Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #13-#14 Spots

[homecourtloss]

Lots of great stuff in your post, but wanted to hammer home this one:

Adjacent but non-overlapping spans of RAPM are a big deal for giving me confidence in the conclusions.

I'd rather have two adjacent 3-year studies than one 6-year, for example.

So I guess this is getting a bit away from discussing peaks, but this reminds me of something I tallied up somewhat recently, so I figure I’ll just set it out here. Specifically, I looked at what players have 5-year RAPM (as per the NBArapm website) that was in the league’s top 10 in multiple different non-overlapping 5-year spans.

The list I got was the following:

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 10 finishes in five-year RAPM

Shaquille O’Neal
Tim Duncan
Kevin Garnett
Dirk Nowitzki
LeBron James
Steph Curry
Nikola Jokic
Rasheed Wallace
Manu Ginobili
Steve Nash
Chris Paul
James Harden
Kevin Durant
Draymond Green
Kawhi Leonard
Paul George
Joel Embiid
Vince Carter

A caveat on a few of these guys: Several of these guys have one of the non-overlapping spans be a span where they did not actually play 5 years (i.e. perhaps they’re top 10 in five-year RAPM after their third year in the league). These include James Harden (one of his spans is 2008-2012, but he didn’t come into the league until 2010), Joel Embiid (one of his spans is 2016-2020, but he came into the league in 2017), and Kevin Durant (one of his spans includes the 2020 year he didn’t play). Curry also has one of his spans include the 2020 year he barely played in. Aside from Harden, all of these guys have four years in the data though. There are also other guys who missed a good number of games in the relevant timeframes (for instance, one of Paul George’s timeframes is 2021-2025, and obviously he missed a lot of games in that span).

We could narrow it down even further, to only look at players with three non-overlapping top 10 finishes in five-year RAPM:

Players with 3+ non-overlapping top 10 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron James
Kevin Garnett
Dirk Nowitzki
Tim Duncan
Chris Paul
Manu Ginobili

Tim Duncan has the same caveat as above, where one of his spans is a period he did not play the full 5 years in (one of his spans is 1997-2001, but he joined the league in 1998).

Of course, having three non-overlapping five-year spans requires a lot of longevity, so someone who is really great might not have three such spans because they just weren’t great for *that* long. It’s anlso essentially impossible for older players like Shaq to be on that list, since much of his prime was before the play-by-play era, and guys right in the middle of their careers right now (like Jokic) obviously aren’t going to have 3+ spans yet because they haven’t even played enough years. I’ll also note that LeBron is the only one with 4 such non-overlapping spans.

_____________

A lot of this is unsurprising. Obviously guys like LeBron, Garnett, and Duncan were really good over long time periods. And many of these guys have already been voted in. Some things that are particularly interesting to me:

1. Ginobili obviously looks incredible here. The company he is in for having 3+ spans is really elite. Chris Paul is the other guy not yet voted in here who is on that list. But I think Ginobili would probably be the biggest surprise in the 3+ list for most people.

2. The most surprising entries in the 2+ list have to be Rasheed Wallace and Vince Carter. Vince Carter is a very interesting one, since he was a really good player in his early years (being 7th in RAPM in a couple overlapping spans in his early years) and then managed to barely crack the top 10 in five-year RAPM in a couple much later spans that didn’t overlap with the early-years span (being 9th in both 2006-2010 and 2010-2014). Even those two later spans only barely overlapped. So yeah, oddly enough, Vince Carter almost had three non-overlapping spans finishing top 10 in five-year RAPM! A big surprise to me!

I believe Vince Carter and Draymond Green are the only ones who do not have any overlapping top 10 finishes in between their non-overlapping five-year spans. So like, while Carter had top 10 finishes in 2000-2004, 2006-2010, and 2010-2014, none of the five-year spans in between those were in the top 10. A similar thing is true of Draymond, who is top 10 in 2015-2019 and 2021-2025 and not top 10 in any of the timeframes in between those. For Draymond, that’s probably largely because 2020 needed to be washed out of the system in order for him to be top 10 again. For Vince Carter, I’m not entirely sure what it is. The data makes it look like 2005 threw him off. His on-off on the Raptors was awful that year so that was probably it.

3. Rasheed Wallace is another interesting case. I think he’s actually quite underrated and was one of the best players of his generation, and I’ll probably be considering him near the very end of the votes for this era in this project.

Just to add further to this, since I realize I’d previously dug up the following as well:

Here’s the same thing as above, except looking at players with 2+ non-overlapping spans in which they were top 3 in RAPM (rather than merely top 10 in RAPM). This is again using the NBArapm website’s RAPM:

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 3 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron James
Manu Ginobili
Tim Duncan
Kevin Garnett
Stephen Curry
Chris Paul

Interestingly, this list is virtually identical to the list of players that had 3+ non-overlapping top 10 finishes. Which is probably not a surprise, since virtually every player would only get that third non-overlapping top 10 finish in years that weren’t really their prime, so they’d likely need to be *easily* making the top 10 in their prime to still finish in the top 10 when largely outside it.

But again, I think Manu really sticks out here as the most interesting one. The names are basically Manu + Chris Paul + the four best play-by-play era players that aren’t either still in the middle of their career (Jokic) or had a lot of their prime before the play-by-play era (Shaq). Definitely reflects well on Chris Paul too, but Manu seems like the most interesting one.

It’s hard to ignore how ubiquitous Manu’s name is on any list that’s trying to measure impact.

I also wanted to further delineate your list:

Players with 3+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron (this is ludicrous and not likely to happen again)

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

KG

Nobody else in the databall era has more than 1.p and nobody really came close other than Curry a few years away. If Jokic leads the 2026-2030 years span, then he will join KG.

[eminence]

For Manu, I have a very tough time seeing him over Nash.

Nash is posting similar RAPMs on significantly more possessions (20-30% more depending on period), is the clear team lead of a team that is competitive with Manus despite a serious 'supporting' cast disparity (Duncan vs Marion, c'mon), and received a lot more awards love.

Similar for Kobe while he was still on the board - though Kobe had lesser apms with an even greater possession lead, up over 40%.

