Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #19-#20 Spots

[f4p]

When KD goes to the Warriors he raises the ceiling because he's super tall, an absolutely elite shooter, and he doesn't dominate the ball. If Westbrook goes to GS instead, what is he doing? Letting Westbrook be Westbrook means abandoning Kerr's offense entirely.

Why is the only scenario again of Westbrook going to GS when they already have Curry and it would obviously be a lot easier for Durant to fill the role of Harrison Barnes? Literally the same could be said if you added any other point guard to GS. Letting Nash be Nash means abandoning Kerr's offense too. Same with letting Harden be Harden. That's the natural outcome when you add a point guard to a team with an offense revolving around another point guard already. The hypothetical of Westbrook going to the Spurs is far more reasonable in evaluating how he fits on a more talented team.

Exactly. Expecting player A to fit in a given situation as well as player B when they are completely different and the situation is completely different isn't fair. KD plus Kyrie and KD plus Booker didn't really work because they both needed a point guard to run things and were overlapping.

[trelos6]

In terms of creation as playmaking + passing, I have Westbrook only behind Luka for players yet to be voted in.

Kidd is the best passer no doubt, but total playmaking, Westbrook’s rim assaults are more than enough to overcome the gap.

[Doctor MJ]

When KD goes to the Warriors he raises the ceiling because he's super tall, an absolutely elite shooter, and he doesn't dominate the ball. If Westbrook goes to GS instead, what is he doing? Letting Westbrook be Westbrook means abandoning Kerr's offense entirely.

Why is the only scenario again of Westbrook going to GS when they already have Curry and it would obviously be a lot easier for Durant to fill the role of Harrison Barnes? Literally the same could be said if you added any other point guard to GS. Letting Nash be Nash means abandoning Kerr's offense too. Same with letting Harden be Harden. That's the natural outcome when you add a point guard to a team with an offense revolving around another point guard already. The hypothetical of Westbrook going to the Spurs is far more reasonable in evaluating how he fits on a more talented team.

Exactly. Expecting player A to fit in a given situation as well as player B when they are completely different and the situation is completely different isn't fair. KD plus Kyrie and KD plus Booker didn't really work because they both needed a point guard to run things and were overlapping.

So I'll just say on this particular point:

I'm not knocking Westbrook because he wouldn't be a good fit on those Warriors as some end-all-be-all thing, it's just the obvious example.

I'm knocking because I don't think Westbrook has a place on any team that could realistically be built that would be that good.

Feel free to disagree, and to put forward putative teams with Westbrook being Westbrook that you think would be that good.

[Doctor MJ]

Westbrook was occupying 2-3 panicky, overhelping defenders on his drives in his sleep from 2014-2017, while being able to make practically any pass with either hand at any speed. You put him on a team like 2021 Suns and you would’ve seen ridiculously high level shot making and foul drawing, next to guys who can actually make shots and create their own.


It’s ironic, I didn’t even see this discussion but I said it in the Jokic thread last night, Westbrook is brutally underrated now. And I’m glad LA Bird actually brought metrics to empirically show that.


When he retires, I think he’ll get somewhat of a boost, and hopefully soon because I will have an aneurysm if I have to read people say Cade Cunningham or Darius Garland are about peak Westbrook level.

Here I'll say I'm glad you're putting forth a specific example.

You think that the 2021 Suns, presumably with Westbrook in Paul's place, would have been really, really good. How good exactly is not made clear so I'll ask: How would that Westbrook Suns team do against the KD Warriors?

If that doesn't seem like a fair comparison, why not? What else do we need to add?

[eminence]

A) It's a ridiculous and fringe scenario which should explain like 1% of a players placement on a peaks list

B) Ridiculous fringe scenarios can be kind of fun

I'll say Westbrook in place of Rondo on the Celtics is the closest I can come to the Barnes>KD change.

[Doctor MJ]

My own immediate thoughts on what a floor general is. Firstly, I took your comment to refer to offense only, defensive floor generals exist, but it's really a completely different role. So on offense, floor general = decision making for others/the offense in total, focused on making plays for others, mostly with ball in hand (direction can come from players without the ball, but it's a tiny percentage of overall potential impact as best I can tell). Some level of technical proficiency is required. Handle/athleticism to move where you want on the floor, speed/accuracy on passes, etc. Being capable of calling your own number is also necessary (Westbrook probably called his own too much, Nash not often enough, while guys like Rubio/Kidd seem various levels of less capable).

Westbrook did a lot/the majority of the offensive decision making with Durant, and in '17 without KD was in the very top tier of decision making burden, shifting back down a bit when George arrived.

I don't think Westbrook/Giannis/whomever being physically capable of making decisions others can't makes them less of a decision maker - if Nash could've just bullied his way to the rim I'm sure he would've with regularity (LeBron certainly has). Westbrook I have many tiers above Giannis as a 'floor general', as he's behind Giannis as an individual scoring threat, and lightyears behind as a defender, and yet not particularly far off in most overall impact measures.

A sidenote, Westbrooks rebounding can also get underplayed. A guard can theoretically rack up low value rebounds, and it does happen, but Westbrook is not really an example, he was a great rebounding guard and every measure I've seen bears that out.

So, first I appreciate you seeking to clarify what the 'floor general' label means to you. In the end, these labels are not the thing, they are just the hand holds we use to point in the direction of the thing.

To try to distinguish between your usage and mine:

When I talk about top 'floor generals', I'm talking about classic point guard skills with a heavy focus on BBIQ. Hence, I'd say someone can be quite valuable in a ball-dominant role even if they lack classic point guard skills, but that doesn't mean I'd say they are being a 'top floor general'.

When you talk about 'floor general', it seems like you're saying that if you play the ball dominant role, you are the (offensive) floor general, and however valuable you are playing like that can also be described as "how good of a floor general you are".

Please correct me if I've mischaracterized you.

The rub for me - why I really tend to push back against characterizing 'floor general' as you do - is that to me putting guys like Westbrook or Giannis as the ball-dominant player is rejecting the idea that you need a 'general', as I see Westbrook/Giannis are more one-man army types.

But as I say that, there is a question of "Who cares?". Why does it matter that your lead on-ball guy thrives due to brain or brawn?

My answer would be: It doesn't necessarily matter to the team result depending on how good the on-ball guy is at his strengths, but it will affect in particular what help teammates can be expected to be along the way.

