Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #17-#18 Spots

[Cavsfansince84]

1) You'll note I'm not voting.
2) "a full season can be viewed as luck based" is a very clunky phrasing (and I think meaningless). But to illustrate the point McGrady received some pushback based on the idea that his 2003 shooting was significantly lucky. Isaiah Thomas's peak is often regarded as significantly luck influenced (though it's hard to be sure given he didn't really get the chance after to try and duplicate it). And this comes back to the debate/choice of "player" where trying assess to what extent that is true matters, versus "season" where it might not.
3) The thing is I don't even have any objection to a "what happened happened" point of view (I haven't dived that deeply into that debate). But if you don't see the influence of randomness on a single event that seems odd. The idea of greats applying their skill ... I don't know ... makes for a binary where no luck is at play ... it feels like taking that view to it's logical endpoint Allen should make all his 3s.

[post edited for typo]

Well then we just disagree on the concept of luck and how it applies to sports then and the degree of skill it takes to begin with to do some of these things. Which is fine, its not that deep to me. I don't think the possibility of something not happening means luck is a prevalent factor in that thing happening or not. I think skill tends to be the overriding factor. Which is what allows Luka or whoever to do what they do in a 7 game series/playoff run.

[Owly]

My feeling as well. I was a huge pro-AK guy as he emerged and still wonder what might have been, but injuries being what they are, it's hard for him to break in at too high of a tier for me.

Injuries to me seem a separate thing except in that they take out half of what might have been his best year.
I was aware of the playoff absence for that 2.5 year productivity apex. I nearly mentioned but abandoned a different post just briefly floating AK.

Is it more that absence of sample means doubt (of capacity to more-or-less replicate) and so a marginal shift towards skepticism?

Or, no playoffs kills this season to me, don't care much how good you are, doesn't matter if you're as good as one of those Robertson, KAJ, Garnett seasons, sucks to be you, I guess, sorry. I'm evaluating the "season" and for these purposes that needs team playoff success?

Obviously doesn't have to be completely binary.

Good framing of the dilemma.

How I tend to see it is that we don't really know how bulletproof a guy is until he makes a deep playoff run, and while AK eventually was part of a WCF team, it happened when he was no longer their star and lead MPG guy leading a defense-first team, but when he was their 4th MPG behind 3 other guys who were named all-stars on a team that was special because of their offense and no longer showed major impact from AK.

I won't refuse to consider AK here, but I think it will be unlikely I'll vote for him in my Top 25.

My instinctive counter to that position, as worded, is that you don't "really know how bulletproof" a guy is when they do make a deep run. Especially singular. And versus many alternate gauntlets that could have been.

But given it's more a skepticism than hard bar that might be me being pedantic on semantics more than anything else.

[Doctor MJ]

Ben Wallace was more mobile than Gobert & Mutombo, but comparing Gobert and Mutombo in the same sentence in terms of mobility is incorrect.

I still don't see the argument for Ben Wallace over Rudy Gobert in this thread, but I am open to seeing it being presented.

Are you suggesting that the gap between Ben & Rudy's mobility is small compared to Rudy & Deke?

No.

I see Rudy as a guy whose mobility limitations have everything to do with why his team's success tended to choke in the playoffs.

It was Rudy's lack of mobility which is the sole reason for the Utah Jazz's inability to defend the perimeter at a high level in the postseason. I can't get behind that.

Rudy Gobert is an easy player to dislike, from NBA Players themselves clowning him in multiple interviews to Gobert's out-of-touch comments regarding the global pandemic, to the Utah Jazz being a dominant regular-season team that falls short in the postseason, similar to the 1980s and early 1990s Jazz.

Defensively, a team with Bojan Bogdanovic, Mike Conley, and Royce O'Neale isn't going to be capable of stopping good offenses in the postseason. Of course, we saw an older Rudy Gobert join up with the likes of Jaden McDaniels, Anthony Edwards, and Karl-Anthony Towns and have a historically dominant postseason series against an Offensive GOAT in Nikola Jokic, holding the Suns to -7.1 Ortg (Compared to their RS) and Denver to -10.4, all while Minnesota produced a great offense against Phoenix and mediocre against Denver, before eventually crashing and burning against Dallas. We then see Gobert in 2025 hold up incredibly well against Luka in isolation.

It is clear that Gobert has defensive blemishes in the postseason, unlike Ben Wallace, but that's where this offensive gap comes into play. We are also trying to hone in on one season, a season in which we saw Gobert dominate in a way Ben Wallace simply never did, on both ends of the court. However, the season ended in a disappointing fashion due to outlier shooting performances, which is why playoff sample sizes are always tricky to evaluate.

2021 LAC Round 1: 37.3 3P%
2021 LAC Round 2: 43.3 3P%
2021 LAC Round 3: 35.3 3P%

Again, I know you adore +/-, even just raw +/-. I have read your posts, and you often use raw +/- in them to articulate your viewpoint on players or situations. In fact, your ability to diagnose +/- and extrapolate your thoughts and opinions through it is incredibly valuable to me, as I too adore +/- as a rudimentary analysis that is far more valuable than other box-score-specific counting stats.

This isn't a gotcha moment, but a post of yours from about two years ago in a discussion regarding Luka, Manu, and +/-points.

(Snip regarding Luka)

In the end, I tend to focus on base impact (in the sense of +/-, though we don't always have enough data to know what that is) and scalability to greater team play with such a role as my north star here. If Player X is having more impact and playing more in a style that seems to fit on a champion than Player Y, I'm probably not going to be overly focused on whether Player X could do what Player Y does. Rather, I'll be asking myself how Player Y would do in a scenario like Player X.

(Snip regarding Manu)

Before I move off from +/-, I'm going to mention something I've mentioned before that I know a lot of people don't like, but here we go:

We are now in Year 5 of Luka's career, and as things stand, he's once again not leading his team in raw +/-.

As I've acknowledged before: Raw +/- is a super-simple metric that by no means should be taken by itself as proxy for how good a player is. I use leading a team in raw +/- as something to share because:

1. Everybody (almost) understands what raw +/- actually is and should be capable of discussing what they think is happening, whereas more sophisticated metrics make that trickier.

2. When we're talking about players who are supposed to be outliers, we generally expect them to be able to separate themselves from their peers in most years unless they have fellow outliers on their team.

3. In the case of Luka, who is often talked about as a player that hasn't been built around with suitable supporting talent, there are no outliers that have gotten in the way.

RE: Player X and Player Y Roles

What if we did swap Gobert and Wallace? I understand the general consensus (with which I agree) that Ben Wallace was an incredibly passionate and strong leader, whereas Gobert wasn't. But what exactly would Chauncey Billups and the Detroit offense achieve with a P&R threat as effective as Rudy Gobert? We saw Mike Conley have historically great +/- at the tail-end of his prime running P&R next to Gobert, imagine the boon this provides Chauncey and Detroit.

How does Utah's offense look with Ben Wallace at the helm of a P&R attack? Probably pedestrian, though given their shooting (4-out spacing) it would still be effective, but I have my doubts they could be the #1 offense in the NBA like they were in 2021.

To reiterate, simply swapping players 15 years apart in different league environments isn't something I personally place great value in, but Detroit had better pieces, relative to their era, compared to what Utah was working with around Gobert, and I don't see that as particularly debatable.