[lessthanjake]

So I guess this is getting a bit away from discussing peaks, but this reminds me of something I tallied up somewhat recently, so I figure I’ll just set it out here. Specifically, I looked at what players have 5-year RAPM (as per the NBArapm website) that was in the league’s top 10 in multiple different non-overlapping 5-year spans.

The list I got was the following:

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 10 finishes in five-year RAPM

Shaquille O’Neal
Tim Duncan
Kevin Garnett
Dirk Nowitzki
LeBron James
Steph Curry
Nikola Jokic
Rasheed Wallace
Manu Ginobili
Steve Nash
Chris Paul
James Harden
Kevin Durant
Draymond Green
Kawhi Leonard
Paul George
Joel Embiid
Vince Carter

A caveat on a few of these guys: Several of these guys have one of the non-overlapping spans be a span where they did not actually play 5 years (i.e. perhaps they’re top 10 in five-year RAPM after their third year in the league). These include James Harden (one of his spans is 2008-2012, but he didn’t come into the league until 2010), Joel Embiid (one of his spans is 2016-2020, but he came into the league in 2017), and Kevin Durant (one of his spans includes the 2020 year he didn’t play). Curry also has one of his spans include the 2020 year he barely played in. Aside from Harden, all of these guys have four years in the data though. There are also other guys who missed a good number of games in the relevant timeframes (for instance, one of Paul George’s timeframes is 2021-2025, and obviously he missed a lot of games in that span).

We could narrow it down even further, to only look at players with three non-overlapping top 10 finishes in five-year RAPM:

Players with 3+ non-overlapping top 10 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron James
Kevin Garnett
Dirk Nowitzki
Tim Duncan
Chris Paul
Manu Ginobili

Tim Duncan has the same caveat as above, where one of his spans is a period he did not play the full 5 years in (one of his spans is 1997-2001, but he joined the league in 1998).

Of course, having three non-overlapping five-year spans requires a lot of longevity, so someone who is really great might not have three such spans because they just weren’t great for *that* long. It’s anlso essentially impossible for older players like Shaq to be on that list, since much of his prime was before the play-by-play era, and guys right in the middle of their careers right now (like Jokic) obviously aren’t going to have 3+ spans yet because they haven’t even played enough years. I’ll also note that LeBron is the only one with 4 such non-overlapping spans.

_____________

A lot of this is unsurprising. Obviously guys like LeBron, Garnett, and Duncan were really good over long time periods. And many of these guys have already been voted in. Some things that are particularly interesting to me:

1. Ginobili obviously looks incredible here. The company he is in for having 3+ spans is really elite. Chris Paul is the other guy not yet voted in here who is on that list. But I think Ginobili would probably be the biggest surprise in the 3+ list for most people.

2. The most surprising entries in the 2+ list have to be Rasheed Wallace and Vince Carter. Vince Carter is a very interesting one, since he was a really good player in his early years (being 7th in RAPM in a couple overlapping spans in his early years) and then managed to barely crack the top 10 in five-year RAPM in a couple much later spans that didn’t overlap with the early-years span (being 9th in both 2006-2010 and 2010-2014). Even those two later spans only barely overlapped. So yeah, oddly enough, Vince Carter almost had three non-overlapping spans finishing top 10 in five-year RAPM! A big surprise to me!

I believe Vince Carter and Draymond Green are the only ones who do not have any overlapping top 10 finishes in between their non-overlapping five-year spans. So like, while Carter had top 10 finishes in 2000-2004, 2006-2010, and 2010-2014, none of the five-year spans in between those were in the top 10. A similar thing is true of Draymond, who is top 10 in 2015-2019 and 2021-2025 and not top 10 in any of the timeframes in between those. For Draymond, that’s probably largely because 2020 needed to be washed out of the system in order for him to be top 10 again. For Vince Carter, I’m not entirely sure what it is. The data makes it look like 2005 threw him off. His on-off on the Raptors was awful that year so that was probably it.

3. Rasheed Wallace is another interesting case. I think he’s actually quite underrated and was one of the best players of his generation, and I’ll probably be considering him near the very end of the votes for this era in this project.

Just to add further to this, since I realize I’d previously dug up the following as well:

Here’s the same thing as above, except looking at players with 2+ non-overlapping spans in which they were top 3 in RAPM (rather than merely top 10 in RAPM). This is again using the NBArapm website’s RAPM:

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 3 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron James
Manu Ginobili
Tim Duncan
Kevin Garnett
Stephen Curry
Chris Paul

Interestingly, this list is virtually identical to the list of players that had 3+ non-overlapping top 10 finishes. Which is probably not a surprise, since virtually every player would only get that third non-overlapping top 10 finish in years that weren’t really their prime, so they’d likely need to be *easily* making the top 10 in their prime to still finish in the top 10 when largely outside it.

But again, I think Manu really sticks out here as the most interesting one. The names are basically Manu + Chris Paul + the four best play-by-play era players that aren’t either still in the middle of their career (Jokic) or had a lot of their prime before the play-by-play era (Shaq). Definitely reflects well on Chris Paul too, but Manu seems like the most interesting one.

It’s hard to ignore how ubiquitous Manu’s name is on any list that’s trying to measure impact.

I also wanted to further delineate your list:

Players with 3+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron (this is ludicrous and not likely to happen again)

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

KG

Nobody else in the databall era has more than 1.p and nobody really came close other than Curry a few years away. If Jokic leads the 2026-2030 years span, then he will join KG.

Yeah, those two stand out with the most longevity in terms of super-high-level impact in the play-by-play era. This is getting very far afield from the actual subject of the thread, so apologies for derailing, but I’ll note that if we had prior data, I imagine there may be a pretty decent chance Kareem would be #1 in 2 or 3 non-overlapping spans. I’d be shocked if he weren’t #1 in his first 5 years. That’d leave the 1975-1979 and 1980-1984 spans. I think it’s plausible that he’d be #1 in those. He probably wouldn’t actually be #1 in both, but it’s possible, and I think if I had to guess I’d guess that he’d nab the #1 spot in at least one of those two spans. That’s all very speculative though. There’s also a good chance that Jordan was #1 in 3 non-overlapping spans, but it’s like massively caveated by missed seasons. After all, he’s already listed as #1 in the 1997-2001 five-year RAPM. So to have 3 non-overlapping spans, he’d just need to be #1 in 1992-1996 and 1987-1991—both of which seem pretty likely, particularly given what we know about his on-off (though Magic could probably give him a bit of a run for his money in 1987-1991). But of course obviously it wouldn’t *really* be the same achievement because he only played 2 years in that 1997-2001 span (and missed a lot of time in the 1992-1996 span as well). Kareem’s the only other one that I can potentially see having done it while actually playing all the relevant years. Jokic is surely too old to be able to have three such spans (he may even be too old at this point to end up with two of them). Maybe Wembanyama is getting started early enough to be able to do it, but I’m skeptical his body will hold out long enough for that.