Hmm, it's not so far off a characterization - thought I'd re-emphasize an emphasis of ball dominance as it leads to playmaking for others (I would not describe a Melo sort of player as a floor-general even though he was plenty of ball-dominant). High ball dominance + high playmaking for others = floor general (more or less)

Yeah, I'm just not with the Giannis/Russ grouping, I view Russ as an excellent floor general and would not describe Giannis as one at all. Giannis is a good offensive player almost solely through his personal efficiency (which is quite good), but his playmaking for others is providing nearly no value. Westbrook is a notably better offensive player than Giannis while being notably less efficient (109 vs 95 career TS+, both higher at peak, but fairly representative) - Russ has his impact through getting his teammates good looks and limiting team turnovers (and Orebounding too, but not so relevant here).

Looking at the '15-'17 period (I think pretty commonly agreed upon as his best years, I personally like '16 the best). Nbarapm.
9th in the league in rapm, +5.3
4th in the league in orapm, +6.4 (-1.1 defense, obviously not great) (Curry/Harden/LeBron above)
5th in the league in TS Val, +3.8 (Curry/LeBron/Harden/KD above)
11th in the league in TOV Val, +1.2

If a player is one of the best in the league at both A) Getting teammates good looks (my general take on TS Val in combination with your own scoring efficiency), B) Limiting turnovers, and C) Being very ball dominant - I'd be hard pressed to come up with a better descriptor than 'floor general'. Do you have some other explanation for Russ positively influencing his team TS% to such a degree while he himself was league average-ish efficiency?

I agree that Westbrook relied more on his athleticism and individual pressure towards the rim than plenty of guys we've seen labeled as floor generals (a big part of his aging curve being pretty rough), but I guess I don't see it as enough of a reason not to call him one.

Okay, as always, appreciate your thoughts.

My first thought here is to focus on TS Val because I've made the distinction between these Factors already, and TS Val is the place that a) most offensive value comes from and b) where I have concerns about Westbrook.

If I go to my spreadsheet of 4 year Off Val numbers, here's the best of the best, along with others who I think of as being in the discussion for the remaining Top 25 spots now:

1. Nash +7.8
2. Curry +7.5
3. LeBron +7.2
4. Embiid +6.4
5. Harden +6.2
...
16. Ray +4.4
19. Pierce +4.2
21. Luka +4.1
25. George +3.9
(tie) Westbrook +3.9
27. Tatum +3.7
39. Dwight +3.3
50. McGrady +2.9
71. Kidd +2.5
81. Carter +2.4
204. Anthony Davis +1.0

So, were we to take this on face value, Westbrook's TS Val looks quite good by all normal standards, but pretty dang far down from the best of the best.

Now 4 years is not 1 year of course, and people can certainly speak to that, but Westbrook's 4year TS Val peaks at 5th just like the 3year, and he's got a pretty gentle curve like you'd expect from a player who got the chance to do his thing for a number of years in a row. And 5th in the league is great, but in comparison to all of 2001-25, there are considerably more guys ahead of him on this, and the top of the board doubles him.

Next to this concern though is my concern about ceilings. I love having access to regression data, but it makes it impossible to see how elite the team actually was with the player on the court. I don't have a ready study to look into this, but to just do a quick thing with b-r's On court data.

In '15-16, with Westbrook on the court, the Thunder had an eFG% of 53.4, which was 3.2% above league average.
In '16-17, with Westbrook on the court, the Thunder had an eFG% of 50.9, which was 0.5% below league average.

Now, I'm not trying to hold that '16-17 number specifically against Westbrook, just showing that year because I think everyone agrees it's his peak, but I suppose I'd be surprised if there's another year in Westbrook's prime where he's drastically better than the +3.2 reFG that he was in '15-16.

Alright, now just to get a sense of the top players and how they look at this:

In '04-05, with Nash on the court, the Suns had an eFG% of 55.5, which was 7.3% above league average.
In '15-16, with Curry on the court, the Warriors had an eFG% of 58.9, which was 8.7% above league average.

Perfectly fine to raise some counters as to why an apples-to-apples comparison here, but the main thing I'm looking to emphasize is that from what I see, the gap between reFG I see relating to Westbrook compared to the tippy top is really quite far, and while I'd be cautious about taking that as "proof" relating to the argument, it's not the sort of thing that makes me think "Oh never mind, it doesn't matter that he seems to call his own number too much, because we're already seeing him create team play that is right up there with the top tier."

Summing up:

1. I have concerns about Westbrook's ability to scale a team attack people I always saw him with my eyes as someone with questionable decision making, and he has a tendency toward inefficient shooting generally.

2. The data I have to look at that relates to the team attack doesn't convince me that he's demonstrated a ceiling on par with the best.

[LA Bird]

I'm knocking because I don't think Westbrook has a place on any team that could realistically be built that would be that good.

Firstly, the 17 Warriors wasn't realistically built themselves:
- A 2 time MVP Curry was ridiculously underpaid as the 82nd highest salary in the league. Allen Crabbe was getting paid 50% more than Curry.
- The salary cap jumped by a historic 24 million, larger than the previous decade combined. This gave GS the cap space to sign Durant.
Without both of these lucky events happening together, KD on the Warriors never happen. It's like you see someone win the lottery, act like it's normal, and then criticize his teammate for not being able to "realistically" make that much money too.

Also, you are avoiding it but I've repeatedly pointed out the 16 Thunder was already very good despite a poor supporting cast. They beat the 10 SRS Spurs in 6 and lost in 7 to a second 10 SRS team. Do you only consider a team good if they had defeated two 10 SRS teams back to back?

Feel free to disagree, and to put forward putative teams with Westbrook being Westbrook that you think would be that good.

OKC trade Kanter, Ibaka, Huestis (29.9M) to GS for Draymond and Klay (29.8M). Easy enough swap to elevate that Thunder team to GOAT level.

[eminence]

Okay, as always, appreciate your thoughts.

My first thought here is to focus on TS Val because I've made the distinction between these Factors already, and TS Val is the place that a) most offensive value comes from and b) where I have concerns about Westbrook.

If I go to my spreadsheet of 4 year Off Val numbers, here's the best of the best, along with others who I think of as being in the discussion for the remaining Top 25 spots now:

1. Nash +7.8
2. Curry +7.5
3. LeBron +7.2
4. Embiid +6.4
5. Harden +6.2
...
16. Ray +4.4
19. Pierce +4.2
21. Luka +4.1
25. George +3.9
(tie) Westbrook +3.9
27. Tatum +3.7
39. Dwight +3.3
50. McGrady +2.9
71. Kidd +2.5
81. Carter +2.4
204. Anthony Davis +1.0

So, were we to take this on face value, Westbrook's TS Val looks quite good by all normal standards, but pretty dang far down from the best of the best.