RE: +/-

Rudy Gobert is an outlier in terms of +/-

2021 Rudy Gobert: +728 (1st in NBA)
2021 Mike Conley: +548

2020 Anthony Davis: +240
2020 LeBron James: +442

2009 Dwight Howard: +550
2009 Rashard Lewis: +582

2010 Dwight Howard: +620
2010 Vince Carter: +497

2004 Ben Wallace: +440 (10th in NBA)
2004 Chauncey Billups: +413

2005 Tayshaun Prince: +437
2005 Rip Hamilton: +425
2005 Rasheed Wallace: +375
2005 Chauncey Billups: +352
2005 Ben Wallace: +343 (24th in NBA)

2006 Tayshaun Prince: +647
2006 Rasheed Wallace: +615
2006 Ben Wallace: +599 (3rd in NBA)

My Napkin math says Ben Wallace is still first in +/- between 2004 and 2006 for Detroit, but he is lumped together with his other teammates. Rudy Gobert, on the other hand, is going to be head-and-shoulders ahead for a 3-year sample of 2020-2022.

Gobert was head and shoulders above the best player on a 9 SRS team, where Rudy Gobert led the league in +/-rating. This should matter for something here.

Hmm, okay.

So first, I should be clear that I don't consider myself part of the anti-Gobert crusade. You list 2021, and in that year I had Gobert as 2nd in my MVP (Jokic) and 3rd in my POY (Giannis & Jokic), so right there, Gobert is the next guy from that year I should be considering and I'm not trying to NOT do that. It's possible then that I'm not giving Gobert as not much consideration as I should here, but it's not because I'm one of the folks who considered Gobert utterly unreasonable as an MVP candidate at the time. I think the dude has gotten way too much s**t, and I don't like it.

I also don't want to act like it was all Gobert's fault that the Jazz defense become completely non-functional in the playoffs repeatedly. It's not like I'm saying that he wasn't their best defender, nor am I wanting to imply that all other bigs would have been able to stop their opponents from hitting 3's - the reality is that the evolution of 3-point shooting absolutely is the kryptonite for traditional defensive anchors who excel at hanging around the basket waiting for the offense to bring the ball to them.

I will say that there's a broader thing here when it comes to adjusting for era:

If one defensive big didn't have to deal with modern offensive strategy because he didn't play in the modern league, should he be elevated over a player whose only distinct sin was being born later?

The answer to that is really about how you personally define your criteria. Like, should I eliminate Mark Eaton from a consideration of GOAT defensive bigs simply because it wouldn't make sense to pay him a dime today? Depends on what list you're making.

So with regards to Gobert vs Mutombo, this is a really good argument for Gobert in response to those bringing up that Mutombo was more effective as a defender in the playoffs than Gobert was. Do we really think Deke utterly lacked Rudy's vulnerabilities?

But of course, with regards to Ben, I do think he was better suited for dealing with more mobile offense than Gobert was, so the idea of "Ben was just lucky he didn't have to deal with what Rudy did" doesn't really resonate with me.

Re: "Conley have historically great +/- at the tail-end of his prime running P&R next to Gobert". I'd have to push back there.

When is Conley's peak 4year RAPM? 2010-13
3year? 2011-13
2year? 2012-13
Conley's top 5year does go 2015-19, but still includes nothin from his time in Utah.

As far as I can tell all the indicators say that Conley in Utah had a very nice late career run, but didn't produce anything that made us say he was as effective as in his prime.

This to say that while we can say that Conley's presence helped give us Gobert's best performance, we shouldn't be crediting Gobert's presence with doing the same for Conley.

Regardless of Conley, the fact that Gobert has better ORAPM numbers at his peak than Ben is something we should keep in mind. Frankly, if - whatever your criteria - you rank Rudy's D at least up there with Ben's, it makes sense to rank Rudy overall above Ben.

Now, the following quote:

Re: "How does Utah's offense look with Ben Wallace at the helm of a P&R attack? Probably pedestrian, though given their shooting (4-out spacing) it would still be effective, but I have my doubts they could be the #1 offense in the NBA like they were in 2021."

Points in the same direction as what you're saying, I feel a need to push back at the implication that Rudy Gobert was "at the helm" of the offense, as to me, that sure seems to imply he was the best offensive player, when I think we know pretty clearly that if optimizing offense were the Jazz only goal, they'd never have played Gobert at all.

The entire offensive strategy relating to Gobert was not based on "He's good, we should build the offense around his strengths" but "He's good at defense, how can we do stuff that's effective on offense despite him?".

I don't want to be too harsh here because I would say that if you can be a core 5-man member of a #1 offense, that's worth celebrating even if no one thinks you're one of the team's 5 best offensive players.

Additionally, the fact that the team's ORtg didn't actually fall off a cliff in the playoffs can point to an argument along the lines of "And that offense was playoff-legit!".

But of course, since Gobert's only actually good at defense, and the Jazz always disappointed in the playoffs for reasons other than offense, that points us back to the problem that the Gobert-led defense wasn't playoff-legit, and he's now in conversations with guys who did lead legit playoff defenses.

Again, not saying it was Gobert's fault in the sense that he was worse at defense than his teammates, but I have to admit that it's hard for me to feel great about an argument for Gobert that focuses on "The were the #1 offense in the RS and still put up big numbers in the playoffs" when defense is his thing, and they lost because that defense stopped functioning. Fine to say it wasn't his "fault", but him escaping some blame for failure is not the same as earning credit for success.

Re: better pieces for era around Ben. I won't disagree agree with that bradly, and specifically mention that Sheed's arrival in 2004 was a game changer. No Sheed, no title.

Re: "I know you adore +/-". Okay, I have to say this statement alarms me. I've liked your posting and I want you to know that... but why is someone with a 2025 join date using words that imply by that I'm emotionally compromised about a specific stat? I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt, but do take care. (And if I sound paranoid, well, it's because I am specifically in the aftermath of what went down this summer.)

But working specifically with the data you bring up - which is perfectly reasonable:

First, I do tend to use raw +/- and On-Off way more than folks tend to find reasonable. I think many feel like I should be using RAPM or something else with regression if I'm being serious, and I get why they think that. Certainly I wouldn't want to imply we can read everything about +/- style impact without considering confounding factors. On the other hand, I think we run into trouble when we algorithmize away too much. I feel I need to use both the raw and adjustments to best calibrate what was going on.

Gobert does indeed have a huge advantage over his Jazz teammates in that 2020-22 span, and that is a big deal generally.

But it's also almost purely a regular season thing. In that 3 year span you point to, Gobert has a +1438 regular season +/-. In the playoffs, he's got a +36.

Meanwhile of course, Ben had a massive +202 in the playoffs of their title year, which is just huge. He led the team in both minutes & +/- in both the RS & PS of the title year, and literally no one had doubts that he was the critical piece of the team.

But as you point out, in the years after, while Ben was one critical piece of the team, he lost that +/- edge over his teammates. So what should we make of that?

Well on one level, it means that I'm generally not looking to make arguments here for Ben based on those later years.

The natural question though that's relevant to a Peak conversation is: Was this just an ensemble cast all along and it was just a fluke that Ben had the +/- edge in '03-04?

Here's where I'd point out that Ben was 29 in '03-04. I don't want to talk as if he turned into a pumpkin at age 30, but if we - say - look at Ben's stock numbers in his Piston years, here's what we get:

'00-01 (26): 3.6
'01-02 (27): 5.2
'02-03 (28): 4.6
'03-04 (29): 4.8
'04-05 (30): 3.8
'05-06 (31): 4.0

So, a naive interpretation of this box score data would imply that Ben best 3-year run happened from '01-02 to '03-04...but this is also his peak 3-year RAPM, so maybe it really is the case.

