoring or whatever, you're looking at it wrong. I also find it to be such a weird criticism in a comparison with Kobe, who often had bad series. Nobody here us arguing that it made him not the best Laker (post Shaq).

I think there's a rationale for being pro Jimmy here. He was a very impactful rs player as well as having 2 finals runs where he for the most part was very good. The main thing working against him is missing so many rs games and being pretty up and down in the playoffs. Maybe lack of star power also hurts him in these kinds of things where it's hard to convince ourselves that Jimmy's peak could really be better than some other guy's who are still being voted on. The main thing for me though is I don't think his rs+ps+overall health ever align quite well enough to get him a vote yet. If his 2023 rs could be aligned with his 2020 playoffs or if he'd also played more games in that rs I think I'd be voting for him right now or close to it. So I can see why you are bringing him up but to me he fell off too much in the 2023 finals to vote for him right now and then he only played in 64g in the rs. Which isn't a huge deal but it's part of Jimmy's package whether you go with 2020 or 2023.

Butler's missed games are slightly exaggerated due to the shortened seasons.

2020 - Butler plays 58/73 games
2022 - Butler 57/82, ok this was significant
2023 - Butler plays 64/82

In a way though, Butler's missed games highlight just how impactful he was. From 20-23 they were 144-81 with him, and 37-41 without him. I'd likely go with 2023 to account for the injuries, but Butler was clearly the driving force for wins all three years.

I'm not ready to vote for Butler yet, but I've seen no argument whatever that he's less impactful than Kobe.

[Cavsfansince84]

Butler's missed games are slightly exaggerated due to the shortened seasons.

2020 - Butler plays 58/73 games
2022 - Butler 57/82, ok this was significant
2023 - Butler plays 64/82

In a way though, Butler's missed games highlight just how impactful he was. From 20-23 they were 144-81 with him, and 37-41 without him. I'd likely go with 2023 to account for the injuries, but Butler was clearly the driving force for wins all three years.

I'm not ready to vote for Butler yet, but I've seen no argument whatever that he's less impactful than Kobe.

I think you can argue that if we combined Jimmy's 2023 rs, 2020 playoffs and added 5-10 games to his rs that he could be voted above Kobe or is right there with 08 Kobe. Some would still vote in 09 ahead of him because of his wcf/fmvp but Jimmy's likely the far more consistent defender and had a crazy finals in his own right. It's just not that worth going into imo for reasons already mentioned. If I keep voting I'll prob have Jimmy on a ballot fairly soon but it'd have to be for 2020.

[One_and_Done]

In 08, games without Pau or Bynum (who never played together), the Lakers were 11-9. This is consistent with the 135-137 record the Lakers had from 00-07 in games Kobe played without Shsq. Kobe just didn't give you that much lift. In contrast, Butler took a team of Bam, Gabe Vincent, Max Struss, & old Kevin Love to the finals. Whether it's RS or PS, Butler has alot more impact.

[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.

I am glad that you mentioned that we are forced to nitpick in this project, because I don't want to be called out a Manu hater or anything like that. Manu was an amazing player throughout his whole career and I know about that as well as anyone, being a Spurs fan during their glory days.

I also don't want to discredit 2005 finals performance as not worthy the FMVP. Unlike some others, I don't find Duncan's choice a robbery (his defense was critical for the Spurs success), but Manu was certainly the best offensive player of the series and the Spurs needed him badly.

My point is just that this wasn't an ultra-dominant performance like Wade the year after. Now sure, Wade is already in, but I think there are other players left that have their own amazing performances.

About consistency - it's true that you don't need to win every game to win the series. The less variability your performance has, the more likely you are to get the win on the road though. I don't deny, this is just my personal preference and I don't have anything to back it up, but I prefer players who deliver every game. That's why things like RS performance, injuries, inconsistency matter to me. This is why I haven't voted in CP3 yet, that's why I don't push Shaq inside top 5 all-time. That's also why I don't have Manu as top 15 player of this century. His RS just isn't on that level and the postseason run, although fantastic, doesn't scream like something that would push him above players who I just believe are better in bigger samples.

Good food for thought.

On: "wasn't an ultra-dominant performance like Wade the year after".

First let me acknowledge and also assert that Wade's already in, and so arguing for Manu over Wade isn't on the menu, but let's de-construct what "dominance" means here. Here's the raw +/- for the guys on the champions in '04-05 (Spurs) & '05-06 (Heat) - and folks should remember that both played 23 games:

1. Ginobili (SAS) +169
2. Wade (MIA) +134
3. Horry (SAS) +114
4. Posey (MIA) +107
5. Duncan (SAS) +73

I think it's worth asking what makes Wade's performance "dominant" and Ginobili's not, given that this metric sees them both as similar types of outliers.

If the answer is Wade's consistency, well, Ginobili's down days are factored in here and he still looks dominant.
If the answer is Ginobili playing less, well, those are factored in by such a metric as well.
If the answer comes down to Wade's first-option-ness, okay, but what about those of us who aren't looking to give additional credit to first options beyond what their impact indicates?
If the answer is just that a deeper dive in impact data favors Wade, cool, but as noted, Wade's already voted in and there aren't that many guys who did what Wade did.