Now 4 years is not 1 year of course, and people can certainly speak to that, but Westbrook's 4year TS Val peaks at 5th just like the 3year, and he's got a pretty gentle curve like you'd expect from a player who got the chance to do his thing for a number of years in a row. And 5th in the league is great, but in comparison to all of 2001-25, there are considerably more guys ahead of him on this, and the top of the board doubles him.

Next to this concern though is my concern about ceilings. I love having access to regression data, but it makes it impossible to see how elite the team actually was with the player on the court. I don't have a ready study to look into this, but to just do a quick thing with b-r's On court data.

In '15-16, with Westbrook on the court, the Thunder had an eFG% of 53.4, which was 3.2% above league average.
In '16-17, with Westbrook on the court, the Thunder had an eFG% of 50.9, which was 0.5% below league average.

Now, I'm not trying to hold that '16-17 number specifically against Westbrook, just showing that year because I think everyone agrees it's his peak, but I suppose I'd be surprised if there's another year in Westbrook's prime where he's drastically better than the +3.2 reFG that he was in '15-16.

Alright, now just to get a sense of the top players and how they look at this:

In '04-05, with Nash on the court, the Suns had an eFG% of 55.5, which was 7.3% above league average.
In '15-16, with Curry on the court, the Warriors had an eFG% of 58.9, which was 8.7% above league average.

Perfectly fine to raise some counters as to why an apples-to-apples comparison here, but the main thing I'm looking to emphasize is that from what I see, the gap between reFG I see relating to Westbrook compared to the tippy top is really quite far, and while I'd be cautious about taking that as "proof" relating to the argument, it's not the sort of thing that makes me think "Oh never mind, it doesn't matter that he seems to call his own number too much, because we're already seeing him create team play that is right up there with the top tier."

Summing up:

1. I have concerns about Westbrook's ability to scale a team attack people I always saw him with my eyes as someone with questionable decision making, and he has a tendency toward inefficient shooting generally.

2. The data I have to look at that relates to the team attack doesn't convince me that he's demonstrated a ceiling on par with the best.

TSVal is a fine focus here, though incomplete. I'd put my assessment pretty close to those results. Areas missed by TSVal I'd make sure to consider when evaluating 'floor general' capability:
-How much actual playmaking a player is doing, players can have a good TSVal through their own efficiency without having a serious change on teammate efficiency. Personal scoring efficiency is a part of my evaluation here, but certainly a smaller part than playmaking for others (see KD vs Westbrook for '15-'17, KD has the slightly higher TSVal, but Westbrook was much more of a floor general)
-If a player is changing teammate efficiency through on-ball play or off-ball play. Calling Shaq a 'floor general' would be a wildly non-traditional use of the term. To a less extreme degree - Curry on many possessions was not operating as what I'd define as a floor general, though he was certainly capable of being one.
-How a player changes turnover rates (so similar to a TSVal+TOVVal with considerations for how a player is generating that TSVal)

Having outlined the above, I think I'm more confident than ever in Westbrook as a top 10 floor general of the era. In that '15-'17 period the TS+TOV list goes like so:
1. LeBron 6.4
2. Curry 6.2
3. Harden 5.5
4. CP3 5.3
5. Russ 5.0
5. Kawhi 5.0
7. KD 4.3
7. Isaiah Thomas 4.3
9. Klay 4.1
10. Kyrie 3.8

Russ is clearly the least personally efficient of those guys, and not particularly effective off-ball (dwarfed by Curry/KD/Klay at least, not sure on placement amongst the others but certainly not significantly ahead of anyone) so imo is scoring more of those impact points (as a percentage) from his generalliness than anybody else on that list, to the point I think one could argue him as the best floor general of the mini-era (I would not due to LeBron having another gear come playoff time - but against anyone else... maybe).

On the eFG% portion - broadly I see that as a notably less effective measure against arguably the two best offensive players of the era in the single measure they'll measure best in - looking emphatically worse than Nash/Curry is... unsurprising. We've now lopped off FT draw as well (while already missing TOV rate for evaluating floor generaliness and Oreb for overall offense). I don't have player on/off for FT rates, but the '16 Thunder were 5th in FT/FGA, '05 Suns were 24th, and '16 Warriors were 25th. Given individual draw rates I expect Russ is the reason for at least some of that gap.

Russ on court for the '16 season was at a +9.6 relative offense for the #2 offense (behind the pretty legendary '16 Warriors). He used different methods than some, he wasn't as good as the very very best, but I don't think it's a serious question whether he could star on a great offense.

[Top10alltime]

Coincidence? Anyways, may Christ bless you, have a blessed day!

Look, you are just doing this to mock me. For me, this is what I'm saying ending most of my posts with this:

I think, despite how much I disagree with the opinion (that is false usually), at the end of the day it's basketball, and we all each have our own lives we can go to. So that life, hopefully is going well. If it's not and you have problems, just motivation for you to keep going, right? Don't take that in the wrong way

Meanwhile, you are just doing this to disrespect me, which I don't appreciate obviously, but OK. I don't think you believe in God anyways, so no point in saying this for you. Stop disrespecting me. If you don't like me, block me. You have said ball-knower as well. Like what, .

[Doctor MJ]

I'm knocking because I don't think Westbrook has a place on any team that could realistically be built that would be that good.

Firstly, the 17 Warriors wasn't realistically built themselves:
- A 2 time MVP Curry was ridiculously underpaid as the 82nd highest salary in the league. Allen Crabbe was getting paid 50% more than Curry.
- The salary cap jumped by a historic 24 million, larger than the previous decade combined. This gave GS the cap space to sign Durant.
Without both of these lucky events happening together, KD on the Warriors never happen. It's like you see someone win the lottery, act like it's normal, and then criticize his teammate for not being able to "realistically" make that much money too.

Also, you are avoiding it but I've repeatedly pointed out the 16 Thunder was already very good despite a poor supporting cast. They beat the 10 SRS Spurs in 6 and lost in 7 to a second 10 SRS team. Do you only consider a team good if they had defeated two 10 SRS teams back to back?

Feel free to disagree, and to put forward putative teams with Westbrook being Westbrook that you think would be that good.