Hence, I think it actually makes a lot of sense to look at Ben's peak being in his late 20s based on the data, as well as the fact that that's quite normal for NBA players in general, let alone for a player whose impact isn't based on outstanding fine motor skills or facilitation. And we also note that that 3-year run was his age 27-29 span, just like '00-02 was for Gobert.

Also for perspective, here was Gobert's stock numbers for those 3 years, which remain his only all-star seasons (though I think he should have been named to more):

'19-20 (27): 2.8
'20-21 (28): 3.3
'21-22 (29): 2.8

So, in this span, Gobert's not having the same type of hands-on-ball-that-left-the-hands-of-opponent production that Ben had.

But at the same time, Gobert does have greater 3-year RAPM for that run than Ben did:

Ben '02-04: +3.5 (18th)
Rudy '20-22: +6.4 (5th)

Gobert has a huge advantage there, and I think it's pretty dang reasonable for that to drive voting for Rudy over Ben.

I think we in particular need to grapple with the fact that Gobert was apparently having considerably more impact primarily through defensive work we'd expect to be captured by the box score, but his box score footprint at least superficially looks less.

What's going on here?

Clearly part of the situation here is that the league was much more spaced out, and so I really don't want to imply "Oh Ben woulda had bigger numbers!" simply because he did back in the day.

But I do think we have to ask ourselves whether regular season impact of a defensive anchor that's based more on the idea of his shotblocking threat, rather than his ability to actually get his hands on the ball, might be more fragile against the extremely smart offenses of the present era.

Not saying only Gobert would be affected by this, but just generally, if bigs aren't actually blocking as many shots, then how is a big having apparently even more impact through the threat of his shotblocking than guys who blocked more in an earlier age?

The question itself doesn't mean that that impact is more mitigatable if the opposing offense really takes the time to scheme against it like they do in modern playoff series... but if in practice the defense does fall apart against those playoff, saying "That's just because the perimeter defenders suck" is cold comfort as it indicates to us that offenses probably could have been doing all this in the regular season too.

Perfectly fine to say that a mediocre team defense doesn't mean the defensive star isn't the best defender in the league, but if we are pointing to the regular season defensive impact as the reason why he's so great, but that impact exists primarily because offenses are using the regular season to get themselves ready for "the real season", well, then it is suspect.

I'll end here with something that just comes to mind that I think may inform how I think about these guys different - and perhaps wrongly - than others.

So, I have my own private POY shares along the lines of the RPOY projects. These are obviously career metrics rather than individual yeas so I'm not looking to make an argument here really, but to the extent my thoughts diverge from others in this, that might be relevant.

I'm actually going to cut myself off here because I realize I'm doing something that I think would be more useful in its own post, so:

To be continued...

[jalengreen]

[...]

Re: "How does Utah's offense look with Ben Wallace at the helm of a P&R attack? Probably pedestrian, though given their shooting (4-out spacing) it would still be effective, but I have my doubts they could be the #1 offense in the NBA like they were in 2021."

Points in the same direction as what you're saying, I feel a need to push back at the implication that Rudy Gobert was "at the helm" of the offense, as to me, that sure seems to imply he was the best offensive player, when I think we know pretty clearly that if optimizing offense were the Jazz only goal, they'd never have played Gobert at all.

The entire offensive strategy relating to Gobert was not based on "He's good, we should build the offense around his strengths" but "He's good at defense, how can we do stuff that's effective on offense despite him?".

I don't want to be too harsh here because I would say that if you can be a core 5-man member of a #1 offense, that's worth celebrating even if no one thinks you're one of the team's 5 best offensive players.

Additionally, the fact that the team's ORtg didn't actually fall off a cliff in the playoffs can point to an argument along the lines of "And that offense was playoff-legit!".

But of course, since Gobert's only actually good at defense, and the Jazz always disappointed in the playoffs for reasons other than offense, that points us back to the problem that the Gobert-led defense wasn't playoff-legit, and he's now in conversations with guys who did lead legit playoff defenses.

[...]

Good post and conversation here, I selectively wanted to chirp in on one thing here which is Gobert's offense.

The perception at the time was that Gobert's screening was actually quite valuable to the Jazz's offense. Indeed, in a 2019 article, then Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey and head coach Quinn Snyder said as much.

"Rudy is our most important offensive player," Utah general manager Dennis Lindsey told ESPN hours before what became Utah's 10th win in 11 games.

Lindsey said that with all due respect for star sophomore shooting guard Donovan Mitchell, Utah's leading scorer by a considerable margin with 23.5 points per game. It's a statement supported by the advanced statistic of offensive win shares, in which Gobert ranks fourth in the NBA with 8.2, behind only Houston's James Harden, Portland's Damian Lillard and Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Lindsey refers to Gobert's screening as "akin to the trigger on a gun," because the Jazz initiate so much of their offense off of Gobert picks, whether it's pick-and-roll action with their playmakers or off-ball screens to free 3-point sharpshooters Joe Ingles and Kyle Korver. According to Second Spectrum data, Gobert has set a league-high 3,309 screens this season, and no other player comes within 500 picks of that number.

...]

"He's one of the most dynamic rollers in the league, if not the most dynamic roller," said Mitchell, who had 25 points and five assists in the victory over the Hornets. "A lot of it is just making that lob a threat. That goes a long way."

Mitchell is on the money: According to NBA.com, Gobert entered Monday night averaging 1.33 points on 251 possessions as a roll man, the most efficient among 34 players with at least 125 such possessions. The benefits from those point-blank buckets for the Jazz do indeed go well beyond the two points Gobert gets each time he rocks the rim.

"His ability to put pressure on the rim is a form of penetration," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. "You've got to account for him, and that draws defenders just the same way dribble penetration does. He's actually creating offense. We've talked about spacing assists when he rolls to the rim."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26420295/rudy-gobert-season-most-underrated-offensive-weapon

Maybe they were just saying things to be nice and hype up their guy, but I don't think it paints a picture of "He's good at defense, how can we do stuff that's effective on offense despite him?" if they were specifically leaning on his strengths on offense.

Ultimately, Gobert ranked 1st in the league in screen assist points per game every season from 2017-23 with the exception of a 2nd place finish in 2021 (15.1 vs Sabonis' 15.2). He also consistently hovered around the top 5 in offensive rebounds per game from 2019-22.

By oEPM (percentile) [rank on Jazz]:

- 2019: +2.2 (93) [1]
- 2020: +1.2 (84) [4]
- 2021: +1.6 (88) [5]
- 2022: +1.9 (93) [3]

I don't think he had elite offensive impact or anything, nbarapm.com and xrapm.com's factor level RAPM both suggest that he really contributed to his team turning the ball over more often.

2019-22 RAPM on nbarapm.com, for example, has his Off TS% Val as +1.7, Off TOV Val as -1.2, and Off Reb Val as +0.8. Adds offensive value to team efficiency and offensive rebounding, loses value in the turnover department. All in all, does seem to suggest positive offensive impact as a whole.