Now, over in the thread about #1 options, I said that the relevance to me is one of robust vs fragile impact. If a player is the clear cut first option, then I'm confident that whatever the player's impact is, it is robust in the sense that whatever "squish" of impact the opponents are capable of squishing on him, they're already doing it. Whereas, a player with less primacy may not actually have the opponent's attention, and hence when they need to, the opponent may be able to squish his impact down.

Circa 2005, I was essentially penalizing Ginobili with this thinking, but the thing is, Ginobili's impact indicators lasted for basically forever. Opponents had well over a decade to find a solution Ginobili's impact, and especially playoff impact, and they never did. Maybe that was incompetence on their part, but I've seen enough that my conclusion is that this was about Ginobili having robust impact. Pace & space, on & off ball, both sides of the ball, Ginobili shined in all of these ways.

Let me also make clear when I talk about "Ginobili's down days", I don't mean to imply here that I think he was egregiously inconsistent in his efforts.

I would say that in the 2005 Finals we pretty clearly saw both teams punt games once they got down by a lot in the first 4 games of the series. That's not the same thing as going into the game with the intent to lose, but rather about how "all in" the team is about coming back once they're behind. Are you going to hit the nitro to desperately try to come back in a road game you don't actually need to win the series and accept the cost of this by being less ready to go for the next game? Basketball teams generally say "No" here.

Let's take a look at Ginobili's 4th quarters for the games in the series by True Shooting Attempts because I think they really show how this tends to work::

Game 1: 6.88 (high quarter)
Game 2: 6.40 (high quarter)
Game 3: 1.00 (low quarter)
Game 4: 1.00 (low quarter)
Game 5: 7.44 (high quarter)
Game 6: 5.00 (2nd quarter behind Q3)
Game 7: 5.76 (high quarter)

I think it's pretty easy to see how Ginobili's 4th quarters were drastically different when the game was already a blowout loss, and while we see something of a similar trend for Duncan, it's not quite so extreme. While Duncan has more 4th quarter TSA in the series than Ginobili, If we just consider the 5 games of the series other than the two blowout losses, Ginobili has 33.48 TSA while Duncan only has 29.48. Meaning that when we're in crunch time of a game being decided, Ginobili's effectively acting as first option.

Then if we just consider what those TSA produced: Duncan scored 25 points on those 29.48 attempts, while Ginobili scored 42 on his 33.48. (ftr, Parker scored 8 points total in those 5 4th quarters.)

So basically what I'd argue is that even before pace & space, offenses tended to become perimeter dominated in crunch time, and Pop let Ginobili could in that time frame after building the offense around Duncan the rest of the game, and so that meant that in games where it didn't make sense to let Ginobili cook late in the game, well, he might have gotten no cook-time at all.

And in comparison with the Wades of the world, that's going to exaggerate their difference, because those guys get to be the first option TSA's from the first quarter, and Ginobili's not getting the 4th quarter spike he'd get in a close game.

When we have guys with very well defined peaks, I sometimes try to go away from this best scenario situation and ask myself - where would I put his 2nd best year on that list? I did that with Anthony Davis and I realized I should wait a little more for him. I am doing that with Manu and I definitely wouldn't consider 2007 for top 20. Is there really that massive gap between 2005 and 2007? I don't think so.

What are your thoughts on that?

Okay, wanted to break this out separately.

First, the fact that Ginobili never topped his '04-05 run is really noteworthy, and I should note that many of us thought he'd get better after that, and he really didn't. We were thinking of this in terms of a young guy breaking out particularly over the playoffs, and so we expected to see him then transition to a higher primacy and maybe get stats more like a traditional volume scoring star.

The obvious thing to point out is that Ginobili was already 27 at that point, and a 27 year old peak is pretty normal, so really we were thrown off to some degree by Ginobili getting a late start in the NBA because he was foreign.

Now, I know you're not actually saying he got worse after that. You're saying he was probably about the same a couple years later, but didn't look as impressive, so maybe we're over-sampling on flukiness if we elevate '04-05 too much.

However, the fact that Ginobili continues to have a massive impact footprint, particularly deep in the playoffs, for basically his whole career is very much relevant here. We're not talking about a fluky impact year, we're talking about a guy who was regularly huge by impact, but his overall season candidacy just isn't popping the same way.

Now why is that? Well, we start with the fact that it was '07-08 & '10-11 where Ginobili had bigger minutes and led the team in Win Shares, and so while I'm fine with saying that Ginobili was in essence about the same player the whole time through, I'm not so sure that we should be looking at '05-06 or '06-07 as the #2 year.

Of those two, the one that I think has the most Manu-POY potential was '10-11. There you had the Spurs shocking the world and developing an offense that made all Duncan-led offenses look incompetent in comparison because now they embraced pace & space - which Ginobili embodied while co-stars Duncan & Parker did not. They had the #2 ORtg in the league (111.8) with them being considerably better than that with Ginobili on the floor, and this led them to having the best regular season record in the league without relying on prime Duncan-led defense, because that no longer existed.