OKC trade Kanter, Ibaka, Huestis (29.9M) to GS for Draymond and Klay (29.8M). Easy enough swap to elevate that Thunder team to GOAT level.

Well so first I'll say I understand taking issue with the word "realistic" in this context. What exactly does it mean? Where's the threshold to unrealism? I did not specify. I appreciate you trying to be specific, and while the trade itself isn't one I'd expect the Warriors to have agreed to, you tying it to salaries does give it some grounding.

If I'm understanding you correctly, with the trade in question, the new 5-man core of a GOAT level Thunder would be:

Westbrook
Klay
Durant
Draymond
Adams

First question: Is my interpretation of your words correct?
Second: Do you think others would agree with you? LIke, if we made a poll and asked whether that team would be as good as any team in NBA history, do you think the majority of people would say "Yes"? I think that's unlikely, and so if you think they would say "Yes", we should make such a thread and see what others say.

But regardless of what others say, this is about what we believe, and I'll put my thoughts here which you can feel free to rebut.

My thoughts:

1. This creates a 5-man roster with only 2 elite shooters in Klay & KD rather than the 3 that the Warriors would have - and of course that 3rd guy on the Warriors is by far the greatest shooter in this history of the sport. So, clearly, shooting would still be a major disadvantage relative to the Warriors.

2. By contrast of course, the Thunder would have a sizable rebounding advantage.

3. I have very specific concerns though about what Draymond is doing out there on offense.

For Draymond to be a truly valuable offensive player, you need to play a scheme that allows him to touch the ball frequently, because his decision making is what makes him good on that end of the floor.

Statistically one way to quantify it is that in both '15-16 & '16-17, Dray led the Warriors in passes made, which - as you'd probably expect - Westbrook led the Thunder in by a large margin.

I don't think there's a question of which of those gets sacrificed on this team - the entire theory is Westbrook's playmaking is good enough to lead a GOAT team after all - so what is Green being used for?

Okay to point out that at his best he was a decent 3-point shooter, but this was true more in a "if you leave him open from there with the ball, he's going to make some" as opposed to a "you can't leave him open off-ball" thing that has gravitational effect.

My fear on a team like this is that the Westbrook-led lineups are going to be best served on offense by replacing Green with someone else... but of course if you do that, the theory of the team falls apart.

4. I should note that it's possible you were looking to have a different 5th man rather than Adams. There's a possibility that a different choice would make a lot of sense given that Green is at his best defensively operating behind the defensive front line so that he can see all that's happening and command his teammates to do something smarter than what they'd do on their own.

So if that's the direction you were looking to take things, please do. There are concerns about this though aside from lineup size which I'll put like this:

Has Westbrook ever operated in a defense where he expects to listen to a teammate, stop what he's doing, and do whatever that teammate says? My impression is that prime Westbrook was largely allowed to improvise out there, and the focus of his improvisation was typically about him personally getting the ball through steals and rebounds.

If Westbrook were to continue to play that way with Green, I would suggest this would quite literally chop Green's defensive value down significantly. The value of the smartest defensive player has an awful lot to do with his teammates doing what he tells them, and I don't really see Russ wanting to play that way.

[lessthanjake]

My Vote

1. 2020 Anthony Davis

2. 2024 Luka Doncic

3. 2024 Jayson Tatum

4. 2020 Jimmy Butler

I explained my thoughts on all four of these guys in my vote in the prior thread: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119874272#p119874272. So I won’t add a ton more.

I think the only remaining things to explain are:

- Why Tatum over Butler? Honestly, I waffled on this. I’m not convinced Tatum was a better player than Butler, particularly in the playoffs. But then the significance of the achievements of the 2024 Celtics team that Tatum led is a really big deal to me. So it’s hard for me to decide. As I said, I waffled on this, and ultimately went with the guy who missed notably fewer games in the regular season. It’s not a tiebreaker I care a whole lot about, but when I was squarely on the fence it was enough to tip me towards Tatum.

- Why 2024 Tatum? I’m not convinced he was a better player in 2024 than in 2022. That said, again, the significance of what the 2024 Celtics did weighs highly in my mind. Even so, that might not be enough for me. The thing that tipped the balance for me here was that, when watching the 2024 Celtics in the playoffs, I did feel like even though Tatum was not shooting well and not always making the best decisions, he really did seem very central to what was happening for the team (i.e. he was the one creating a large portion of the advantages that ultimately led to open threes for people). So I do feel like, even when he wasn’t playing well by his standards, he was still a big reason the team was so great. Which is to say, I don’t really see that playoff run as Tatum being carried by his supporting cast (though his supporting cast was great).

- Why 2020 Butler? This is one I waffled on a lot too. He had a better regular season in 2023, so I was going to take that year. But I am going with 2020 just because he was actually great in the Finals that year as opposed to being mediocre in the Finals in 2023. For purposes of “greatness” that feels like it matters. I don’t feel strongly on this though, and I’m not sure it matters a whole lot, since a player’s individual years aren’t being treated separately (i.e. it won’t hurt Butler for me to vote for 2020 while others vote for 2023).

[LA Bird]

If I'm understanding you correctly, with the trade in question, the new 5-man core of a GOAT level Thunder would be:

Westbrook
Klay
Durant
Draymond
Adams

First question: Is my interpretation of your words correct?

Yeah, that's the team.

Second: Do you think others would agree with you? LIke, if we made a poll and asked whether that team would be as good as any team in NBA history, do you think the majority of people would say "Yes"? I think that's unlikely, and so if you think they would say "Yes", we should make such a thread and see what others say.

I think people are too low on Westbrook and your counterargument is to make a poll and see what they have to say about that. Duh, obviously they would disagree with me. If the majority already agreed with me, it wouldn't be necessary for me to write all this about Westbrook.

1. This creates a 5-man roster with only 2 elite shooters in Klay & KD rather than the 3 that the Warriors would have - and of course that 3rd guy on the Warriors is by far the greatest shooter in this history of the sport. So, clearly, shooting would still be a major disadvantage relative to the Warriors.

Shooting being a disadvantage relative to Curry applies to everyone in the history of basketball. Why is Westbrook the only player being targeted with this argument? And considering Westbrook had a +13 postseason offense with just 1 elite shooter, imagine what he could do with 2.

3. I have very specific concerns though about what Draymond is doing out there on offense.

For Draymond to be a truly valuable offensive player, you need to play a scheme that allows him to touch the ball frequently, because his decision making is what makes him good on that end of the floor.