[Doctor MJ]

As I was about to segue to when I said "So, I have my own private POY shares along the lines of the RPOY projects. These are obviously career metrics rather than individual yeas so I'm not looking to make an argument here really, but to the extent my thoughts diverge from others in this, that might be relevant.":

First - The last time I went through and did a complete "retro" study like this was in the time before the 2023 Top 100 project. Things change every time I do this, and frankly, years after I do it, I'm not prepared to explain every decision I made at the time. But relevant stuff here:

I thought it would be informative to look at how many times non-inducted candidates currently being discussed (as well as other guys who seem like they might) made my Top 5 POY last time (based on 2001-on years), along with their peak ranking.

Joel Embiid 4 (4th)
Jayson Tatum 4 (2nd)
Jimmy Butler 3 (3rd)
Draymond Green 3 (3rd)
Jalen Brunson 2 (5th)
Anthony Davis 2 (2nd)
Manu Ginobili 2 (1st)
Jason Kidd 2 (3rd)
Ray Allen 1 (4th)
Luka Doncic 1 (3rd)
Marc Gasol 1 (3rd)
Pau Gasol 1 (5th)
Rudy Gobert 1 (3rd)
Dwight Howard 1 (4th)
Allen Iverson 1 (5th)
Paul Pierce 1 (5th)
Russell Westbrook 1 (5th)
Ben Wallace 1 (2nd)

I'm going to talk a bit more about some of those guys above, but I do think that there are two other guys actively being discussed in this project that I realize never make one of my ballots:

Dikembe Mutombo
Tracy McGrady

I'm going to address each in the spoilers below so as not to break the flow of my primary train of thought:

Spoiler:

With Deke, I think there's no way around it really, he had a lot of years where he was arguably pretty much in peak form, and he just never made my Top 5, and I think the truth is that while things could have broken for him in just the right way and made it, it's pretty reasonable to see him in prime as "a Top 10 level guy" more so than a Top 5 level guy. Imho at least. Maybe I still underrate him even as I think he is generally underrated.

When considering specific years for him, the year in this time frame is '00-01 where he won DPOY on the NBA Finalist Philadelphia 76ers.

The 5 guys who did make my ballot? Kobe, Shaq, Duncan, Ray & 76er teammate Allen Iverson.

I do think it's a worthy thing to debate in particular whether Mutombo was better than MVP AI - I don't think it's a ridiculous question given the fact that the team won with defense not offense. Nevertheless, I sided with Iverson.

And for the record, yeah, thinking about it, I'd expect to vote for Ray before AI before Deke in this project too based specifically on this season, so we can talk about that. I honestly haven't thought that hard about it during this project yet, but I think something would really have to turn my head around to disagree with that ordering.

With TMac, we're acutely talking about him in '02-03. So who is on my ballot instead of him? Duncan, KG, Dirk, Nash & Kidd.

My immediate thought is that I'd expect a lot of people to disagree with the omission of not just TMac here, but Shaq & Kobe. I'd also expect that Nash & Kidd are quite controversial choices.

Practically speaking, in the context of this project, I'm not sure how useful the Nash conversation would be. A conversation about '02-03 TMac and '01-02 or '02-03 Kidd is very much in play.

So yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty for me about TMac, and I'm not remotely sure that Kidd should be ahead of him. Honestly it's a bit like Kirilenko for me. I wish I'd been able to get to see TMac play at his best longer, and to actually see him against deep playoff competition.

But I also want to emphasize that I also think Jason Kidd was an incredibly good player, and I don't want to give the impression that it's at all easy to top Kidd here. Honestly, it's kind of a shame of mine that I feel like I've spent most my time on here talking about Kidd to advocate for someone else over him has so much in common with him as a player (Nash).

Kidd has an incredible basketball brain, and I love watching those do their thing. The BBIQ he played - and led - with so actively on both sides of the ball is exceedingly rare.

So, last thread Manu & Dray were on my ballot, and after that I considered Luka in particular, but also noted that Tatum was on my mind.

Ginobili being 1st in a year here speaks to how highly I think of his achievement, but here I think it's important to note I sided with Nash over him in this project. Still, he's likely to remain my top choice until he gets in.

Dray & Luka were 3rds for me so we might not expect them yet for me given that I have the following 2nds:

Ben Wallace
Anthony Davis
Jayson Tatum

With Wallace, I do see his '03-04 season as something of a perfect storm. It was one hell of an achievement. But I am trying to view things in this project that is less tied to the particular team and league context. I may end up voting for him before we're done, but I do think that as impressive as he is as a basketball player, he was also in just the right place at just the right time.

With AD, my god he was so good in the Bubble! I don't like taking that away from him, but I've given my reasons why I do feel a need to not overindex on his shooting in that run.

Still, the fact I had him 2nd does make me wonder if I'm - er - underindexing on the big picture. In competition with others in the same situation as he was, he handled it much, much better.

AD had been someone I was thinking about, with the thought about '19-20 being treated simply like regular season '19-20 AD, it honestly didn't entice me that much.

But, AD really had had multiple playoff runs where he had seemed to go to a level of 2-way dominance that not even Giannis could muster, so why am I letting the shooting un-reproducebility make me think that pops AD's candidacy like a...well, y'know?

With Tatum, let me clarify that this was for '21-22 - the year of Ime Udoka - and not for '23-24 where I placed him 4th behind Jokic, Shai & Luka - and I'm clarifying this myself as well, because I realize I was having the mental debate in my head in terms of '23-24, because of course, of that whole season ending with the Finals. (And to be clear, I do think Tatum's got a case there.)

But now I find myself thinking about Udoka Tatum.

The Celtics took their ultimate step forward to champions on the back Mazzulla's offense with extreme 3-point shooting, but Tatum was already doing that, so it was more about them continuing to reform the offense around Tatum than about Tatum necessarily becoming THAT much better on offense.

Meanwhile, the Udoka year saw this generation of Celtics at their best on defense - man, I remember Tatum guarding KD in that sweep. A lot to admire from that year for the Celtics...on the court at least.

[lessthanjake]

So I’m just going to go ahead and throw my vote out there. I’m not 100% certain on it, so I will read others’ posts and consider whether to change my ballot a bit.

My Vote

1. 2005 Manu Ginobili

2. 2016 Draymond Green

3. 2020 Anthony Davis

4. 2024 Luka Doncic

I’ve explained Manu at length in earlier threads. And I explained Draymond in the last thread.

As for AD, I am not inspired by his general impact numbers, but I *am* inspired by how he played in the 2020 playoffs. I don’t think there’s anyone left that had that kind of playoff run, particularly given that it led to a title. And, while AD’s general impact numbers leave something to be desired, he does fill up the stat sheet, so my overall opinion of him is definitely not as low as the impact numbers. In any event, I left AD for last amongst the guys that had transcendent playoff runs and won a title doing it, because I don’t like some of those numbers, but I think he deserves to be picked soon.

As for my final spot, I went with Luka. The others that I considered a lot were Tatum and Butler. I think Luka is the only solidly MVP-level guy of that group, which influenced me. That said, there’s a few other things that went through my mind on this.

