RealGM Top 100 List #9 -- Post Shot Clock Only (No Mikan)

[Vinsanity420]

Likewise Bryant is likely less liable to have what happened to Lebron in 2011, happen to him. The Mavs figured out that if you take away Lebron's drives, you force him to shoot or pass - assist to the Heat's poor spacing. Most of the season Lebron has been confidently taking that shot, but in the Finals I believe he lost confidence in it after Game 2's collapse. This wouldn't happen to Kobe because he has shoot, drive, post up, off ball play in his arsenal. You take away the drive and he gladly shoots on you. You put a small guy on him like they did to Lebron and he posts you up. Etc. Kobe has had his bad shooting games, but 04 aside, I'd say his overall playoff performance record is fine and I'd forgive him for getting his regular game off down the stretch and the ball not going in sometimes, more than I would a Lebron/Malone/Robinson where they're not getting their game off like they normally do when it matters most, because of weaknesses in their game. By my books Bryant is a better scorer than Lebron by a clear margin, for the same reason Hakeem and Dirk are better scorers than Robinson by a clear margin.

And that was the full post -

http://www.backpicks.com/2011/03/02/kob ... e-quality/

What do you have to say about that? Kobe doesn't seem to be clearly better vs elite defenses.

[Vinsanity420]

Or this post as a follow up - LeBron simply isn't in the Karl Malone/D-Rob category.

http://www.backpicks.com/2011/07/02/who ... n-part-ii/

[ElGee]

^^^I'll repost this from earlier in the thread. Note James last 25 games vs. elite defenses.

The Playoffs and D Quality
The next question was of playoff quality. Kobe's basically played the hardest of his contemporaries, but that should be kept in perspective with his performance: http://www.backpicks.com/2011/07/02/who ... n-part-ii/

Relative to himself, Kobe's an excellent overall playoff performer. Relative to his competition, there's no separation anywhere. Relative to his arch rivals, he arguably looks the weakest: http://www.backpicks.com/2011/03/02/kob ... e-quality/

And I'll add, since there was an allusion to playing elite defenses in the nomination round, that LeBron James, since he hit his stride, has been spectacular against elite defenses. Kobe, OTOH, generally struggles against them -- probably because of his tendency to settle for bad jumpers which lowers his own offense while ramping down creation for others.

James' last 25 games vs. sub 104 defenses:
30.9 ppg 8.3 rpg 6.4 apg 1.8 stl 1.4 blck 4.0 TOV 57.0% TS 23.8 GmSc

[Gongxi]

I guess my nomination will still be Robinson.

Also, don't waste our time with facts, ElGee, LeBron is a choker.

[OldSchoolNBA]

I've always wondered if the guys whose playoff stats stay flat or slide are the guys who bring it full speed all through the regular season and the guys whose playoff numbers go up are the guys who often coast because the season is such a long grind.

Jordan I know had a tough time getting up for regular season games so he was always looking for an excuse to get a chip on his shoulder to elevate his intensity (Hello LaBradford Smith); maybe the David Robinsons of the NBA are playing at the top of their game in the regular season and don't have that extra gear to kick it into.

Just an idea, no basis for it.

You know this is a very good point and it definitely pertains to one Patrick Ewing who I thought went all out in the regular season maintaining the same intensity throughout and didn't have another mode to switch to come playoff time.

Although I think the issue with David Robinson goes beyond the regular season to playoffs switch. I think it has more to do with the type of player he was (face up center) than just increasing his intensity and playing with a balls-to-the-wall approach. A face up game will always be easier to control and limit than a back to basket game since the guys with elite low-post games have an easier time finding open shooters or kicking the ball back out when doubled or tripled.

[Doctor MJ]

. . . then do understand that +/- stats are really orthogonal to the rest of statistics, and the rest of statistics are not only weighed more heavily, but are much more widely known among this group.

Oh thanks, Doc, that's really helpful to those who aren't really into statistics.

lol, I'm sorry beast. I don't want to launch into stuff if people aren't interested, but any time someone is sincerely interested I'm happy to delve.