Statistically one way to quantify it is that in both '15-16 & '16-17, Dray led the Warriors in passes made, which - as you'd probably expect - Westbrook led the Thunder in by a large margin.

I don't think there's a question of which of those gets sacrificed on this team - the entire theory is Westbrook's playmaking is good enough to lead a GOAT team after all - so what is Green being used for?

Okay to point out that at his best he was a decent 3-point shooter, but this was true more in a "if you leave him open from there with the ball, he's going to make some" as opposed to a "you can't leave him open off-ball" thing that has gravitational effect.

The original question you put forward was to create a team that would be historically good, not to create a team that would maximize potential synergy of every player. Draymond/Curry is a perfect fit that can't be replicated by anyone else. That's not the question here. What matters is how good the OKC team would be after turning Kanter/Ibaka into Dray/Klay. Draymond won't be the de facto point guard like he was on the Warriors but it doesn't matter since he would still be a huge upgrade over Ibaka as a secondary ball handler and playmaker. And besides, Westbrook's time of possession was 40% of the team's total. Even if you ignore staggered minutes, there's still touches to go around despite Draymond not being as on-ball as he was in GS.

And all this is not to mention the value Draymond brings on the other end where he is the greatest defender of his generation.

My fear on a team like this is that the Westbrook-led lineups are going to be best served on offense by replacing Green with someone else... but of course if you do that, the theory of the team falls apart.

This is just hypothetical fear mongering. Best served by "someone else"... exactly who is that? Andre Roberson? Kyle Singler? You think Draymond won't maximize 100% of his potential with Westbrook so it is better to just not play him even though he is far better than anyone else on the team. Where is the logic in that?

4. I should note that it's possible you were looking to have a different 5th man rather than Adams. There's a possibility that a different choice would make a lot of sense given that Green is at his best defensively operating behind the defensive front line so that he can see all that's happening and command his teammates to do something smarter than what they'd do on their own.

Do you have the similar concerns about Draymond when he played next to Zaza, McGee or literally any other center?

Has Westbrook ever operated in a defense where he expects to listen to a teammate, stop what he's doing, and do whatever that teammate says? My impression is that prime Westbrook was largely allowed to improvise out there, and the focus of his improvisation was typically about him personally getting the ball through steals and rebounds.

If Westbrook were to continue to play that way with Green, I would suggest this would quite literally chop Green's defensive value down significantly. The value of the smartest defensive player has an awful lot to do with his teammates doing what he tells them, and I don't really see Russ wanting to play that way.

The burden of proof is on you if you want to make this claim. Any evidence of coaches or teammates complaining about this or is it just something you assume because you already have a negative opinion of him?

[eminence]

I'm glad we're not taking the project another 10-15 spots, cause then I'd have to figure out where I want to rank 00s Stockton and that feels impossible. By every metric I care about he looks absurdly good, and then I remember watching him play and the general perception of him at the time and it's very difficult to square. Combined with the impact indicators pointing towards him clearly peaking in his mid/late 30s which just doesn't vibe with my understanding of how players can age.

Anywho, as I said, a problem I'm glad I don't have to tackle.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, as always, appreciate your thoughts.

My first thought here is to focus on TS Val because I've made the distinction between these Factors already, and TS Val is the place that a) most offensive value comes from and b) where I have concerns about Westbrook.

If I go to my spreadsheet of 4 year Off Val numbers, here's the best of the best, along with others who I think of as being in the discussion for the remaining Top 25 spots now:

1. Nash +7.8
2. Curry +7.5
3. LeBron +7.2
4. Embiid +6.4
5. Harden +6.2
...
16. Ray +4.4
19. Pierce +4.2
21. Luka +4.1
25. George +3.9
(tie) Westbrook +3.9
27. Tatum +3.7
39. Dwight +3.3
50. McGrady +2.9
71. Kidd +2.5
81. Carter +2.4
204. Anthony Davis +1.0

So, were we to take this on face value, Westbrook's TS Val looks quite good by all normal standards, but pretty dang far down from the best of the best.

Now 4 years is not 1 year of course, and people can certainly speak to that, but Westbrook's 4year TS Val peaks at 5th just like the 3year, and he's got a pretty gentle curve like you'd expect from a player who got the chance to do his thing for a number of years in a row. And 5th in the league is great, but in comparison to all of 2001-25, there are considerably more guys ahead of him on this, and the top of the board doubles him.

Next to this concern though is my concern about ceilings. I love having access to regression data, but it makes it impossible to see how elite the team actually was with the player on the court. I don't have a ready study to look into this, but to just do a quick thing with b-r's On court data.

In '15-16, with Westbrook on the court, the Thunder had an eFG% of 53.4, which was 3.2% above league average.
In '16-17, with Westbrook on the court, the Thunder had an eFG% of 50.9, which was 0.5% below league average.

Now, I'm not trying to hold that '16-17 number specifically against Westbrook, just showing that year because I think everyone agrees it's his peak, but I suppose I'd be surprised if there's another year in Westbrook's prime where he's drastically better than the +3.2 reFG that he was in '15-16.

Alright, now just to get a sense of the top players and how they look at this:

In '04-05, with Nash on the court, the Suns had an eFG% of 55.5, which was 7.3% above league average.
In '15-16, with Curry on the court, the Warriors had an eFG% of 58.9, which was 8.7% above league average.

Perfectly fine to raise some counters as to why an apples-to-apples comparison here, but the main thing I'm looking to emphasize is that from what I see, the gap between reFG I see relating to Westbrook compared to the tippy top is really quite far, and while I'd be cautious about taking that as "proof" relating to the argument, it's not the sort of thing that makes me think "Oh never mind, it doesn't matter that he seems to call his own number too much, because we're already seeing him create team play that is right up there with the top tier."

Summing up:

1. I have concerns about Westbrook's ability to scale a team attack people I always saw him with my eyes as someone with questionable decision making, and he has a tendency toward inefficient shooting generally.

2. The data I have to look at that relates to the team attack doesn't convince me that he's demonstrated a ceiling on par with the best.