First, I think it’s really hard to pick a year for Butler. His best regular season was probably 2023 and they did make the Finals that year, but it was not his best playoffs (or even his second-best playoffs IMO), and he also missed 18 regular-season games, which feels like enough to be significant. I think I’d probably pick 2023 as Butler’s peak. And the thing is that, while Butler was very good that regular season, I think 2024 Luka was better. As for the playoffs, it kind of feels like a wash to me. Both were pretty disappointing in the Finals. Both had a series against a great team that their team won but that they were only pretty good in (against OKC for Luka and against Boston for Butler), where the bigger factor in their team winning the series was hot shooting (and yes, I know these guys get their teammates good looks, but they do that otherwise too and teammates making those good looks more than normal is still just lucky for Luka/Butler). And both had a great series against a very good team (against Minnesota for Luka, and against Milwaukee for Butler). But I am a bit more impressed by the Minnesota series, since Giannis missed a lot of that Milwaukee series. That said, I think Butler was better against the Knicks than Luka was against the Clippers. And, more generally, I think both of them achieved making the Finals with a team that I did not expect to get there. So basically, I find the 2023 Butler and 2024 Luka playoffs to be pretty hard to separate, and Luka was better in the regular season, so I go with him.

Tatum is a tough one for me, because I really do like players leading dominant teams, and he absolutely did that. But I just really wasn’t inspired by his playoff performance in the year the Celtics won the title. So much so that I might actually pick 2022 as his peak, even despite the dominance of his 2024 team. I’m pretty ambivalent between those two years for him. And what I realized is that I just think 2024 Luka is definitely better than 2022 Tatum—which makes me feel by the transitive property that it’s definitely better than 2024 Tatum, since I’m ambivalent between 2022 and 2024 for Tatum. It’s a bit of a roundabout way of thinking about it, but that’s kind of how I got to my Luka > Tatum conclusion here. 2024 Luka and 2022 Tatum both were pretty good but not great in the playoffs prior to the Finals, and both had a pretty weak Finals. But Luka was definitely better in the regular season than Tatum had been, and Luka’s series against Minnesota was better than any series for 2022 Tatum IMO. And if we compared to 2024 Tatum instead, I do love the team achievements he had that year, but I just think Luka was a solidly better player in the regular season and solidly better player in the playoffs, so the team achievement thing just can’t quite overcome that.

The last thing I want to address is the Luka impact numbers thing. Like with AD, they’re not inspiring. It’s a real downside regarding him. That said, the impact numbers in recent years (including 2024) actually look pretty good. For instance, his 2-year RAPM in the last two seasons was 3rd in the NBA, with a 5.4. This is in line with the best we see from Tatum and Butler. Maybe this is just positive noise for Luka and he will go back down to uninspiring impact numbers, such that no genuinely large-sample RAPM will ever be high on him. If that’s what ends up happening, then in some future iteration of this, I might rank him lower than I am now. But, at the moment, I am not going to ding him too much for the impact numbers when they do actually look competitive when we drill down more closely to the peak year and I don’t yet have enough info to really know if that’s a product of noise or something real as he enters into the years most players are at their best.

[Owly]

1) You'll note I'm not voting.
2) "a full season can be viewed as luck based" is a very clunky phrasing (and I think meaningless). But to illustrate the point McGrady received some pushback based on the idea that his 2003 shooting was significantly lucky. Isaiah Thomas's peak is often regarded as significantly luck influenced (though it's hard to be sure given he didn't really get the chance after to try and duplicate it). And this comes back to the debate/choice of "player" where trying assess to what extent that is true matters, versus "season" where it might not.
3) The thing is I don't even have any objection to a "what happened happened" point of view (I haven't dived that deeply into that debate). But if you don't see the influence of randomness on a single event that seems odd. The idea of greats applying their skill ... I don't know ... makes for a binary where no luck is at play ... it feels like taking that view to it's logical endpoint Allen should make all his 3s.

[post edited for typo]

Well then we just disagree on the concept of luck and how it applies to sports then and the degree of skill it takes to begin with to do some of these things. Which is fine, its not that deep to me. I don't think the possibility of something not happening means luck is a prevalent factor in that thing happening or not. I think skill tends to be the overriding factor. Which is what allows Luka or whoever to do what they do in a 7 game series/playoff run.

Depending slightly on what one means by "do some of these things", I'm inclined to think this either misunderstands or again misrepresents the idea presented. Acknowledging randomness doesn’t diminish the degree of skill in making oneself great at something. Ray Allen is an elite three-point shooter. He was a career 40% shooter on 3s over a large sample (on a particular shot diet) because of an elite underlying skill level. Dwyane Wade is a very poor three-point shooter for a professional (especially a shooting guard, especially an elite one). He shot a smidge over 29%. Let us say we were, to simplify things, to (ignore shot diet etc and) say those numbers are a perfect proxy for underlying skill and a forward-looking shot probability. In pro basketball terms, especially shooting guards from a similar era … that’s a chasm, most of the gamut, indicating a very clear skill difference, indeed note the language used to describe them. Yet also in absolute terms not so huge and especially hard to notice on smaller samples. On a tidily representative ten shot sample (fwiw, not particularly likely) that makes for a one make difference. Over larger samples the influence of skill emerges from random variance.

As before, failing to understand this seems to me ultimately to be expecting the best team to win every game, the best shooter to make every shot etc. And perhaps also retroactively casting everything that happened as inevitable.

[Owly]

So yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty for me about TMac, and I'm not remotely sure that Kidd should be ahead of him. Honestly it's a bit like Kirilenko for me. I wish I'd been able to get to see TMac play at his best longer, and to actually see him against deep playoff competition.

Mileage may differ but ... "against deep playoff competition" what is it exactly you're missing?

a) quality of opponent?
b) sample (size)?
c) later is intrinsically better, more important?

I'd argue only b is completely valid.

For me
(A) - Detroit aren't elite, it's a weak conference. They are the one seed (so insofar as longer runs matter because of tougher competition, as this year falls it's the toughest in conference matchup), they're much better than the rest of the Magic squad so he's playing "uphill" in terms of competition. If one's happy enough to take it off one year and focus on playoffs with advancement ... there may be ways to thread the needle and critique Detroit more in absolute terms, but mostly you probably have to live with they're pretty clearly better even with Orlando having McGrady and they've been the best team in the conference, so if they were to advance it should get easier.

B) Yeah. At the margins it does go seven and any single year run is small sample in absolute terms (minutes, games, variety of opponents). But yeah.

C) Pretty hard disagree. Being at later depends on winning earlier. You need to win them all. Later is typically more demanding because typically tougher opponents leaving a team less margin for error (or more margin to climb if theoretically at a deficit). But beyond competition (and for McGrady and competition cf point A).


Moving off from the above
I also think at the margins he gets extra heat for a quote that may or may not be accurate (based on a brief glance at Reddit, contemporary sources seem to have varied on what was said in ways that seem to plausibly change the sentiment. And I don't think it ultimately matters. And the narrative of having the lead rather than trailing being somehow worse.

If one is on the underlying player I've seen the argument that the shooting that year was lucky and that seems likely. If you're on the season (/narrative) then maybe the early out dooms him. But if one isn't hitting him on the shooting luck thing (or already have that factored in), but are more on the player side of the evaluation ... maybe they lose anyway, they weren't unlucky to lose ... he just seems to have played well (at least production-wise, without re-watching and tightly checking his D) and the play of likes of Garrity, Hunter, Kemp and Giricek gave Orlando little chance.

[homecourtloss]

1. 2016 Draymond

Massive defensive lift along with plus offense, which makes him one of the most valuable archetypes of play, i.e., generational defender, who provides plus offense.