I'm going to reference a blog post I wrote. The full article is here, and if you want to know how I think about +/-, it's the place to go:

http://asubstituteforwar.com/2011/03/26 ... tatistics/

But let me try to be really tailored to the context here:



The validity of a metric is how closely it aligns with what you actually want to measure.
The reliability of a metric is how consistent it is.

The ideal metric is both valid and reliable. In basketball, we basically don't have one of those.

Box score based stats score well on the reliability side of things. They're pretty consistent. If I see a PPG or a PER for a season, I can be pretty confident that the adjacent seasons will look similar unless something important changes.

However, those stats are not ideal on the validity side of things. No matter how much data I collect from box scores, there are still chunks of the game I'm not learning enough about (man defense, on court leadership, etc). These metrics there for have a bias that keeps them from being centered at the bull's eye.

Enter +/- stats. They have no such biases. All parts of the what happens on the court are factored in to the extent that they help a team. Hence, +/- stats are valid. Having this new valid stat to be used in conjunction with our existing stats is fantastic because it helps let us know where the bull's eye actually is.

However, +/- stats are much weaker on the reliability side of things. Most people grasp this, and are right to do so, but they often make the mistake of throwing the stat out because of this because they don't understand its unique value as a valid stat. Reliability for reliability's sake is worthless. While it would be wrong to say box score metrics have no validity, people able to grab on to a new stat with more validity is an opportunity no one should pass up. At the same time, the lack of reliability in +/- is one of several reasons why it would never do to abandon box score metrics, so both should be used.

Now, as you can see from the dartboards, one of the things about validity is that if I keep uping the sample size, I effectively increase reliability. This is the reason why we start using multiple seasons for +/-. More data drives us close to the ideal stat. From the other side of things, more data on a reliable stat doesn't improve validity, so there's much less value to doing it.

Of course, adding more seasons to the mix adds other variables that need to be factored in for individuals. If a player gets hurt, then his data is going to get thrown off. More generally, in sports that have brief peaks, you probably wouldn't be able to get anything great out of this. Fortunately, basketball has really quite good player consistency from year to year, so in general, we get very good data out of all of this.

So, TL;DR: When I say orthogonal, picture X & Y axis. Reliability is one axis, validity is another. You want to improve both. In your analyses, using box score stats helps more with reliability while +/- helps more with validity. Using both together will lead to the most robust conclusions.

[mysticbb]

For me I would guess skill is the biggest indicator. (though KG dropping? I'm still a bit fuzzy on what your overall conclusion was there, would buck it a little). You're better off having Hakeem's post game than Malone's for reasons that go beyond points scored there on average. IMO the more you rely on power over finesse and unpredictability, the more liable you are to a team figuring you out. You can see Malone going to his post game all the time in his most infamous losses, it just gets shut down. (not to keep bagging on Malone, but anyways)

The skill level might be a factor here. But I'm not quite sure how we should seperate skill from the overall performance level in an objective way. It seems like that better FT% can carry that over to the playoffs, assuming that the higher FT% reflects are skill here.

Likewise Bryant is likely less liable to have what happened to Lebron in 2011, happen to him. The Mavs figured out that if you take away Lebron's drives, you force him to shoot or pass - assist to the Heat's poor spacing. Most of the season Lebron has been confidently taking that shot, but in the Finals I believe he lost confidence in it after Game 2's collapse. This wouldn't happen to Kobe because he has shoot, drive, post up, off ball play in his arsenal. You take away the drive and he gladly shoots on you. You put a small guy on him like they did to Lebron and he posts you up. Etc. Kobe has had his bad shooting games, but 04 aside, I'd say his overall playoff performance record is fine and I'd forgive him for getting his regular game off down the stretch and the ball not going in sometimes, more than I would a Lebron/Malone/Robinson where they're not getting their game off like they normally do when it matters most, because of weaknesses in their game. By my books Bryant is a better scorer than Lebron by a clear margin, for the same reason Hakeem and Dirk are better scorers than Robinson by a clear margin.