I guess I should also note the obvious caveat to all of this: Which is that this is all based on specific rankings in one particular RAPM measure. The exact lists would look a bit different if we used a different RAPM measure. So like, if we instead used TheBasketballDatabase’s five-year RAPM, Ginobili looks really good still but doesn’t actually have three non-overlapping top 10 spans or two non-overlapping top three spans. Similarly, LeBron wouldn’t have three non-overlapping top 1 spans, Garnett wouldn’t have two non-overlapping top 1 spans, Jordan isn’t at #1 in that 1997-2001 span, Vince Carter doesn’t have a single top 10 span let alone two non-overlapping ones, etc. And if we looked at a third RAPM measure, I imagine some of those things would be true in that measure and some wouldn’t. That said, I do like the NBArapm RAPM measure. Partially that’s just because the website is easy to peruse (as is TheBasketballDatabase), but I also like that it puts regular season + playoffs together. I suspect that that is a lot of why it’s higher on the guys I just listed than TheBasketballDatabase is, since those guys have some pretty lofty playoff on-off numbers so we’d expect them to be bumped up if playoffs are included.

[iggymcfrack]

For Manu, I have a very tough time seeing him over Nash.

Nash is posting similar RAPMs on significantly more possessions (20-30% more depending on period), is the clear team lead of a team that is competitive with Manus despite a serious 'supporting' cast disparity (Duncan vs Marion, c'mon), and received a lot more awards love.

Similar for Kobe while he was still on the board - though Kobe had lesser apms with an even greater possession lead, up over 40%.

Possessions might exaggerate it a bit since the Suns played at the highest pace in the league, but I’m not seeing a big minutes difference. Manu in 2005 played 2193 regular season minutes. Nash in the 3 years that could possibly be considered his peak (2005-2007) played between 2573 and 2796 minutes. So yes, that’s 15-30% more minutes in the regular season.

When it really mattered in the playoffs though, margins were much tighter. The last 15 games of the playoffs, Manu averaged 36.2 MPG while Nash averaged 39.6 MPG in the playoffs from 2005-2007. If you use the season he played most, it’s 40.7 MPG. So now we’re talking 9-12% more minutes. That’s pretty marginal and in line with gaps between other candidates where minutes aren’t heavily emphasized.

Now factor in that Manu has MUCH better box and impact stats over that period. Using my favorite RS+PS PI RAPM over the period, Manu leads the league in 2005 at 6.4 while Nash is 26th at 3.2. The following year Manu’s 3rd at 6.1 while Nash is 10th at 4.5. In 2007, Manu’s 3rd at 7.2 while Nash is 5th at 6.3.

xRAPM has similar results with Manu 6.4 (3rd), 5.6 (4th), and 5.8 (5th) while Nash is 3.7 (18th), 3.8 (20th), and 4.9 (8th).

VORP is a measure with minutes baked right in and Manu has 4.9, 4.1, and 5.1 in the period mentioned before peaking at 6.0 the following year. Nash has 4.4, 4.9, and 5.3 with his best year outside the period being 4.5.

It feels like even for the regular season, it’s very competitive with Nash having a large minutes edge while when that gap narrows in the playoffs, Manu has a large advantage.

Are you judging your list heavily on regular season value or do you really think that Nash playing an extra 4 MPG in key playoff games is more meaningful than Manu consistently lapping him by most metrics? And if the minutes are that important to you, when are you considering Iverson who had a bigger minutes lead on Nash than Nash had on Manu? Iverson’s 2.1 RAPM and 3.0 xRAPM in 2001 are much closer to Nash’s numbers than Nash is to Manu.

[Doctor MJ]

For Manu, I have a very tough time seeing him over Nash.

Nash is posting similar RAPMs on significantly more possessions (20-30% more depending on period), is the clear team lead of a team that is competitive with Manus despite a serious 'supporting' cast disparity (Duncan vs Marion, c'mon), and received a lot more awards love.

Similar for Kobe while he was still on the board - though Kobe had lesser apms with an even greater possession lead, up over 40%.

Possessions might exaggerate it a bit since the Suns played at the highest pace in the league, but I’m not seeing a big minutes difference. Manu in 2005 played 2193 regular season minutes. Nash in the 3 years that could possibly be considered his peak (2005-2007) played between 2573 and 2796 minutes. So yes, that’s 15-30% more minutes in the regular season.

When it really mattered in the playoffs though, margins were much tighter. The last 15 games of the playoffs, Manu averaged 36.2 MPG while Nash averaged 39.6 MPG in the playoffs from 2005-2007. If you use the season he played most, it’s 40.7 MPG. So now we’re talking 9-12% more minutes. That’s pretty marginal and in line with gaps between other candidates where minutes aren’t heavily emphasized.

Now factor in that Manu has MUCH better box and impact stats over that period. Using my favorite RS+PS PI RAPM over the period, Manu leads the league in 2005 at 6.4 while Nash is 26th at 3.2. The following year Manu’s 3rd at 6.1 while Nash is 10th at 4.5. In 2007, Manu’s 3rd at 7.2 while Nash is 5th at 6.3.

xRAPM has similar results with Manu 6.4 (3rd), 5.6 (4th), and 5.8 (5th) while Nash is 3.7 (18th), 3.8 (20th), and 4.9 (8th).

VORP is a measure with minutes baked right in and Manu has 4.9, 4.1, and 5.1 in the period mentioned before peaking at 6.0 the following year. Nash has 4.4, 4.9, and 5.3 with his best year outside the period being 4.5.

It feels like even for the regular season, it’s very competitive with Nash having a large minutes edge while when that gap narrows in the playoffs, Manu has a large advantage.