+6.3 rORtg and -5.8 rDRtg in the 2016 playoffs.
+7.7 rORtg and -19.2 rDRtg vs. Hou when he had to lead the team. He was the best Warriors player in the 2016 finals and played one of the greatest game sevens ever. he was also extraordinarily successful without curry on court.

He's also an overall playoffs monster and he was that his best in 2016 and also probably 2017.



2.2019 Joel Embiid (>2024)

Box score production has been iffy in the playoffs, but his overall impact hasn't. Can anyone blame him for the 2019 defeat given how they okayed with him? (+18.6 on court)

+6.3 rORtg, -18.4 rDRtg 2019 playoffs; +7.2 rORtg, -17.2 rORtg against the Raptors. Honestly, were looking at his overall impact that he's had on both sides of the ball, they lead skills that he possesses… He could easily be higher on this list.[/quote]

3 2005 Manu
There has to be a question about the minutes but the gargantuan impact, overall skillset with no real weakness that made him very additive with just about everyone make him deserving on this list.

4. 2024 Tatum

Play on one of the best teams for the past 25 years. Did not have a very good finals offensively but we’re still very good defensively and I trust his overall impact profile and surrounding years more than I do of the singular playoff run of Anthony Davis.

[Cavsfansince84]

Depending slightly on what one means by "do some of these things", I'm inclined to think this either misunderstands or again misrepresents the idea presented. Acknowledging randomness doesn’t diminish the degree of skill in making oneself great at something. Ray Allen is an elite three-point shooter. He was a career 40% shooter on 3s over a large sample (on a particular shot diet) because of an elite underlying skill level. Dwyane Wade is a very poor three-point shooter for a professional (especially a shooting guard, especially an elite one). He shot a smidge over 29%. Let us say we were, to simplify things, to (ignore shot diet etc and) say those numbers are a perfect proxy for underlying skill and a forward-looking shot probability. In pro basketball terms, especially shooting guards from a similar era … that’s a chasm, most of the gamut, indicating a very clear skill difference, indeed note the language used to describe them. Yet also in absolute terms not so huge and especially hard to notice on smaller samples. On a tidily representative ten shot sample (fwiw, not particularly likely) that makes for a one make difference. Over larger samples the influence of skill emerges from random variance.

As before, failing to understand this seems to me ultimately to be expecting the best team to win every game, the best shooter to make every shot etc. And perhaps also retroactively casting everything that happened as inevitable.

There are factors which cause variance and such things which are outside of the strict skill of shooting a basketball into a hoop. What I am saying is making a 25-30ft shot requires skill to begin with. To even make those shots 25% of the time in an nba game requires serious skill. When a guy shoots close to 40% from 3 over any sample we're not talking about luck. These are usually the same guys who can make 60-80 out of 100 in a practice situation. Variance in itself does not = luck being involved. It's a combination of many things which our minds might process as luck but that to me is an almost child like way of interpreting what it is in most any high level/pro sport.
This isn't some random guy being selected to throw up a half court shot. These are the best athletes in the world at their particular sport playing for the biggest goal. So if a guy, such as Luka or whoever, repeatedly puts up big stats and does things like lead his team to wins it's a proof of concept regarding their style of play imo. More than that, it's what I would look for in a high peak. If anything it becomes harder to do this in a playoff setting, against better teams which are using better game plans while playing harder.
Which is why it's even more impressive when a guy has 3 great series in a row going against top defensive teams(2 top 4) and winning without hca. I would honestly say that Luka's first 3 rounds were better than a lot of guys already voted in who won rings. The difference is mainly just the finals which is what people remember. No one was expecting Luka's Mavs to beat a Celtics team though which I think had a +10 srs and great perimeter defense. More so while he had a nagging injury which limited his mobility. If he had then he'd already be voted in I would think.

[Djoker]

17. 2020 Anthony Davis
18. 2023 Joel Embiid
19. 2024 Luka Doncic
20. 2003 Tracy Mcgrady

I've gone at length about AD's case in prior threads quoted here. In fact most of the reasoning here is just copied from prior threads.

Spoiler:

The last spot was also tough. It's between Davis and Dirk for me. The thing is... in the 2020 playoffs, AD was shooting so well that he was Dirk-like. 55% from long midrange and 38% from 3pt land is elite shooting. And compared with DIrk, he was also deadly near the basket and more importantly, an elite player on the other end of the court too. I do consider Dirk's intangibles to be better and his shooting gravity cannot be understated but I still feel like 2020 Davis is better than any version of Nowitzki as a basketball player. Certainly not a lot better but he's at least reasonably close offensively while being an elite defensive big man. That combo is tough to beat. He co-led the 2020 Lakers with Lebron so he flies a bit under the radar but he played like a first option, no doubt about it regardless of if you think Lebron was better than him that year. And I don't think his shooting is a total fluke. In the 2023 playoffs, he again shot 59% from long midrange and 33% from 3pt land over 16 games. Ben and Cody discussed on the podcast how AD somehow shoots orders of magnitude better in the PS and that it might be noise but this project is about 1-year peaks. I can't pretend like Davis shot poorly when he in fact shot the lights out. For his entire Lakers' run, the man shot 51% from midrange and 33% from 3pt in the playoffs over 47 games. What I also don't like about Dirk is that he's a 7 footer than isn't a rim protector. Basically you have to pair him up with a great defensive C and that is tough in terms of roster construction. Basically, as good as Dirk is, I do feel like his prototype of player is limiting.

I also considered AD over guys like KD but ultimately I don't think he has the same advantage on defense over those guys that he does on Dirk. And more importantly, those KD's defensive weaknesses are IMO easier to shore up in a team concept compared to DIrk's.

With that said, I don't love his impact stat portfolio being so pedestrian. It does give me some pause although I understand AD to be a huge playoff riser. His elite shooting combined with elite defense in the 2020 playoffs is the most value I can get out of any remaining player. Is it sustainable? I mean I think so. His length, size, and athleticism are elite so his defensive dominance is there. And if we look at another lengthy PS run in 2023, he also shoots the lights out so we can't dismiss his hot shooting as being on a heater. If a heater is 40 games long, at that point it's not a heater anymore. It's sustained great shooting.

Next is Embiid for me. His RS resume is spectacular to the point that he's definitely in top 10 discussions for RS only. Problem is his body frequently breaks down by the time the playoffs roll around. I chose 2023 as his peak despite the PS injury because judging by his play in surrounding relatively healthy years like 2021 and 2024, he could have continued his MVP form into the PS. He's the toughest player to place but around here feels right. Embiid at his best in the PS is behind AD at his best and PS as always is the tiebreaker.

And the last spot comes down to Luka vs. T-Mac. T-Mac just hasn't proven that he can lead a high level team. Not due to any fault of his own because that Magic team was putrid and had no business even pushing Detroit but Luka has proven that he can be a centerpiece of a winning system (one Finals, one WCF) and T-Mac hasn't. Even though in a vacuum I think an easy case can be made that T-Mac is the better player with his more efficient scoring and far superior defense.

[One_and_Done]

It's wild that people are voting Draymond over Butler, when he could never in his life have carried the 20, 22, and 23 Heat teams like Butler did.

[Owly]

It's wild that people are voting Draymond over Butler, when he could never in his life have carried the 20, 22, and 23 Heat teams like Butler did.