I completely disagree with the evaluation of James here. He showed way too often that he can perform under pressure. He is not prone to that in average. He had the best individual clutch situation numbers over the last years, and his team with him on the court has the 2nd highest increase in scoring margin during clutch situations over the remaining minutes just behind Nowitzki's Mavericks (not counting Terry here, because he played most of the minutes with Nowitzki anyway and showed a clear drop in performance without Nowitzki). Thus, your explanation isn't reasonable. I would rather say that James was tired in the last couple of minutes, not only physically, but also mentally. He played too many minutes during the playoffs and thus couldn't keep his level of play. Another factor might be the ball dominance of Dwyane Wade, which didn't help at all. The Mavericks forced that by making James bringing up the ball, they defended the point guard full court, in order to deny the ball. They made James playing the point guard, making him use energy for bringing ball and then act like a point guard, which means passing the ball rather than attacking or looking for the score. A strategy which they used not only against the Heat in this season, but also before against the Cavs. At it seems to work. For me that is more reasonable than just to assume "James choked or failed under pressure".

[ElGee]

While we're in theory mode, I wanted to quickly add to the volume scoring conversation. I don't think I've explicitly stated this, but it's patently obvious:

What we'd want to see in an ideal volume scorer is someone who increases scoring without increasing possessions used (ie he simply becomes more efficient).

In the simplest of thought experiments, the team does everything the same, but when Player A uses a possession, his scoring rates increase simply because he's more accurate. That would correlate an increase in team efficiency perfectly with his individual increase, and the results would be powerful (eg Shaq makes 85% of his free throws -- we know this wouldn't change anything else about LA's offensive plays they ran, yet we also know LA would have 3.4 more points per game in 2000, giving them the best offense in the league by far suddenly.)

The key to judging a player's volume in those unipolar offenses (bad teams, no other option) IMO is first remembering that even the most inept offense of the last 30 years still scored 0.92 points per possession. Teams will find a way to score. Period. So what we need to judge is how much that scoring load is helping the team while understanding that distributing the scoring differently is still likely to land the offense near a point per possession, regardless of roster. (The worst offense in 2011 was 101.6 pts/100)

The second part of the judgment is to keep in mind what other legit offensive threats could do to help similar teams. Lifting a weak offense to mediocrity (or slightly better) is excellent, but it's easier than producing a truly elite, championship-level offense. Iverson definitely helped Philly, and Rose helped Chicago -- don't let TS% fool you -- but that doesn't make either one 91 Jordan. (As an aside, people really truly believe until 1991 teams couldn't win titles with a volume scorer. True story.)

This is exactly why I view 2006 the way I do. Offensively, with Lamar Odom as a creator, decent shooters and the triangle+Phil Jackson, the results were impressive. I believe LA finished 8th in ORtg, which is darn good. But IMO the offensive talent on that team, from 2005 even to present, was never really a huge issue. Throw in a handful of other top offensive weapons and the results might be similar, regardless of Kobe's scoring.

In other words, there wasn't something about the scoring itself that was inherently incredibly. (Same can be said of Jordan's 87.) When Phil Jackson asked LA to target Phoenix's weakness in the PS by pounding the ball, it begged the question: if it was the scoring itself that was so valuable from Bryant, why did his coach want him to distribute more in the playoffs?

The answer, of course, leads us back to the bolded point above. While this was excellent scoring -- out Iversoning Iverson-- it wasn't something simply produced by doing the same moves he had previously done at a higher efficiency. He just did the same moves MORE, and at the expense of other options. Those moves were only marginally advantageous, so much so that in the biggest moment of the season, the coach wanted to change game plan to involve others more.

(I think a better example of "lifting weak offense just with volume scoring" would be Bernard King in New York, who seemed to just become more efficient with his scoring moves.)

[mysticbb]

This is exactly why I view 2006 the way I do. Offensively, with Lamar Odom as a creator, decent shooters and the triangle+Phil Jackson, the results were impressive. I believe LA finished 8th in ORtg, which is darn good. But IMO the offensive talent on that team, from 2005 even to present, was never really a huge issue. Throw in a handful of other top offensive weapons and the results might be similar, regardless of Kobe's scoring.