TSVal is a fine focus here, though incomplete. I'd put my assessment pretty close to those results. Areas missed by TSVal I'd make sure to consider when evaluating 'floor general' capability:
-How much actual playmaking a player is doing, players can have a good TSVal through their own efficiency without having a serious change on teammate efficiency. Personal scoring efficiency is a part of my evaluation here, but certainly a smaller part than playmaking for others (see KD vs Westbrook for '15-'17, KD has the slightly higher TSVal, but Westbrook was much more of a floor general)
-If a player is changing teammate efficiency through on-ball play or off-ball play. Calling Shaq a 'floor general' would be a wildly non-traditional use of the term. To a less extreme degree - Curry on many possessions was not operating as what I'd define as a floor general, though he was certainly capable of being one.
-How a player changes turnover rates (so similar to a TSVal+TOVVal with considerations for how a player is generating that TSVal)

Having outlined the above, I think I'm more confident than ever in Westbrook as a top 10 floor general of the era. In that '15-'17 period the TS+TOV list goes like so:
1. LeBron 6.4
2. Curry 6.2
3. Harden 5.5
4. CP3 5.3
5. Russ 5.0
5. Kawhi 5.0
7. KD 4.3
7. Isaiah Thomas 4.3
9. Klay 4.1
10. Kyrie 3.8

Russ is clearly the least personally efficient of those guys, and not particularly effective off-ball (dwarfed by Curry/KD/Klay at least, not sure on placement amongst the others but certainly not significantly ahead of anyone) so imo is scoring more of those impact points (as a percentage) from his generalliness than anybody else on that list, to the point I think one could argue him as the best floor general of the mini-era (I would not due to LeBron having another gear come playoff time - but against anyone else... maybe).

On the eFG% portion - broadly I see that as a notably less effective measure against arguably the two best offensive players of the era in the single measure they'll measure best in - looking emphatically worse than Nash/Curry is... unsurprising. We've now lopped off FT draw as well (while already missing TOV rate for evaluating floor generaliness and Oreb for overall offense). I don't have player on/off for FT rates, but the '16 Thunder were 5th in FT/FGA, '05 Suns were 24th, and '16 Warriors were 25th. Given individual draw rates I expect Russ is the reason for at least some of that gap.

Russ on court for the '16 season was at a +9.6 relative offense for the #2 offense (behind the pretty legendary '16 Warriors). He used different methods than some, he wasn't as good as the very very best, but I don't think it's a serious question whether he could star on a great offense.

Okay so:

- Makes sense to want to have a measure that factors in both TS & TOV Val together.

- Re: Westbrook being way worse at eFG impact compared to Nash/Curry granted but irrelevant to concerns relevant to this point on the list. OKay, also makes sense.

- Re: +9.6 rORtg proves he can be part of a great offense even if he did it a different way. This is generally a pretty reasonable position, but I'd say the same is true of my position as I've already laid out, which makes me feel like we're at an impasse.

I'll reiterate big picture my thoughts again:

1. I don't think every factor of offense that is impacted by normal sized guard scales the same way to greater and greater offenses.

2. I think that Westbrook's team offenses were saw rebounding as their most elite factor. In general I don't think that guard-rebounding impact scales well, and in specific, I don't think Westbrook was the Rebounding MVP of those teams (Offense, Defense, or Overall).

3. I think that for guards to scale their offensive this is largely about TS Val, both because all the data tells us this is way bigger than TOV Val, and because I don't think anyone is truly turnover-immune against elite playoff defense.

4. I'm skeptical that your TS Val can really be that elite as a ball-dominant point guard who generally calls his own number more than he should, and part of this just stems from my believe that anyone prone to this doesn't have an optimal instinct for choosing how to attack the defense.

5. I also believe that if a player seems to achieve that optimality at his peak, but the rest of his career his worse efficiency makes it not-optimal, then we're fooling ourselves if we conclude "He developed a high BBIQ at his physical peak and then got dumber again". If your decision making was bad except when your scoring game peaked, then you're not a good decision maker, you're just a broken clock (sometimes right by sheer luck).

So then, while I can acknowledge, among other things, the argument that OKC had to win with rebounding because they lacked better role playing shooters, I chafe at the idea that we look at someone with clear decision making issues and say "If only he had more options to pass to, he wouldn't have needed great team rebounding to make it all work".

The worse your decision maker is, frankly, the more it makes sense to build around them with rebounders who can erase his bad choices.

For an example of this working supremely well, I'd point to the Jordan Bulls. At their very best, their offensive outlier factor strengths were turnover reduction and offensive rebounding, not the stuff we'd put in TS Val. This for its time was perhaps the best possible way to build around the best volume scorer in history - just let the man cook, and then erase his mistakes.

So why did it work better for Jordan than Westbrook?

a) Much better scorer.

b) The Triangle usage was in no small part seeking to get away from using Jordan as a decision maker, whereas in Westbrook's prime his team's allowed him to take greater decision making primacy than floor generals typically did in the past. In response to what I see as similar issues, the Bulls adapted to mitigate for the flaw, while the Thunder made the flaw their centerpiece.

c) Defensively, Jordan was essentially a rich man's Westbrook.

d) Back then it was believed 2 > 3. Once that changed in your opponents, reliance on offensive rebounding to make up for a less effective offensive attack didn't work as well.

Feel free to comment on any of that, but I will also say:

A number of people have not agreed to the idea that Westbrook was a poor decision maker for a floor general. Everyone will agree that he was worse at decision making than a Steve Nash, but people will not agree that he's a negative at this compared to a typical floor general on an elite contending offense.

There's more room for discussion on this, but we probably are not going to get consensus since we haven't already done so.

[Owly]

I'm glad we're not taking the project another 10-15 spots, cause then I'd have to figure out where I want to rank 00s Stockton and that feels impossible. By every metric I care about he looks absurdly good, and then I remember watching him play and the general perception of him at the time and it's very difficult to square. Combined with the impact indicators pointing towards him clearly peaking in his mid/late 30s which just doesn't vibe with my understanding of how players can age.

Anywho, as I said, a problem I'm glad I don't have to tackle.

Tangential to your main point (fwiw, for context I think I'm more bullish on Stockton than most) and it's an interesting thought but on the last point ... we don't have much in the way of impact indicators for a large chunk of his career.

And, for whatever it's worth in, from recollection, what I saw from a spreadsheet generated from the "versus 76ers" data (tiny samples and uneven of course) Stockton looked the standout on the Jazz and a real standout in the league in the 93 and before window. I can't verify the data at any stage so there's another of the many servings of salt with this. But my guess is his impact peak was earlier. Finally there's fuzziness of the much more complete yearly measures and the matter of "rate" impact versus value accounting for reduced minute loads.