Briefly and granting that you'd have to look at specific voters for their criteria and thinking process I'd suspect this comes to two things
1) voters aren't processing all candidates in taking on the role of Jimmy Butler on the 2020-2023 Miami Heat
2) regarding Green versus Butler differences in perception may be led to by differing focuses: presumably boxscore plus team level performance in playoffs, with and without the player with a focus on advancement and perceived teammate quality versus a focus on the impact family of metrics.

[Owly]

Depending slightly on what one means by "do some of these things", I'm inclined to think this either misunderstands or again misrepresents the idea presented. Acknowledging randomness doesn’t diminish the degree of skill in making oneself great at something. Ray Allen is an elite three-point shooter. He was a career 40% shooter on 3s over a large sample (on a particular shot diet) because of an elite underlying skill level. Dwyane Wade is a very poor three-point shooter for a professional (especially a shooting guard, especially an elite one). He shot a smidge over 29%. Let us say we were, to simplify things, to (ignore shot diet etc and) say those numbers are a perfect proxy for underlying skill and a forward-looking shot probability. In pro basketball terms, especially shooting guards from a similar era … that’s a chasm, most of the gamut, indicating a very clear skill difference, indeed note the language used to describe them. Yet also in absolute terms not so huge and especially hard to notice on smaller samples. On a tidily representative ten shot sample (fwiw, not particularly likely) that makes for a one make difference. Over larger samples the influence of skill emerges from random variance.

As before, failing to understand this seems to me ultimately to be expecting the best team to win every game, the best shooter to make every shot etc. And perhaps also retroactively casting everything that happened as inevitable.

There are factors which cause variance and such things which are outside of the strict skill of shooting a basketball into a hoop. What I am saying is making a 25-30ft shot requires skill to begin with. To even make those shots 25% of the time in an nba game requires serious skill. When a guy shoots close to 40% from 3 over any sample we're not talking about luck. These are usually the same guys who can make 60-80 out of 100 in a practice situation. Variance in itself does not = luck being involved. It's a combination of many things which our minds might process as luck but that to me is just an almost child like way of interpreting what it is in most any high level/prol sport.
This isn't some random guy being selected to throw up a half court shot. These are the best athletes in the world at their particular sport playing for the biggest goal. So if a guy, such as Luka or whoever, repeatedly puts up big stats and does things like lead his team to wins it's a proof of concept regarding their style of play imo. More than that, it's what I would look for in a high peak. If anything it becomes harder to do this in a playoff setting, against better teams which are using better game plans while playing harder. Which is why it's even more impressive when a guy has 3 great series in a row going against top defensive teams and winning without hca. I would honestly say that Luka's first 3 rounds were better than a lot of guys already voted in who won rings. The difference is mainly just the finals which is what people remember. No one was expecting Luka's Mavs to beat a Celtics team though which I think had a +10 srs and great perimeter defense. More so while he had a nagging injury which limited his mobility. If he had then he'd already be voted in I would think.

I'd hope to leave it here because this seems to be a perpetual circle, not likely to persuade one another and broadly off topic.

You repeat that there's significant skill in playing in the NBA as though it were a point of disagreement. You say that what "you're saying" is making the shot (presumably at any significant sample) requires skill as though that wasn't already baked into my post. I can't fathom any need to respond if that were the extent of your point.

You assert that variance isn't necessarily luck, okay, then that thinking it's luck is "an almost child like way of interpreting" what's happening ... without explaining what it is or could be that is causing the variance, having already previously avoided actually refuting the case as to why the logical endpoint of your position isn't 100% shooting isn't happening.

You also seem to misunderstand what is being talked about by luck in this context. It's not "good luck" it's variance by chance.

When a guy shoots close to 40% from 3 over any sample we're not talking about luck.

In the sense "good luck" to get that high ... of course (that's already been stated to be elite shooting for Allen's career). But where are you getting the idea that that isn't what I think from. You're quoting a post about how Allen is an elite shooter. Rather any number is an imprecise indicator of an underlying skill level (given varying game contexts) and in smaller samples it gets ever worse. And you've gone out of your way to suggest in absolute, not qualified, terms - in a single instance such as a Ray Allen 3-pointer "It's not [luck]." And so if one instance is entirely devoid of luck, which appears to be the stance then from there, from there ... well we're circling

... seems to me ultimately to be expecting the best team to win every game, the best shooter to make every shot etc. And perhaps also retroactively casting everything that happened as inevitable.

I'll pass on the Luka stuff because apart from tangential critiques of your pro-arguments this hasn't been about a particular player as I have said previously despite your assertions regarding ...

characterizing support of Luka as based on 'a finals run' is not at all an accurate representation of the argument(s) that have been made so far for him

[Cavsfansince84]

I'd hope to leave it here because this seems to be a perpetual circle, not likely to persuade one another and broadly off topic.

You repeat that there's significant skill in playing in the NBA as though it were a point of disagreement. You say that what "you're saying" is making the shot (presumably at any significant sample) requires skill as though that wasn't already baked into my post. I can't fathom any need to respond if that were the extent of your point.

You assert that variance isn't necessarily luck, okay, then that thinking it's luck is "an almost child like way of interpreting" what's happening ... without explaining what it is or could be that is causing the variance, having already previously avoided actually refuting the case as to why the logical endpoint of your position isn't 100% shooting isn't happening.

You also seem to misunderstand what is being talked about by luck in this context. It's not "good luck" it's variance by chance.

In the sense "good luck" to get that high ... of course (that's already been stated to be elite shooting for Allen's career). But where are you getting the idea that that isn't what I think from. You're quoting a post about how Allen is an elite shooter. Rather any number is an imprecise indicator of an underlying skill level (given varying game contexts) and in smaller samples it gets ever worse. And you've gone out of your way to suggest in absolute, not qualified, terms - in a single instance such as a Ray Allen 3-pointer "It's not [luck]." And so if one instance is entirely devoid of luck, which appears to be the stance then from there, from there ... well we're circling

... seems to me ultimately to be expecting the best team to win every game, the best shooter to make every shot etc. And perhaps also retroactively casting everything that happened as inevitable.

Other factors which can contribute to what someone might call luck are things such as who is guarding someone, whether a guy got a good night's sleep the night before, whether he's fully healthy, whether a ref isn't calling certain things, etc etc. This all gets conflated into variance as we call it on top of whatever else. My point is that when the playoffs start all of that gets throw out the window. Everyone gets everyone else's best shot and the guys who play the best deserve full credit for that. Bringing luck into a peak's project discussion to me is just silly. It demeans what guys went out and accomplished which usually is going to include a deep playoff run on top of a great rs. I'm not even sure if this is all that relevant to anything to do with Luka but that's my view on luck relative to this project.

[Jaivl]

So, my initial thought here:

Am I crazy to not be sure Dwight should be above Ben Wallace?

I’m cool with Big Ben entering the discussion.

I'm not cool with such a negative offensive player entering the discussion at #17.

And the comparison is not really with Howard. Among guys with a similar pattern of impact, Dray is obviously much better. Early Embiid seasons are better. Gobert is better. Hell, 2001 Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo have clearly better impact signals as well. I'd slot him next to Marc Gasol, and he isn't close to making the list for me.

And lots of other offensively-slanted players to be picked as well, of course.

Don't know if I'd be looking at him haven't thought it through as much as others ... and might be inclined towards a Kirilenko as floating defensive stars but that's very otoh ...