I disagree with that. The Lakers while Bryant was on the court had a 112.8 ORtg, they were at 93.9 ORtg without him. Now, we can obviously argue with the replacement player here, BUT no other Laker had a higher OnCourt ORtg than Kobe Bryant that season.
It was necessary for Bryant to take more shots in order to raise the playing level of his team. One year later he took less shots on a higher efficiency and the Lakers became worse.

In other words, there wasn't something about the scoring itself that was inherently incredibly. (Same can be said of Jordan's 87.) When Phil Jackson asked LA to target Phoenix's weakness in the PS by pounding the ball, it begged the question: if it was the scoring itself that was so valuable from Bryant, why did his coach want him to distribute more in the playoffs?

Against Phoenix? Simple, it was a matchup issue. The Suns had a bigger problem defending the players inside and on closeouts than in 1on1 situations against perimeter players. With Bell and Marion they had two effective perimeter defenders, players who could very well defend a perimeter player and taking away his passing lanes. Spacing, ball/player movement and post play seemed to be far more effective against the Suns defense that season. That was the reason to go that route for Jackson, he adjusted for the matchups. And it wasn't quite the best decision.

The answer, of course, leads us back to the bolded point above. While this was excellent scoring -- out Iversoning Iverson-- it wasn't something simply produced by doing the same moves he had previously done at a higher efficiency. He just did the same moves MORE, and at the expense of other options. Those moves were only marginally advantageous, so much so that in the biggest moment of the season, the coach wanted to change game plan to involve others more.

Eli made a study about forcing an increased usage upon players not used to it, which led to the conclusion that the offense gets worse. The same can be said about the Lakers. The Lakers didn't win their games in the playoffs against the Suns with their increased offensive efficiency, they won due to better defensive performances. Their best offensive performance actually came in the game in which Bryant scored 50 points. Even if Bryant would have scored those points on his regular season average in scoring efficiency, it would still be a 111 ORtg game for the Lakers, still the best offensive game for them in that series. Thus, it is hardly a proof for your theory, in fact it is quite the opposite.

The Lakers simple lost in the end to a better team, that is something we should conclude here. They won surprisingly one to two games more than expected. Which was hardly related to Bryant, but also not related to a better offensive performance due to a reduced role for Bryant scoring-wise.

Even though I agree that overall it is better to increase scoring by doing it more efficient, the opportunity costs for the shots is not simple an average efficient teammate taking that shot. If scoring efficiency alone would be the determining factor, a guy like Kevin Martin would be incredible valuable, but he isn't (somehow).

[An Unbiased Fan]

This is exactly why I view 2006 the way I do. Offensively, with Lamar Odom as a creator, decent shooters and the triangle+Phil Jackson, the results were impressive. I believe LA finished 8th in ORtg, which is darn good. But IMO the offensive talent on that team, from 2005 even to present, was never really a huge issue. Throw in a handful of other top offensive weapons and the results might be similar, regardless of Kobe's scoring.

In other words, there wasn't something about the scoring itself that was inherently incredibly. (Same can be said of Jordan's 87.) When Phil Jackson asked LA to target Phoenix's weakness in the PS by pounding the ball, it begged the question: if it was the scoring itself that was so valuable from Bryant, why did his coach want him to distribute more in the playoffs?

The answer, of course, leads us back to the bolded point above. While this was excellent scoring -- out Iversoning Iverson-- it wasn't something simply produced by doing the same moves he had previously done at a higher efficiency. He just did the same moves MORE, and at the expense of other options. Those moves were only marginally advantageous, so much so that in the biggest moment of the season, the coach wanted to change game plan to involve others more.

(I think a better example of "lifting weak offense just with volume scoring" would be Bernard King in New York, who seemed to just become more efficient with his scoring moves.)

1) Both Kobe & Odom shared facilitating duties.

2) What "decent" shooters do you speak of? The only guy who could shoot outside of Kobe was Cook.