Are you judging your list heavily on regular season value or do you really think that Nash playing an extra 4 MPG in key playoff games is more meaningful than Manu consistently lapping him by most metrics? And if the minutes are that important to you, when are you considering Iverson who had a bigger minutes lead on Nash than Nash had on Manu? Iverson’s 2.1 RAPM and 3.0 xRAPM in 2001 are much closer to Nash’s numbers than Nash is to Manu.

Love the conversation generally as I've been over this debate quite a bit in my own head.

A key factor for me is this: I care a lot less about MPG in the RS generally than I do in the PS. I expect I feel differently about this if it was actually hard to get a team to the playoffs, but when more than half the league makes it, it's just hard for me to see extremely high regular season minutes like we get from an Iverson as that big of a deal. I'll note that before we got access to +/- data, Iverson supporters of the time - which included myself - asserted that he had to play that much to carry his team to as far as they got, the whole "they wouldn't win a game without him" type thing. But then we got the data and it just became clear that it wasn't really particularly necessary for extreme minutes guys to play those minutes in the RS, and this absolutely relates to why teams play their players less minutes now.

So then I posted a study earlier where I noted that Nash is really right up there with superstar norms when it comes to playing big (40+) PS minutes, and also playing big minutes in critical games that you need absolutely everything that each player can give you. As in, based on playoffs, I don't actually think anyone should be trying to use minutes against Nash.

But we really can't say the same for Ginobili. Yes he plays more in the PS than in the RS, but his minutes are still a tier down from norms, and so it leaves us with two questions that we at least have to accept the premise of:

a) How much less did Manu achieve because he played less minutes?

b) How much of Manu playing less minutes is just a quirk of Pop deciding to play his players less minutes, and also specifically deciding - with or without reason - to play prime Manu a bit less than Duncan/Parker?

For question (a), this is a thing that I give a different answer to depending on criteria, because obviously, the Spurs in 2005 didn't need Manu to play more minutes to win the title, and so I think you can really argue that the MPG issue is moot from a POY perspective. However, most teams would have been hurt by Manu playing less minutes, and so if you're talking about estimating a more general capacity for impact, if Manu can't play more, it dings him with respect to the other players.

And this ties directly into why I've sided with Kobe/Nash/etc over Manu in this project to this point, despite feeling a great deal of uncertainty about it.

[Doctor MJ]

Possessions might exaggerate it a bit since the Suns played at the highest pace in the league, but I’m not seeing a big minutes difference.

I wanted to hit this specifically:

I generally use the term "minutes issue" to talk about this, but to do the topic justice we need to talk about possessions because

a) It really is a question of what percentage of your team's possessions you're out there for rather than what percentage of minutes.

b) The pace at which you play your possessions absolutely impacts how much energy you're using.

So in the 2005 playoffs:

Nash played 81.1 poss/g for a team playing 94.1 poss/g, which comes out to 86.1%.
Manu played 62.6 poss/g for a team playing 87.3 poss/g, which comes out to 71.7%.

I'd say that's a significant difference.

And for further 2005 context:

Wade played 86.5%
Duncan played 77.6%
Parker played 77.3%
Shaq played 67.9%

[Cavsfansince84]

I might as well get this done with while I have time

13. 2020 AD(18). Exceptional on both sides, great playoffs, could have been fmvp.
14. 2024 Luka(22). mvp+ level rs, great playoff run. Two series where he's hot from 3 while knocking off the #7, 3 and 2 teams by srs in the league to reach the finals. Also hitting 3's in the rs at 38%. Managed to beat Okc even with Kyrie only giving 16ppg on 53% ts and Shai having one of his best playoff series. I don't think anyone else can match his all around game and size adv.
15. 2018 Harden(19). I'm giving this to him over KD by the slimmest of margins. Mainly because of the strong team results in the rs and getting the 3-2 lead on the Warriors before it went sideways.
16. 2014 KD(12). Huge rs where he leads Okc to #3 srs while missing WB, great 1st 2 rds then kind of a bad series losing to the eventual champ Spurs.

Nash&CP3 are left just right outside.

[lessthanjake]

So here’s my vote, though I’m still thinking about the order of the last two and may change it:

My Vote

1. 2005 Steve Nash

2. 2005 Manu Ginobili

3. 2018 James Harden

4. 2008 Chris Paul

The reasoning for this is mostly contained in my vote in the last thread, which discussed all four of these players, what the cases for them were, and why I had Nash and Ginobili at the top. See here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119708754#p119708754

The only question I didn’t really address there is why I have 2018 Harden ahead of 2008 Chris Paul. I don’t really feel strongly about it. The various statistical data we have on them in those years seems super similar to me, such that I can’t really make much of a distinction on those grounds (with each being ahead by a bit in different measures). So, moving beyond individual data, I’m really impressed by how good the 2018 Rockets were, particularly when healthy. They played at a 74-win pace when healthy. This is incredibly impressive to me. It’s a bit of a weird thing to base my vote on, since Chris Paul was on that 2018 Rockets team too. But I don’t think Chris Paul was the 2018 Rockets’ best player nor do I think that was Chris Paul’s best year. And, as compared to 2008 Chris Paul (which I have as his best year, for reasons I’ve outlined in a prior thread), I am more impressed by what 2018 Harden managed to achieve with his team. Harden’s team feels like a genuinely memorable and significant team, while I don’t think that about the team Chris Paul played for in 2008 (or any other year that we might plausibly label his peak). And that matters to me for purposes of assessing the “greatness” of a year. Finally, I will also note that my eye test slightly prefers Harden over Chris Paul. So yeah, I’m not entirely comfortable with this ordering of the two, but I think it’s what I’m going with.

[trelos6]

I also wanted to further delineate your list:

Players with 3+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron (this is ludicrous and not likely to happen again)

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

KG

Nobody else in the databall era has more than 1.p and nobody really came close other than Curry a few years away. If Jokic leads the 2026-2030 years span, then he will join KG.

For those playing at home:

LeBron 2007-2011, 2012-16, 2017-2021

KG 2001-2004, 2006-2010

[homecourtloss]

I also wanted to further delineate your list:

Players with 3+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

LeBron (this is ludicrous and not likely to happen again)

Players with 2+ non-overlapping top 1 finishes in five-year RAPM

KG

Nobody else in the databall era has more than 1.p and nobody really came close other than Curry a few years away. If Jokic leads the 2026-2030 years span, then he will join KG.