That said some long-term RAPM figures (97-14 Googlesites: -0.3; 1997-2024 RAPM (w playoffs), vanilla: -0.2) have Wallace as circa neutral on offense for his career so presumably not deeply negative at peak as appears to be implied here. ('97-'22 is lower on his offense ... -1.3 ... but at the same time gives him his highest absolute ranking).


Others may well be better and the box-side isn't great (though fwiw, each RS from 02-06 sees an OBPM [mostly narrowly] above zero). As others have alluded to parsing Detroit credit isn't simple.

You're correct, of course. But the thing is, by those same RAPM measures where he looks slight negative or neutral on offense, Wallace doesn't look that good on defense... He usually looks like a top 10-20 guy overall at most, which is more or less where I'd slot him.

[Owly]

I'm not cool with such a negative offensive player entering the discussion at #17.

And the comparison is not really with Howard. Among guys with a similar pattern of impact, Dray is obviously much better. Early Embiid seasons are better. Gobert is better. Hell, 2001 Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo have clearly better impact signals as well. I'd slot him next to Marc Gasol, and he isn't close to making the list for me.

And lots of other offensively-slanted players to be picked as well, of course.

Don't know if I'd be looking at him haven't thought it through as much as others ... and might be inclined towards a Kirilenko as floating defensive stars but that's very otoh ...

That said some long-term RAPM figures (97-14 Googlesites: -0.3; 1997-2024 RAPM (w playoffs), vanilla: -0.2) have Wallace as circa neutral on offense for his career so presumably not deeply negative at peak as appears to be implied here. ('97-'22 is lower on his offense ... -1.3 ... but at the same time gives him his highest absolute ranking).


Others may well be better and the box-side isn't great (though fwiw, each RS from 02-06 sees an OBPM [mostly narrowly] above zero). As others have alluded to parsing Detroit credit isn't simple.

You're correct, of course. But the thing is, by those same RAPM measures where he looks slight negative or neutral on offense, Wallace doesn't look that good on defense... He usually looks like a top 10-20 guy overall at most, which is more or less where I'd slot him.

Not an expert, but yeah entirely possible he isn't there yet on net impact (and I think net is what's important and where RAPM is more likely to be accurate, I think, than the split). It's probably going to vary with source but as I said it's not like he's who'd I'd instinctively float. It's more just there are some non-negligible angles that aren't necessarily seeing him as such a bad offensive player (and ensuring that it's the net that's at play rather than an arbitrary bar).

[lessthanjake]

It's wild that people are voting Draymond over Butler, when he could never in his life have carried the 20, 22, and 23 Heat teams like Butler did.

So I think I’ll be voting for Butler in the next thread and I almost voted for him in this thread (i.e. I’m pretty high on him), but the idea that he “carried” those Heat teams seems wrong to me. He was their best player, but those teams were pretty ensemble-y and very well-coached. To put a point on that, in three years you mentioned, the Heat still had a positive net rating when Jimmy was on the bench (+0.41 with Jimmy off, compared to +4.15 with Jimmy on). And in the playoffs across those three years, they had an even more positive net rating with Jimmy off (+3.30 with Jimmy off, compared to +2.03 with Jimmy on). They had a 30-28 record in games Jimmy missed in the regular season, and a 1-1 record in the playoff games he missed. I just can’t buy the idea that a guy “carried” a team when they objectively were still a pretty good team when he wasn’t on the court.

That’s especially the case when their most impressive playoff series win in those years (2023 vs. the Celtics) was in a series where Butler rocked a -4.1 rTS%. And in their third most-impressive playoff series win (2020 vs. the Celtics), he was the team’s 4th leading scorer and had a -1.4 rTS%. He certainly did have his moments—in particular, he was fantastic in both series they won against the Bucks. He was a huge part of them winning both those series (though Giannis missing games helped too, and Bam was perhaps even better than Jimmy in the 2020 Bucks series). But given that the team was racking up genuinely impressive playoff series wins even in playoff series’ in which Butler was only mediocre, it seems rather clear that maybe this was much more of a team effort than you’re claiming.

[Jaivl]

Pre-emptive vote. Will expand on it later.

17. 2020 Anthony Davis (> 18)
Same as the last 2 threads. I'm pretty comfortable with Davis here, outlier shooting and all. A DPOY caliber guy that shot better than Dirk ever has on a playoff run. A lot of that was on isolation, too.

18. 2003 Tracy McGrady
Am I a hypocrite? Half of my posts in this project are PROVING calling Davis a fluke... and T-Mac's probably pretty similar, although a smaller variation over a bigger sample... Not at all against T-Mac as a 20-something guy, all things considered.

RAPM paints him as a BIG negative on defense around these years, and I don't really buy it. Pedestrian, sure, below average maybe. But not "2005 Nash levels of bad".

19. 2021 Joel Embiid (> 23 > 19 > 24)
The last actual super superstar #1 avaliable.

But god, it's a shame. He was looking special in 2024, he'd probably be #7 or #8 at least.

20. 2016 Draymond Green
The first "absolutely cannot be your #1" player. Top 3 defender of this project. Can kinda see a case for him much higher or much lower.

So, three fluke-ish years (four if you count Embiid not having his body torn to shreds as a fluke) as my votes. Yay.

Coming after: Doncic, I guess. Then Ginóbili vs Westbrook vs Kidd will be a nice conversation to me. And Tatum and Butler potentially fighting for my last spot. Gobert?? Pierce?? ANDREI KIRILENKO????

[One_and_Done]

It's wild that people are voting Draymond over Butler, when he could never in his life have carried the 20, 22, and 23 Heat teams like Butler did.

So I think I’ll be voting for Butler in the next thread and I almost voted for him in this thread (i.e. I’m pretty high on him), but the idea that he “carried” those Heat teams seems wrong to me. He was their best player, but those teams were pretty ensemble-y and very well-coached. To put a point on that, in three years you mentioned, the Heat still had a positive net rating when Jimmy was on the bench (+0.41 with Jimmy off, compared to +4.15 with Jimmy on). And in the playoffs across those three years, they had an even more positive net rating with Jimmy off (+3.30 with Jimmy off, compared to +2.03 with Jimmy on). They had a 30-28 record in games Jimmy missed in the regular season, and a 1-1 record in the playoff games he missed. I just can’t buy the idea that a guy “carried” a team when they objectively were still a pretty good team when he wasn’t on the court.

That’s especially the case when their most impressive playoff series win in those years (2023 vs. the Celtics) was in a series where Butler rocked a -4.1 rTS%. And in their third most-impressive playoff series win (2020 vs. the Celtics), he was the team’s 4th leading scorer and had a -1.4 rTS%. He certainly did have his moments—in particular, he was fantastic in both series they won against the Bucks. He was a huge part of them winning both those series (though Giannis missing games helped too, and Bam was perhaps even better than Jimmy in the 2020 Bucks series). But given that the team was racking up genuinely impressive playoff series wins even in playoff series’ in which Butler was only mediocre, it seems rather clear that maybe this was much more of a team effort than you’re claiming.

From 20-23 the Heat were 144-81 with Butler, and only 37-41 without him, then after he left they sunk into mediocrity. But hey, some extremely fallible impact numbers disagree, so I guess me and the rest of the league were crazy for thinking Butler was driving their winning.

When advanced/impact stats have you thinking Butler wasn't carrying the Heat those years, it's a sign you're relying way too much on these advanced stats

Memories are clearly short, either that or my memories of Butler going berserk in the playoffs and hitting clutch shot after clutch shot was a fever dream.