3) They "tried" to run a Tri, but for the most part, the offense centered around Kobe, because the team was having issues with it the 1st year.

4) How in the World can you say the offensive talent on the 06'-07' team wasn't an issue? Smush, Kwame, Odom, Walton, Odom. The only guy who could score outside Kobe was ODom, and he's a bad 2nd option. Kobe had a 42.1% PTS% that year.

5) Phil wanted to pound the ball against PHX because.....they had mismatches. I'm not sure how that correlates to anything. It's not like Kobe didn't still put up 28 PPG.

6) Also, the notion that Kobe, "did the same moves MORE, and at the expense of other options", is rather strange. The players on that team had career years, and Kobe was putting up numbers not seen since Wilt.

[ElGee]

This is exactly why I view 2006 the way I do. Offensively, with Lamar Odom as a creator, decent shooters and the triangle+Phil Jackson, the results were impressive. I believe LA finished 8th in ORtg, which is darn good. But IMO the offensive talent on that team, from 2005 even to present, was never really a huge issue. Throw in a handful of other top offensive weapons and the results might be similar, regardless of Kobe's scoring.

I disagree with that. The Lakers while Bryant was on the court had a 112.8 ORtg, they were at 93.9 ORtg without him. Now, we can obviously argue with the replacement player here, BUT no other Laker had a higher OnCourt ORtg than Kobe Bryant that season.
It was necessary for Bryant to take more shots in order to raise the playing level of his team. One year later he took less shots on a higher efficiency and the Lakers became worse.

I'm well aware. But you really need to not be so married to on/off. You know the math, and you know the sport, and therefore I know you know the confounds and noise involved in that. On/off is great, but don't treat it like a bible.

Kobe missed 7 games in 06 and 07, and the Lakers offensive rating was 108.8 in those games (better than with Kobe).

In other words, there wasn't something about the scoring itself that was inherently incredibly. (Same can be said of Jordan's 87.) When Phil Jackson asked LA to target Phoenix's weakness in the PS by pounding the ball, it begged the question: if it was the scoring itself that was so valuable from Bryant, why did his coach want him to distribute more in the playoffs?

Against Phoenix? Simple, it was a matchup issue.

That's exactly my point. Sometimes (or, a lot of the time), it's better to attack matchups and get others involved. The cliche in the sport for some time goes "make the guys around you better."

The answer, of course, leads us back to the bolded point above. While this was excellent scoring -- out Iversoning Iverson-- it wasn't something simply produced by doing the same moves he had previously done at a higher efficiency. He just did the same moves MORE, and at the expense of other options. Those moves were only marginally advantageous, so much so that in the biggest moment of the season, the coach wanted to change game plan to involve others more.

Eli made a study about forcing an increased usage upon players not used to it, which led to the conclusion that the offense gets worse. The same can be said about the Lakers. The Lakers didn't win their games in the playoffs against the Suns with their increased offensive efficiency, they won due to better defensive performances. Their best offensive performance actually came in the game in which Bryant scored 50 points. Even if Bryant would have scored those points on his regular season average in scoring efficiency, it would still be a 111 ORtg game for the Lakers, still the best offensive game for them in that series. Thus, it is hardly a proof for your theory, in fact it is quite the opposite.

Even though I agree that overall it is better to increase scoring by doing it more efficient, the opportunity costs for the shots is not simple an average efficient teammate taking that shot. If scoring efficiency alone would be the determining factor, a guy like Kevin Martin would be incredible valuable, but he isn't (somehow).

Yeah mystic, the one game sample disproves my theory.

And Kevin Martin doesn't have a thing to do with it because TS% doesn't tell us who is doing this well, which is why Derrick Rose can be awesome at 54% and Adrian Dantley can stink at 61%.

[mysticbb]

I'm well aware. But you really need to not be so married to on/off. You know the math, and you know the sport, and therefore I know you know the confounds and noise involved in that. On/off is great, but don't treat it like a bible.

Kobe missed 7 games in 06 and 07, and the Lakers offensive rating was 108.8 in those games (better than with Kobe).