For those playing at home:

LeBron 2007-2011, 2012-16, 2017-2021

KG 2001-2004, 2006-2010

James also led the 2006-2010 interval. That's a 16 year span (2006--2021) in which the game changed drastically.

[iggymcfrack]

For Manu, I have a very tough time seeing him over Nash.

Nash is posting similar RAPMs on significantly more possessions (20-30% more depending on period), is the clear team lead of a team that is competitive with Manus despite a serious 'supporting' cast disparity (Duncan vs Marion, c'mon), and received a lot more awards love.

Similar for Kobe while he was still on the board - though Kobe had lesser apms with an even greater possession lead, up over 40%.

Possessions might exaggerate it a bit since the Suns played at the highest pace in the league, but I’m not seeing a big minutes difference. Manu in 2005 played 2193 regular season minutes. Nash in the 3 years that could possibly be considered his peak (2005-2007) played between 2573 and 2796 minutes. So yes, that’s 15-30% more minutes in the regular season.

When it really mattered in the playoffs though, margins were much tighter. The last 15 games of the playoffs, Manu averaged 36.2 MPG while Nash averaged 39.6 MPG in the playoffs from 2005-2007. If you use the season he played most, it’s 40.7 MPG. So now we’re talking 9-12% more minutes. That’s pretty marginal and in line with gaps between other candidates where minutes aren’t heavily emphasized.

Now factor in that Manu has MUCH better box and impact stats over that period. Using my favorite RS+PS PI RAPM over the period, Manu leads the league in 2005 at 6.4 while Nash is 26th at 3.2. The following year Manu’s 3rd at 6.1 while Nash is 10th at 4.5. In 2007, Manu’s 3rd at 7.2 while Nash is 5th at 6.3.

xRAPM has similar results with Manu 6.4 (3rd), 5.6 (4th), and 5.8 (5th) while Nash is 3.7 (18th), 3.8 (20th), and 4.9 (8th).

VORP is a measure with minutes baked right in and Manu has 4.9, 4.1, and 5.1 in the period mentioned before peaking at 6.0 the following year. Nash has 4.4, 4.9, and 5.3 with his best year outside the period being 4.5.

It feels like even for the regular season, it’s very competitive with Nash having a large minutes edge while when that gap narrows in the playoffs, Manu has a large advantage.

Are you judging your list heavily on regular season value or do you really think that Nash playing an extra 4 MPG in key playoff games is more meaningful than Manu consistently lapping him by most metrics? And if the minutes are that important to you, when are you considering Iverson who had a bigger minutes lead on Nash than Nash had on Manu? Iverson’s 2.1 RAPM and 3.0 xRAPM in 2001 are much closer to Nash’s numbers than Nash is to Manu.

Love the conversation generally as I've been over this debate quite a bit in my own head.

A key factor for me is this: I care a lot less about MPG in the RS generally than I do in the PS. I expect I feel differently about this if it was actually hard to get a team to the playoffs, but when more than half the league makes it, it's just hard for me to see extremely high regular season minutes like we get from an Iverson as that big of a deal. I'll note that before we got access to +/- data, Iverson supporters of the time - which included myself - asserted that he had to play that much to carry his team to as far as they got, the whole "they wouldn't win a game without him" type thing. But then we got the data and it just became clear that it wasn't really particularly necessary for extreme minutes guys to play those minutes in the RS, and this absolutely relates to why teams play their players less minutes now.

It's not just the regular season though. In Iverson's peak season of 2001 he averaged 46.2 MPG in the playoffs. In the 2005 season you and others I've seen selected as Nash's peak, he averaged 40.7 MPG. Manu that season averaged 33.6 MPG over the playoffs as a whole and 36.2 MPG once the series got competitive and Pop moved him into the starting lineup. Those are very similar gaps.

So if we have:

Manu: 6.9 RS BPM, 9.2 PS BPM, 6.4 RAPM, 6.4 xRAPM
Nash: 4.7 RS BPM, 4.7 PS BPM, 3.2 RAPM, 3.7 xRAPM
Iverson: 6.1 RS BPM, 6.1 PS BPM, 2.1 RAPM, 3.0 xRAPM

If the 5-7 minute gap pushes Nash ahead of Manu, why doesn't the 5-6 minute gap push Iverson ahead of Nash? Iverson's stats are much more arguable against Nash's than Nash's are against Manu's. By the box score, Manu >> Iverson > Nash and Manu probably has the most non-box impact of all with his incredible defense to go with his creativity and playmaking. In the impact stats, the gap between Manu and Nash is at least triple the gap between Nash and Iverson.

[eminence]

May I ask for the link to your favorite PI RAPM?

I generally dislike PI APMS as inferior versions of multi-season APMs. Essentially making a little lie about what seasons it's really including. 'PI '05 RAPM' is '05+X seasons prior (whatever X seasons one wants, if the prior is something other than rapm, then it's not RAPM at all and is an xrapm variant). That Nash has a junk APM type score when a sizable portion of it is '04 - is not at all surprising, it was a rough season. I do think Nash in Phoenix was pretty dramatically more valuable than he was in Dallas (and believe that is the general consensus).

Hard no on the possessions exaggerating things bit. APMs are a per possession stat, when available you measure their 'volume' (for lack of a term) by the number of possessions, that's just factually correct. Iverson - I don't have Iverson particularly close to the other two on a possession basis, while I have Nash/Manu near equals.

I personally do not care about the box-score to describe player quality over season or longer samples - through a bpm or xrapm (or eithers many variants - giving DARKO a bit of love for trying to and moderately successfully differentiating by being forward predicting). I find the box-score useful in the before times, in small sample, to describe role, and to identify notable changes in an individual players performance (only particularly helpful with similar roles, if a players role dramatically changes it's not helpful in evaluating player quality).

Edit: Noting by your own preferred PI RAPM - '07 Nash is pretty cleanly the most valuable season of the two.

[DraymondGold]

Voting Post

1. 2015 Chris Paul (> 2014)
2. 2016 Kevin Durant (> 2017 > 2014)
3. 2005 Steve Nash (> 2007)
4. 2019 James Harden (>20/18)

I think Paul's clearly the most impactful player of the remaining players in the regular season: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119671334#p119671334 .