Had that playoffs gone for SA like their RS - or more like the '13-14 playoffs - I expect that Ginobili would have been a serious candidate for my POY... but instead he was injured, and since the Spurs without Ginobili leading them weren't actually that good, they got upset by the 8 seed.

[Cavsfansince84]

In 08, games without Pau or Bynum (who never played together), the Lakers were 11-9. This is consistent with the 135-137 record the Lakers had from 00-07 in games Kobe played without Shsq. Kobe just didn't give you that much lift. In contrast, Butler took a team of Bam, Gabe Vincent, Max Struss, & old Kevin Love to the finals. Whether it's RS or PS, Butler has alot more impact.

Again, this is specifically about peaks though and not impact on a per game or per minute basis either. It's obviously heavily slanted towards playoffs as well. So it's something of a crap shoot for some guys how well their rs peak years match up with 1 really good playoff run. Kobe had a really large window for this so him finally having a really strong #1 playoffs without Shaq that ends in a title is a big feather in his cap. Same as it is for Dirk. Maybe if Dragic hadn't gone down in the finals and the Heat had won that series Jimmy is making a lot of ballots right now.

[lessthanjake]

Yeah, 2011 Ginobili is a pretty big what-if. At that point, Ginobili was definitely the Spurs best player. And he led the Spurs to a 61-win, 6 SRS season. He was 3rd in the NBA in 2-year RAPM (and also 1st in the NBA in 4-year RAPM if we look at 2011-2014), 5th in the NBA in EPM, 4th in LEBRON, 2nd in the NBA in RAPTOR, and 5th in BPM. Notably, he was clearly the top player on the Spurs in all those measures. If the Spurs had won the title that year, then Ginobili’s resume for that year would’ve been really really strong. However, he broke his arm at the very end of the season. He actually performed well in the playoffs despite playing with a broken arm (had a 7.1 playoff BPM, for instance), and the Spurs did have a +5.15 net rating in Ginobili’s playoff minutes. But if he’d not had a broken arm who knows how those playoffs would’ve gone. Seems safe to say Ginobili would’ve been even better (and he was already good despite injury), since surely having a broken arm is a negative on a player’s performance (not to mention that the injury caused him to miss a game). And I think that the Spurs would’ve stood a chance of winning the title—after all, they were a serious contender and there was no juggernaut team that year. Of course, Ginobili did get injured and the Spurs lost to the Grizzlies, so that year would not be on a greatest-peaks ballot for me and I’m certainly not going to give him credit for things that didn’t actually happen. But it’s definitely a what-if where it’s not all that hard to imagine Ginobili ending up with another year well worth considering around now.

More generally, I also think that the exercise of considering what happened in other years should probably actually operate in Ginobili’s favor, rather than against him. And that’s because his fantastic impact numbers are robust across a huge number of years and quite a lot of playoff games. 2005 is the clear peak choice for him because he actually combined probably his best regular season with probably his best playoffs and his team won the title that year. It’s clearly his greatest year. But it’s not like that year was a flash in the pan in terms of his impact. Quite the opposite! I think there’s actually vanishingly few players in history whose peak impact is actually backed up by so many years of similar levels of impact.

[Top10alltime]

Embiid should already be here. It's a crime everyone underrated him, even though he had injuries to add context to the playoffs.....

Embiid should probably have gone #7, in place of Giannis (throw him outside the top 20, he's not versatile at all and his skillset neutralized against elite personnel).

Embiid is an elite scorer everywhere, his timing while shooting the jump shots is more valuable to an offense than extremely volatile tough shot-making, he is an elite shot-creator and can be useful in offensive systems (Like with Harden or Maxey). Unlike most big men, he doesn't have a weakness in face-up game. He is an ATG mid-range scorer, and a great post scorer (great mismatch hunter too). Elite footwork and strength makes him a force there. He is an amazing foul-drawer and punishes defenses for it too. ATG scorer at least.

As a playmaker, he has very good processing actually, and is at least a great playmaker because he has great rim pressure, as a roll man he is providing advantages for his team. As a screener, he's a great one. His passing arsenal is very good, bounce passing, pocket passing, overhead passing, PnR or off of screen, and a great transition playmaker when moving. Amazing decision making. Great playmaker at least.

Now, on the defensive end, he is elite, or maybe fringe ATG at defense. Very big with good mobility, an elite rim protector and as an interior defender overall. Pretty switchable, a good on-ball defender and help defender. Good perimeter defense, and ATG drop defense. Anchors top 5 defenses while on the floor too.


Embiid should clearly have been here by now, but people hate him for some reason. They put guys like Shai (bruh) and Giannis (terrible takes) over him.

Embiid is clearly the pick, and if there's another round without Embiid, I don't know what to say about realGM. Must be a group of anti-Embiid people.


Anyways, after Embiid, we could pick people like KD, CP3, Kobe, or Harden. Nash and Dirk are in contention too.

Unfortunately, I'm not voting here, so I am not interested in actually doing some damage or something like that. Also, people here are usually stubborn and close-minded. Many people are hostile (I'm not directing this at anyone, but these people know who they are).

So, here's that Embiid case. I don't think you could debunk anything about that.

Christ bless you all anyways, God loves you