Those 7 games are included and they are still below the level of what the Lakers had with Bryant playing in BOTH seasons. ;)

While we are talking about sample size here: Why are 7 games a 48 minutes a bigger sample than the all the minutes Bryant wasn't on the court? You know that those 7 games are included in those On/Off numbers? ;)

That's exactly my point. Sometimes (or, a lot of the time), it's better to attack matchups and get others involved. The cliche in the sport for some time goes "make the guys around you better."

Well, the Lakers failed to increase their offensive efficiency, as I pointed out they didn't win those games due to offense, they won due to defense. Thus it can hardly be a proof of your theory.

Yeah mystic, the one game sample disproves my theory. :D

That is not only one game, we are talking about a 7 game series. A series in which the increased usage for Bryant's teammates led to a lower offensive efficiency. Something Eli found too.

I'm not buying it that an increased load for the role players would have led to more success for the Lakers on offense. In some games, maybe, especially in games in which Bryant wasn't efficient enough, but for the majority of the games it wouldn't have helped.
It is rather an example of Bryant's inferior decision making, not being able to make the right decision at the time like other superstars. That's why Bryant had a lower impact in the end, but the success rate of the Lakers wouldn't have increased dramatically by just forcing the teammates to do more.

[ElGee]

^^^C'mon, I never wrote that it proved anything. I think you're warping/misunderstanding.

The point of referencing the 7 games wasn't to prove anything -- it's information that you need to reconcile with the on/off data. If there were some predictive "proof" in on/off, we'd see it when Bryant was out. Yet for some bizarre reason, the team didn't just suddenly stop scoring in those 7 games without him. That speaks to the point of my post (which is why I mentioned it) not to some "proof" of anything.

I wrote Jackson made the change in offensive strategy, and he made it for a reason. Whereas I don't recall Pat Riley ever going "in this series we'd be way more effective if Magic didn't have the ball." I'm well aware LA didn't have some incredible offensive series. (It's one series anyway). I also never wrote that simply increasing the load of his role players would have made them better.

I know you are all bent out of shape about the WWC but don't take it out on me.

[mysticbb]

The point of referencing the 7 games wasn't to prove anything -- it's information that you need to reconcile with the on/off data. If there were some predictive "proof" in on/off, we'd see it when Bryant was out. Yet for some bizarre reason, the team didn't just suddenly stop scoring in those 7 games without him. That speaks to the point of my post (which is why I mentioned it) not to some "proof" of anything.

Well, we expected the Lakers to score 103.7 based on the On/Off Court numbers and the adjustment for the opponents. They scored 5.1 more. At the same time we expected the Lakers to have a 107.8 DRtg based upon the On/Off numbers adjusted for the opponents. We get 110.4 DRtg for them instead. Overall the On/Off is off by 2.5 points. Not that bad overall, I guess, especially when we take into account that we are only talking about 7 games here.

Nobody said that they weren't able to score anymore, but that it doesn't show that a decreased usage of Bryant will lead to a better offense overall. That might be true for more recent years, when the options on offense for the Lakers were better, but for the 2006 or 2007 campaign I can't see that.

I wrote Jackson made the change in offensive strategy, and he made it for a reason. Whereas I don't recall Pat Riley ever going "in this series we'd be way more effective if Magic didn't have the ball." I'm well aware LA didn't have some incredible offensive series. (It's one series anyway). I also never wrote that simply increasing the load of his role players would have made them better.

Well, the latter was part of the strategy. If we decrease the load for Bryant, we need to increase it for somebody else. Correct? Thus without expecting an increase in offensive efficiency we very well have to conclude that Jackson's decision was wrong from the beginning. Unless you think that an increased amount of touches on offense will lead to more motivation on defense, which is not seen in the 7 games without Bryant in 2006 and 2007 either.
Not quite sure, why would you pick such a strategy, if it is not to increase offensive efficiency while you know it will not help defensively in average either?