He also looks pretty great on film:

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Not going into play-by-play here, but even in the playoffs Paul's defense leaps out. HIs screen navigation is particularly impressive. On offense, his passing is quite impressive and he maintains his great midrange scoring.

In terms of limitations: I do see health as the obvious concern, particularly in the playoffs. I see that as one of the key causes of his playoff resilience concern. In terms of scalability, he's not the best of the bunch. The ball-dominance can force things to go more your-turn/my-turn when paired with another great player, but that can still lead to fairly great results like the 18 Rockets. In terms of play style limitations closer to his peak, you can see on film he's not as good pushing the pace in transition or pushing the pace in general, and his midrange emphasis personally and slower methodical style of passing doesn't create as many opportunities at the rim as some.

Even so... his defensive advantage over Nash and Harden is pretty gargantuan. And on offense, he's still one off the best patchers ever at worst, and his more conservative play style does lead to some of the best turnover reduction impact of any player in this era (e.g. in TOV RAPM https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2471624 ) . Great IQ as your lead playmaker. As a scorer, he's one of great midrange players, and can space the floor with good 3 point shooting, and has great efficiency.

For Durant, his impact metrics aren't quite as good as Paul, but his plug-and-play versatility and scalability can lead to some of the best ceiling raising of anyone here (and I'd argue over some of the people already voted in). The 2016 Thunder were one of the best teams to not win a championship, and Durant was the clear best player on that team. On the Warriors in 2017, yes he had a favorable situation and wasn't their best player. But so many times in history, teams have tried to form superteams -- very few times did the attempted superteams achieve a dominance worthy of their talent. The 2017 Warriors were the GOAT team ever, and Durant made the best of his improved opportunities. On teams built more specifically around him in 2019/2021, his impact metrics look a bit better. Even so, his flexibility on defense, his off-ball chemistry, his three-level unstoppable scoring (relative to the remaining players), his versatility... lead to a great overall player, very worthy of inclusion here. I've done deeper dives into his film and stats before, but for now I'll just cite the post above.
Open to discussions on the year, and would consider 14/16/17.

For the next two: I see Nash as the best offensive player remaining by a fairly wide margin, with some scalability concerns when combined ed with other ball-dominant player, and with major defensive issues. I'm open to either 05 and 07, and would be interested in a comparison. Even though Dirk was voted in, I see Nash and Dirk as quite comparable (and have both under Durant/Paul), and would be interested in comparisons between them too.

I see Harden, AD, and Embiid (how do we deal with Embiid's health?) as the next candidates after that. I think Harden's the most impactful of the bunch, given Embiid's health concerns and AD's regular season drops/inconsistency. I've been a bit inconsistent with health in my voting so far, and am not totally sure how to square different health concerns with differences in impact when healthy. With Embiid though, and unlike some of the earlier players, there really does seem like an impossibility to get him healthy in his peak in ~21-25. 2024 for a full-season would have been voted in by now, but as is, the small sample also undermines a bit of the shine on that season. That leaves 2019 and a younger Embiid before we get to a place where he's a little more reliable, but unlike younger 2017 Kawhi, I see 2019 Embiid as not quite Embiid's best health-aside... and thus I rate Embiid lower for now. He'll be on the next ballot presumably.

[Doctor MJ]

It's not just the regular season though. In Iverson's peak season of 2001 he averaged 46.2 MPG in the playoffs. In the 2005 season you and others I've seen selected as Nash's peak, he averaged 40.7 MPG. Manu that season averaged 33.6 MPG over the playoffs as a whole and 36.2 MPG once the series got competitive and Pop moved him into the starting lineup. Those are very similar gaps.

So if we have:

Manu: 6.9 RS BPM, 9.2 PS BPM, 6.4 RAPM, 6.4 xRAPM
Nash: 4.7 RS BPM, 4.7 PS BPM, 3.2 RAPM, 3.7 xRAPM
Iverson: 6.1 RS BPM, 6.1 PS BPM, 2.1 RAPM, 3.0 xRAPM

If the 5-7 minute gap pushes Nash ahead of Manu, why doesn't the 5-6 minute gap push Iverson ahead of Nash? Iverson's stats are much more arguable against Nash's than Nash's are against Manu's. By the box score, Manu >> Iverson > Nash and Manu probably has the most non-box impact of all with his incredible defense to go with his creativity and playmaking. In the impact stats, the gap between Manu and Nash is at least triple the gap between Nash and Iverson.

I think it's great your considering how many extra minutes it would take for Iverson's cume impact to eclipse others with higher rates.

I feel like the RAPM you're using is prior informed, which is a problem for using it when players go through major changes in the year you're interested in.

I'm actually going to use the APM from intraocular here since I can, but to be clear, I think people should point out NPI RAPM or other stuff that won't have '04-05 dragged down by the year before.

So, that APM for the 3 years in question:

'05 Ginobili +7.9
'05 Nash +5.9
'01 Iverson +3.2

Okay now, if we want to make a VORP-rate stat based on that, we need to take the difference between their score and replacement, and multiply by the percentage of possessions played.

In my recent VORP study, I used two different replacement levels based on the more extreme ends on either side I found from APBRmetrics & related sources:

A "generous" RP level of -3.3, and a "harsh" RP level of -2.0

Here's how these guys rate applying that all-season APM with possession percentage from the playoffs:

Generous RP VORP rate:

Nash 7.92
Ginobili 7.01
Iverson 6.28

Harsh RP VORP rate:

Nash 6.80
Ginobili 6.19
Iverson 5.02

So yeah, even with the minutes edge, Iverson ends up a fair bit back of the other two.

I'll emphasize again that this is a quick & dirty thing, not data to be taken to the proverbial bank. There may be other studies than when VORP-ed the same way tell a very different story. But just with the first things that came to mind, no, it gave data that happened to match the order I have them for the purposes of this project.

[trelos6]

May I ask for the link to your favorite PI RAPM?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/2oniqeyhqhko3nitghfie/ABZu_EJ0mG8Lx-0SwhAs4nA?rlkey=98rx0ni1em727mat75aauf3gj&st=zgtx0xy9&dl=0

Pi RAPM from 2002-2015

[iggymcfrack]

It's not just the regular season though. In Iverson's peak season of 2001 he averaged 46.2 MPG in the playoffs. In the 2005 season you and others I've seen selected as Nash's peak, he averaged 40.7 MPG. Manu that season averaged 33.6 MPG over the playoffs as a whole and 36.2 MPG once the series got competitive and Pop moved him into the starting lineup. Those are very similar gaps.