[eminence]

Tatum/Embiid will be at the top of the ballot I put in later, but really a lot of names I'm thinking about for spots 3/4.
Luka - box-score monster who led a notable PO run.
Butler - all-around impact player (possession battle GOAT) with a penchant for big series.
Jrue - best defensive guard ever? across 3 locations with 3 co-stars graded out closer to them in impact than the general public would be comfortable with (AD/Giannis/Tatum).
Lowry - do it all guard who led some very good teams who had a minor mental problem vs a GOAT tier guy.
Gobert - top tier defensive RS, not a lot of PO success overlapping his best RS years.
George - great 2nd tier wing for a long time, I'm not really sure what will stick with me most from his career at this point.
Sheed - not sure exactly what it says that I think the JailBlazers should be thought of as 'his' team, but I do and they were a good squad. Legendary pairing (helped by the name overlap) in Detroit.
Dwight - Superman! Defensive force at his peak, led a notable PO run with a notable upset along the way.
Dame - Along with Russ probably my pick for best offensive RS player remaining.
Billups - Deserves a bit less credit than he gets in the title season, but the years with Flip were great.
Allen - I'll be honest, I can't remember his Sonics years all that well, but the numbers all look good and I liked his later-prime play in Boston.
Westbrook - Great duo with KD, I'm still not certain which one of the two should be seen as #1.
Pierce - 3rd and final core part of the Celtics, another do it all wing.
Kidd - Worse offensive version of Westbrook who could defend his ass off.
AD - All the talent/skills in the world who was always a bit less than the sum of his parts, but still strong and put together at least one great PO run.
Ben Wallace - Wallace #2 who was the heart of the '04 Pistons. Comparable to anyone defensively.

[Cavsfansince84]

I guess I'll vote since Luka has gotten some traction.

1. 2024 Luka(22).
2. 2020 AD(18). I've prob been the biggest proponent of these two in this project so not going go into it again.
3. 2020 Jimmy Butler(23). To me he had a weakish mvp level rs if he just plays more games and followed it up with a great all around finals run including some of the best individual games in finals history. He does so much on a court that leads to good team results.
4. 2024 Tatum(23). It's very close between him and a few others but at the end of the day I am going to reward the guy who has led a lot of 60+ win teams and won a ring. Even if his scoring wasn't so great in 2024 he still does enough other stuff to give teams lift.

[Doctor MJ]

If I'm understanding you correctly, with the trade in question, the new 5-man core of a GOAT level Thunder would be:

Westbrook
Klay
Durant
Draymond
Adams

First question: Is my interpretation of your words correct?

Yeah, that's the team.

Okay, got it.

Second: Do you think others would agree with you? LIke, if we made a poll and asked whether that team would be as good as any team in NBA history, do you think the majority of people would say "Yes"? I think that's unlikely, and so if you think they would say "Yes", we should make such a thread and see what others say.

I think people are too low on Westbrook and your counterargument is to make a poll and see what they have to say about that. Duh, obviously they would disagree with me. If the majority already agreed with me, it wouldn't be necessary for me to write all this about Westbrook.

Okay, I'm glad you can acknowledge that you have a minority view here. Certainly doesn't mean you're wrong.

1. This creates a 5-man roster with only 2 elite shooters in Klay & KD rather than the 3 that the Warriors would have - and of course that 3rd guy on the Warriors is by far the greatest shooter in this history of the sport. So, clearly, shooting would still be a major disadvantage relative to the Warriors.

Shooting being a disadvantage relative to Curry applies to everyone in the history of basketball. Why is Westbrook the only player being targeted with this argument? And considering Westbrook had a +13 postseason offense with just 1 elite shooter, imagine what he could do with 2.

Uh, because you came up with a trade which would result in a team with 3 of the Warriors' 4 players while swapping out Curry for Westbrook. If we're going to compare those two teams with a thought that they would be about as good, it'd be absurd not to deal with the loss of shooting that comes with the swap.

If you'd rather come up with a specific example that isn't tied with the Warriors at all I'm all for it, and if you do, depending on the details, we may not need to talk about Westbrook's shooting limitations that much.

3. I have very specific concerns though about what Draymond is doing out there on offense.

For Draymond to be a truly valuable offensive player, you need to play a scheme that allows him to touch the ball frequently, because his decision making is what makes him good on that end of the floor.

Statistically one way to quantify it is that in both '15-16 & '16-17, Dray led the Warriors in passes made, which - as you'd probably expect - Westbrook led the Thunder in by a large margin.

I don't think there's a question of which of those gets sacrificed on this team - the entire theory is Westbrook's playmaking is good enough to lead a GOAT team after all - so what is Green being used for?

Okay to point out that at his best he was a decent 3-point shooter, but this was true more in a "if you leave him open from there with the ball, he's going to make some" as opposed to a "you can't leave him open off-ball" thing that has gravitational effect.

The original question you put forward was to create a team that would be historically good, not to create a team that would maximize potential synergy of every player. Draymond/Curry is a perfect fit that can't be replicated by anyone else. That's not the question here. What matters is how good the OKC team would be after turning Kanter/Ibaka into Dray/Klay. Draymond won't be the de facto point guard like he was on the Warriors but it doesn't matter since he would still be a huge upgrade over Ibaka as a secondary ball handler and playmaker. And besides, Westbrook's time of possession was 40% of the team's total. Even if you ignore staggered minutes, there's still touches to go around despite Draymond not being as on-ball as he was in GS.

And all this is not to mention the value Draymond brings on the other end where he is the greatest defender of his generation.

I would suggest that if you're not maximizing the synergy of the team, you're not producing an all-time good team. You achieve the latter by strategically building the former. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll say flat out that if I were an owner and a GM candidate suggested synergy wasn't important, I wouldn't hire him, and if I were a GM and a coaching candidate suggested synergy wasn't important, I wouldn't hire him either.

And while we can disagree on that, perhaps the more useful point is to ask: What does a team optimized for Westbrook look like? However good it is, what should we be trying for?

Re: Dray/Curry fit can't be replicated. Okay, so who would Westbrook synergize with comparably well to the way those two synergize? What does "a Dray for Russ" look like?

Re: Dray wouldn't be de facto point guard but it wouldn't matter because... I can't grant this premise. It would matter because him playing in the scheme he plays in where others provide the spacing is what allows him to be a starter-level offensive player. If you have Green play like a traditional big on offense, he's going to hurt your offense.