I guess it had more to do with something the Bulls also did: Try to get everyone else involved early to see how far they can go and then let Jordan finish in case it is close. Obviously Jordan was better suited for that job than Bryant, but the Lakers also learnt before that they had not much of a chance against the Suns with another strategy anyway. Thus I doubt that this series can actually be used as a statement against Bryant's offensive impact, even though I think his offensive impact wasn't an incredible positive outlier either.

[ElGee]

^^^Please re-read what I wrote. The series isn't a statement against BRYANT'S offensive impact. It's a statement against the impact of someone scoring 35 ppg.

[Dezmondballins3]

P.S. Is anyone able to see the images of LeBron and Garnett? I may have to repost them again . . .

No you should change them. please

[drza]

OK. First, I want to again reiterate how difficult it is for me to be missing out on all of this good discussion due to moving. Today I'm sitting in a Starbucks with my understanding (yet clearly bored) wife trying to quickly skim through 20 pages over the last two threads before she gets fed up enough to make me leave. I see many places I'd like to have posted at the time, including where someone referenced me by name, but it is what it is. Thankfully, this thread has been a pretty easy vote. But if I completely miss out on the next thread, my eyes might start bleeding because I'm fairly sure that one is going to be fun. The cable company is supposed to install my internet by Monday evening, which I can't WAIT for by the way, but by then all the real good stuff will likely have already have been talked out. Here's hoping I can find a way to get on here sometime tomorrow.

Thoughts:

*It was clear that most people had a top-9 fairly straight in their heads, with few exceptions. With Hakeem being the last of that nine, this appears to have been the easiest vote to date.

*RE: +/- stats. I am an advocate of them, and think they really give useful info that just isn't present in the box score data. I thought Doc MJ's post on the subject was outstanding, and really hammers home how looking at large time-periods of +/- data improves the accuracy of the results (Mystic's posts also reiterated this).

*Re: Kobe vs KG. This is always one of the more interesting debates to me, and IMO really falls on how much we value team results vs individual contributions. In 2010 when all of the basketball writers were doing their "best of the decade" lists, literally every writer that used a box score metric ranked KG ahead of Kobe. Similarly, by every +/- stat we have, KG measured out as better than Kobe over the last decade by an even larger margin. BUT, Kobe has 5 rings and KG only has 1, and for many no amount of individual production will matter as much as those team accomplishments. I look forward to this debate, and really REALLY hope I'm around for it in at least some capacity.

*Re: Dirk vs DRob. In the last thread I voted Dirk over DRob in a squeaker, and was hoping to see more debate on the subject. Instead, it seems that in these parts Dirk maintains a consensus. At the least, it also made my nomination this thread pretty easy.

Vote: Hakeem Olajuwon
Nominate: Dirk Nowitzki

[Fencer reregistered]

Also, don't waste our time with facts, ElGee, LeBron is a choker.

I'm not sure that ElGee has done much to argue against LeBron-is-a-choker, but perhaps I missed his point.

[Bucksfans1and2]

V: Hakeem

N: DRob

[penbeast0]

Here is the voting for #9 as I saw it . . . Hakeem and Dirk pretty easily

Hakeem (ElGee, Dr Mufasa, Vinsanity 420, David Stern, ThaRegul8r, fatal9, mysticbb, Doctor MJ, ronnymac2, Fencer reregistered, shawngoat23, pancakes3, FJS, Baller 24, RoyceDa59, cpower, snakebites, JayfromLA, TMACFORMVP, Buckfans1and2)
Kobe (JordansBulls, An Unbiased Fan, Black Feet, SDChargers#1, Laimbeer)


Nominate

Dirk (ElGee, Vinsanity 420, Black Feet, mysticbb, Doctor MJ, ronnymac2, SDChargers#1, Fencer reregistered, FJS, pancakes3, Baller 24, RoyceDa59, Dr Mufasa, cpower, JayfromLA, TMACFORMVP)
Mikan – RULED OUT BY OP
David Robinson (shawngoat23, penbeast0, snakebites, Gongxi, Buckfans1and2)
Isiah (Laimbeer)


Oh, and Doc, to some degree I was messing with you, to some I was making fun of myself for not having a clue what you were talking about.