So if we have:

Manu: 6.9 RS BPM, 9.2 PS BPM, 6.4 RAPM, 6.4 xRAPM
Nash: 4.7 RS BPM, 4.7 PS BPM, 3.2 RAPM, 3.7 xRAPM
Iverson: 6.1 RS BPM, 6.1 PS BPM, 2.1 RAPM, 3.0 xRAPM

If the 5-7 minute gap pushes Nash ahead of Manu, why doesn't the 5-6 minute gap push Iverson ahead of Nash? Iverson's stats are much more arguable against Nash's than Nash's are against Manu's. By the box score, Manu >> Iverson > Nash and Manu probably has the most non-box impact of all with his incredible defense to go with his creativity and playmaking. In the impact stats, the gap between Manu and Nash is at least triple the gap between Nash and Iverson.

I think it's great your considering how many extra minutes it would take for Iverson's cume impact to eclipse others with higher rates.

I feel like the RAPM you're using is prior informed, which is a problem for using it when players go through major changes in the year you're interested in.

I'm actually going to use the APM from intraocular here since I can, but to be clear, I think people should point out NPI RAPM or other stuff that won't have '04-05 dragged down by the year before.

So, that APM for the 3 years in question:

'05 Ginobili +7.9
'05 Nash +5.9
'01 Iverson +3.2

Okay now, if we want to make a VORP-rate stat based on that, we need to take the difference between their score and replacement, and multiply by the percentage of possessions played.

In my recent VORP study, I used two different replacement levels based on the more extreme ends on either side I found from APBRmetrics & related sources:

A "generous" RP level of -3.3, and a "harsh" RP level of -2.0

Here's how these guys rate applying that all-season APM with possession percentage from the playoffs:

Generous RP VORP rate:

Nash 7.92
Ginobili 7.01
Iverson 6.28

Harsh RP VORP rate:

Nash 6.80
Ginobili 6.19
Iverson 5.02

So yeah, even with the minutes edge, Iverson ends up a fair bit back of the other two.

I'll emphasize again that this is a quick & dirty thing, not data to be taken to the proverbial bank. There may be other studies than when VORP-ed the same way tell a very different story. But just with the first things that came to mind, no, it gave data that happened to match the order I have them for the purposes of this project.

That was fascinating, thank you. I knew there had to be more favorable analytics for Nash given his reputation at the time so it's good to see some of them in action. As regards the prior though, is it possible that the values observed in Dallas were more representative of Nash's actual skill, and looking at him only in Phoenix lets him reap an undue share of benefits for D'Antoni's ahead of his time system? Like the Mavericks still had an all-time offense with Nash. It's not like he was being kept in a cage that was preventing him from flowering. I don't see how just having that season as prior would misrepresent Nash and his abilities.

[iggymcfrack]

May I ask for the link to your favorite PI RAPM?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/2oniqeyhqhko3nitghfie/ABZu_EJ0mG8Lx-0SwhAs4nA?rlkey=98rx0ni1em727mat75aauf3gj&st=zgtx0xy9&dl=0

Pi RAPM from 2002-2015

So I remember using the words "favorite PI RAPM" at some point, so in case that was directed to me (or even if it wasn't), here's my favorite RAPM over the period. I really liked the way the regular season and postseason were combined and I felt like the prior made it align ridiculously well with what I would have thought for the season anyway. "97-14 RAPM" is the main heading for the database.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201024055551/https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/top-rapm

[homecourtloss]

1. 2015 CP3: Playoff success is a concern and that’s what holds him back from even higher but there was no situation in which he didn’t bring high end impact due to zero weaknesses and almost all strengths in his game. In 2015, you saw a highly dominant team with him on court and nothing without him. His teammates weren’t awful, but they weren’t going to do anything without him they were mostly one way players. Their widely acknowledged 2nd best player, Griffin, was doing absolutely nothing without CP3.

2. 2014 KD (>2016>2017>2018>2013 He could honestly could be higher but a lack of playmaking, defense mostly underwhelming keep him back and he makes for a case study for limitations on ceiling of an ultra efficient scorer without playmaking chops. he also probably falls maybe this low because of the area that he's in and whom he's being compared to and the variety of skills that they bring to the table necessary in the specific era. I think in a different area, he would rank a higher.

3. 2018 Harden Absurd ISO scoring and the centerpiece of a team that might win a title in most years and was probably some bad shooting luck ,and bad injury luck) away from going to the finals.

he is also an outlier when it comes to working in ISO. Very few players have been able to crack 1.1 points per possession in iso and when they do, they might have had a low number of possessions, but he was able to do it with a high number of possessions and then there's 2018, which is absolutely crazy

Points per possession (PPP) Players who played at least 41 games in a season and had 4+ ISO possessions per game.

1.22, 2018 Harden, 10.0 possessions per game
1.17, 2023 Lillard, 4.9 possessions per game
1.16, 2025 KD, 4.5 possessions per game
1.13, 2022 Derozan, 4.3 possessions per game
1.12, 2020 Harden, 14.1 possessions per game
1.12, 2017 Kyrie, 5.1 possessions per game
1.11, 2022 Luka, 6.3 possessions per game
1.11, 2023 Luka, 7.1 possessions per game
1.11, 2021 Lillard, 4.9 possessions per game
1.11, 2021 Kyrie, 4.3 possessions per game
1.11, 2024 SGA, 6.1 possessions per game
1.10, 2023 Harden, 6.1 possessions per game
1.10, 2019 Harden, 16.4 possessions per game
1.10, 2018 CP3, 5.1 possessions per game
1.10, 2022 KD, 5.5 possessions per game
1.10, 2025 SGA, 7.1 possessions per game

He was basically scoring all his baskets unassisted (was basically the all-time king of this until Luca showed up), creating at a high rate for others, and scoring in iso the way many would score on open jump shots. The league sans the rockets was producing .877 points per possession. Honestly, that massive advantage relative to league for the most difficult type of possession to score through should have produced an even better offense than it did.