Re: Westbrook only 40%, plenty of touches to go around. Dude, we're not talking about slices of pizza here, we're talking about basketball schemes, and you're seeming to refuse to deal with the extreme difference between Dray's role in a read & react system and what it would need to be in a Westbrook helio system.

My fear on a team like this is that the Westbrook-led lineups are going to be best served on offense by replacing Green with someone else... but of course if you do that, the theory of the team falls apart.

This is just hypothetical fear mongering. Best served by "someone else"... exactly who is that? Andre Roberson? Kyle Singler? You think Draymond won't maximize 100% of his potential with Westbrook so it is better to just not play him even though he is far better than anyone else on the team. Where is the logic in that?

"fear mongering" means seeking to disingenuously stoke fear in the minds of the masses.
I'm literally speaking to my own personal sincere fear.
Recognizing they aren't the same thing is important before you start using "fear monger" to wrongly describe your conversation partner.

Re: best served by "someone else", who exactly? Well, in your example you just traded Serge Ibaka for Draymond Green. Ibaka is the better shot blocker, the better shooter, doesn't need decision making primacy on offense, doesn't need teammates to follow his commands on defense, and was absolutely considered the superior prospect and player relative to Green until Green came out of nowhere on Kerr's Warriors.

I think it's worth really not forgetting why it is that Green wasn't drafted in the First Round beyond just saying "he was underrated". Why was he underrated?

In a nutshell my answer would be: It wasn't because they underrated him in the traditional areas that define great defense, nor because they didn't see his BBIQ was high, but because they had no concept of how it could emerge as the best NBA defender of his generation within a scheme that emphasize improvisation and communication.

The fact that none of them - and none of us I expect - saw it coming, makes it all the more interesting and certainly doesn't take away from what Green has achieved, but it does mean that simply slotting Green in as a vastly superior player to Ibaka as if this wasn't scheme dependent contradicts what scouts would have said until Kerr unleashed Green in a shockingly different defense from what was even possible in the past.

Green is a better player than Ibaka because of his brain, despite being less physically talented, so if you acquire him and make less use of his brain, you shouldn't be assuming he's going to improve your team, or even stay as good as it was before.

4. I should note that it's possible you were looking to have a different 5th man rather than Adams. There's a possibility that a different choice would make a lot of sense given that Green is at his best defensively operating behind the defensive front line so that he can see all that's happening and command his teammates to do something smarter than what they'd do on their own.

Do you have the similar concerns about Draymond when he played next to Zaza, McGee or literally any other center?

Zaza played less than 20 MPG in GS and McGee played less than 10 MPG, and this was a continuation of a trend where even a former DPOY candidate level big like Bogut wasn't a Top 5 MPG guy. Why this general trend? Because over and over again during the Warriors championship year, the 5 big minute players were Green and 4 non-centers.

Now to be clear, I'm not saying this was fundamentally driven by defense - I'd say it was mostly about trying to make it so that the lineup was Green and 4 better shooters on offense - but from a perspective of impact, in those Warrior small ball lineups, Green was able to provide absolutely night & day impact by being the guy nearest to the rim despite not being a great shot blocker, and why was that? I'd say it was because it was the perfect place for his vision. The more you make him guard a player out on the perimeter, the more he can't see, and in modern times, if you're not making the defense's 4 play on the perimeter, well, then you probably don't have good enough shooting on your roster.

Has Westbrook ever operated in a defense where he expects to listen to a teammate, stop what he's doing, and do whatever that teammate says? My impression is that prime Westbrook was largely allowed to improvise out there, and the focus of his improvisation was typically about him personally getting the ball through steals and rebounds.

If Westbrook were to continue to play that way with Green, I would suggest this would quite literally chop Green's defensive value down significantly. The value of the smartest defensive player has an awful lot to do with his teammates doing what he tells them, and I don't really see Russ wanting to play that way.

The burden of proof is on you if you want to make this claim. Any evidence of coaches or teammates complaining about this or is it just something you assume because you already have a negative opinion of him?

I'll remind I'm a UCLA fan who was cheering Westbrook on like a good Bruin should before he ever got to the NBA in order to emphasize that the assumption that I began this process with an irrational hatred of Russ and it determined everything I saw after is as wrong as wrong can be.

Doesn't mean I'm not blinded by emotion now, but I can assure everyone that my frustrations with Westbrook began while watching him at OKC because I saw him miss open shooters, saw him look to iso the whole possession with KD right next to him, and I saw him focus on going after the ball on defense in a risky way.

If you didn't see this stuff, I'm not sure what to say. It was there.

But as I say that, my anecdotal frustrations don't mean that the bad outweighed the good. That's what we need the analytics for.

What do the analytics say? Well, for one, that this guy who as Pac 10 DPOY in college - which I believe he deserved to be clear - largely had a negative DRAPM in his career.

I won't say that that's a super unusual thing because plenty of college DPOYs never really make it in the NBA, and with that small sample comes a lot of noise, but mostly I think that if you were an elite defensive player in college, you were an elite athlete by NBA standards, and you had a HOF level career in the NBA, it's pretty unusual for you to come across as a negative RAPM guy.

But as I say that, now I want to do a study and see if that's true or not. Maybe that will prove to be a bad assumption.

[eminence]

I'll agree we're at an impasse and leave it mostly there - one comment, the points would be a lot more grokable with less extreme examples.

That Westbrook isn't as good as MJ or Curry broadly (nope, you can't build a better team around Westbrook than Curry given similar talent levels - because Curry is the better player), or as Nash at the thing Nash is far and away the best ever aren't points that people disagree with. They just don't feel particularly relevant to comparing Russell Westbrook to Doncic/Kidd/Dame/Lowry/Billups/Jrue/whichever guard you think should be considered in these last few threads.

[Cavsfansince84]

I'm just going to say that for the purposes of this project I am probably more impressed with 2016 WB than I am with 2017. I'm actually surprised given that how many people voted 2017 Steph over 2016 mostly based on him winning a ring with KD compared to losing in 7 to LeBron that people are arguing 2017 WB here. In 2016 they barely lose to the 73 win Warriors in 7 in the wcf with WB obviously being a big part of them getting to that point and he prob played KD to a draw in that series. In 2017 WB just shoots it 30+ times a game on terrible efficiency in a 4-1 loss to the Rockets. So I would not rank that season above based purely on bigger box scores and an mvp. It was just Russ being Russ without any star next to him. Which is fine but it's not what you'd want on a contending team if we're being realistic. You'd want him to play more like he did in 2016.