Defense wasn't all that great in the regular season, but was a lot better and the postseason.

4. 2007 Steve Nash
all-time offensive engine (regular season offenses and playoff offenses )who carried over to the playoffs. I highly believe a different team construction than the ones he was on would allow him a chance at a title, but the offensive lift is just too great to have his peak any much lower than this.

[Doctor MJ]

It's not just the regular season though. In Iverson's peak season of 2001 he averaged 46.2 MPG in the playoffs. In the 2005 season you and others I've seen selected as Nash's peak, he averaged 40.7 MPG. Manu that season averaged 33.6 MPG over the playoffs as a whole and 36.2 MPG once the series got competitive and Pop moved him into the starting lineup. Those are very similar gaps.

So if we have:

Manu: 6.9 RS BPM, 9.2 PS BPM, 6.4 RAPM, 6.4 xRAPM
Nash: 4.7 RS BPM, 4.7 PS BPM, 3.2 RAPM, 3.7 xRAPM
Iverson: 6.1 RS BPM, 6.1 PS BPM, 2.1 RAPM, 3.0 xRAPM

If the 5-7 minute gap pushes Nash ahead of Manu, why doesn't the 5-6 minute gap push Iverson ahead of Nash? Iverson's stats are much more arguable against Nash's than Nash's are against Manu's. By the box score, Manu >> Iverson > Nash and Manu probably has the most non-box impact of all with his incredible defense to go with his creativity and playmaking. In the impact stats, the gap between Manu and Nash is at least triple the gap between Nash and Iverson.

I think it's great your considering how many extra minutes it would take for Iverson's cume impact to eclipse others with higher rates.

I feel like the RAPM you're using is prior informed, which is a problem for using it when players go through major changes in the year you're interested in.

I'm actually going to use the APM from intraocular here since I can, but to be clear, I think people should point out NPI RAPM or other stuff that won't have '04-05 dragged down by the year before.

So, that APM for the 3 years in question:

'05 Ginobili +7.9
'05 Nash +5.9
'01 Iverson +3.2

Okay now, if we want to make a VORP-rate stat based on that, we need to take the difference between their score and replacement, and multiply by the percentage of possessions played.

In my recent VORP study, I used two different replacement levels based on the more extreme ends on either side I found from APBRmetrics & related sources:

A "generous" RP level of -3.3, and a "harsh" RP level of -2.0

Here's how these guys rate applying that all-season APM with possession percentage from the playoffs:

Generous RP VORP rate:

Nash 7.92
Ginobili 7.01
Iverson 6.28

Harsh RP VORP rate:

Nash 6.80
Ginobili 6.19
Iverson 5.02

So yeah, even with the minutes edge, Iverson ends up a fair bit back of the other two.

I'll emphasize again that this is a quick & dirty thing, not data to be taken to the proverbial bank. There may be other studies than when VORP-ed the same way tell a very different story. But just with the first things that came to mind, no, it gave data that happened to match the order I have them for the purposes of this project.

That was fascinating, thank you. I knew there had to be more favorable analytics for Nash given his reputation at the time so it's good to see some of them in action. As regards the prior though, is it possible that the values observed in Dallas were more representative of Nash's actual skill, and looking at him only in Phoenix lets him reap an undue share of benefits for D'Antoni's ahead of his time system? Like the Mavericks still had an all-time offense with Nash. It's not like he was being kept in a cage that was preventing him from flowering. I don't see how just having that season as prior would misrepresent Nash and his abilities.

You're welcome iggy!

So let me start with something general and then come back around to Nash & Ginobili:

The question of how to consider coaching value when evaluating players is a pretty big thing that I have preferences on, but isn't discussed much.

When it comes to achievement, my broad view is that players and coaches shouldn't be seen as part of a zero sum equation because anything that the coach actually does should be embodied by the 5 player lineups on the court, and thus the achievement of the coach goes up when the achievement of the players go up.

When it comes to absolute goodness though, it's more complicated, because coaches and other context determine player opportunity, and it's never a level playing field. I'd say generally we all end up grappling with this, and doing it imperfectly, so I don't want to talk as if I have found "the one way" here. But I think it's worth noting that when we focus on ranking (like in this project) rather than rating (like any calculated stat), we have a pretty common set of questions we tend to ask (How would A do in B's context?, etc) that work pretty well for us.

Heading back over to Nash here, some thoughts:

* With regard to Dallas, I think it's important to recognize that the fact that the Mavs had an all-time offense with Nash means that his more modest APM impact was about the team being able to also succeed when he was on the bench. The fact that there was less of a drop off without Nash means we call him "less impactful", but we should remember that that being less impressive to us is not the same thing as him failing to be extremely effective when he's on the court.

* I think it best to focus on the features of D'Antoni's innovation rather than the fact that he was innovative. I would say that D'Antoni's overarching thrust had be grouped into 3 things:

1. The 3-point shot works, we should use it more.
2. The defense is at its weakest before it can set, so attack quickly.
3. There's no substitute for a "coach on the floor" - the fast pace of the game requires the players to be the primary decision makers not the coach on the sideline - so look to find a player (or maybe players) who can really do that well.

So then, if you want a quarterback who can do all those things, would it make sense to pursue Nash in free agency above anyone else playing in the NBA at the time? Yup.

Does it make sense to me to knock Nash for the Suns being 100% right about Nash being the perfect guy for the job? Nope.

[Cavsfansince84]

That was fascinating, thank you. I knew there had to be more favorable analytics for Nash given his reputation at the time so it's good to see some of them in action. As regards the prior though, is it possible that the values observed in Dallas were more representative of Nash's actual skill, and looking at him only in Phoenix lets him reap an undue share of benefits for D'Antoni's ahead of his time system? Like the Mavericks still had an all-time offense with Nash. It's not like he was being kept in a cage that was preventing him from flowering. I don't see how just having that season as prior would misrepresent Nash and his abilities.

Another part of how Nash went from all nba to mvp level in Phx was him making a big commitment to fitness and diet around then. He got that slimmed down look where he got another gear in terms of quickness and endurance on the court. That was a big thing for him imo. Where he felt like he could constantly push pace and force the defense to keep up. He couldn't have played that way even if he wanted to while in Dallas imo.