RealGM Top 100 List #41

[lorak]

No. You can't do it that way. Look, you assume that - imaginary example - when in playoffs will met team A - 90 drtg and team B - 110 ortg team, team's B offense would be called by you improved when in playoffs against team A they would had 95 ortg (because it's more than team's A RS drtg...). That's wrong way to look at this and I have done something similar, but only with Pacers ortg.

This is not what he's doing. He's quite clearly using that sort of differential both in the regular season and in the playoffs. An improvement in that comparison is a completely valid way to look at things.

?
Could you explain it on some example?
Because I don't see it. For me it is as I said: Elgge is doing something like that:
Team A: 90 RS drtg
Team B: 110 RS ortg
They met in playoffs and Team B have 95 ortg, so is means that their offense improved...
That doesn't make sense at all.

Look, that's exactly what Elgee said:
Pacers RS relative to league, then PS relative avg. opponent DRtg
90 +3.4 +0.0

In 1990 Pacers had 111.5 ortg in RS
In playoffs 103,5 ortg
Pacers opponents RS drtg: 103,5 - and that's why Elgee's value here is 0,0 (Pacers playoffs ORTG minus Pacers opponent regular season DRTG)

What we have to do is look at "expected value" = (Pacers opponent RS drtg + Pacers RS org)/2. And if Pacers playoffs ortg will be higher than expected value then yes, we could say their offense was better.

No, that's completely ignoring the fact that defense picks up in the playoffs.

And how Elgee's method adjust for that?

By that way of doing things, the vast majority of offensive teams would "disappoint" come playoff time, which is a tip off that it doesn't make sense:

If you're expected value leaves you disappointed 90% of the time, you're an unreasonable optimist.

But that "90%, majority would disappoint" isn't true.

[ElGee]

@drza - The 3 point shot is 1.5x more valuable than the 2-point shot. Free throws are even better - often converted at about 1.8 pts/attempt for Miller! That's built in to TS%, so I don't understand your hangup. A player who goes 4-5 from 3 and 7-7 from the line is giving you a hyper efficient 19 points...despite taking 4 shots. More 3-point misses lead to more offensive rebounding chances. Consider:

10 2-pointers at 50%:
5 makes (10 pts)
5 rebounds at 21% a chance --> 1 extra possession at 1.07 pts on average = 11.1 pts

10 3-pointers at 33%:
3.3 makes (10 pts)
6.7 rebounds at 21% chance --> 1.4 extra possessions at 1.07 pts on average = 11.5 pts

3's are awesome.

@TMAC and in general

"I still think Nique was a better player." Do you mean peak? Because I'd agree.

I feel like many people are hung up on voting someone in with a lower peak.

Everyone had their own criteria, but at least be consistent. I have Stockton and Havlicek (I think we all do) over a number of players with clearly better peaks. It's from sustained excellence. For me, it's also because they are nice fits/easy to build around. That's the same thing here. Miller doesn't have some awesome peak -- my lord if he did, at about 13 years of prime play, how high would he be?? -- but he's just consistently excellent and a valuable weapon/piece for over a decade. That's fantastic against the remaining candidates.

I think the remaining wings all had better peaks, or an argument for better peaks, than Reggie Miller:
King (by a lot)
Hill
Penny (if we call him a wing)
Durant
Thompson
Marques
Moncrief
Wilkins
Anthony
Iverson
Dandridge
Jones
Manu
Bing
Roy
Greer
Davis

I'm still voting Miller for other reasons.

[penbeast0]

Are we sleeping on Worthy?

In the mid-80s, the Celtics and Lakers were close, Bird and Magic were close, and aging Kareem was close to McHale.

The Celtics' depth after Bird/McHale/Parish, in the years they had neither Walton nor Maxwell, still went DJ/Ainge/Wedman/Sichting (or Paxson). The Lakers' depth after Magic/Kareem/Worthy went Cooper (best of the lot)/Rambis/Scott/Thompson, at least between McAdoo and A. C. Green being there.

Celtics look better, which suggests Worthy may well have been a better player than Parish, who despite my denigration of his ability to create much offense was no slouch himself.

Durability, of course, is another matter ...

Scott was probably a more dangerous and roughly equally valuable player than Celtics era Ainge (as was his predecessor Norm Nixon and more valuable than Cedric Henderson who was before Ainge) and the Lakers played their bench more minutes than the Celtics. Cooper was comparable in talent to Celtics DJ though he played less minutes. Leaving Worthy and Parish matching up . . . neither of whom has come up here yet and both of whom will arguably start getting argued within the same strata.

[therealbig3]

My count:

Vote:

Dominique-6 (JordansBulls, drza, Snakebites, DavidStern, ronnymac2, TMACFORMVP)

Miller-5 (Fencer reregistered, ElGee, Doctor MJ, therealbig3, Dr Mufasa)

Hayes-1 (penbeast0)



Nominate:

Moncrief-5 (penbeast0, Fencer reregistered, Snakebites, ronnymac2, TMACFORMVP)

KJ-2 (therealbig3, Dr Mufasa)

Ginobili-2 (drza, DavidStern)

Lanier-1 (ElGee)

Penny-1 (JordansBulls)

[Doctor MJ]

Stern,

Writing from my phone specifically because I was mistaken in what I wrote before. The lack of PS is not an issue only your formula has. Apologies

Now w that said I object to your formula because if I understand correctly it doesn't factor in league average. If a team allows 9O PP 100 possessions against a league where 100 PP is average then an average team should do 90 against this defense. Yet your formula would exPect 95. This is a huge problem.

[Doctor MJ]

Need to echo LG on 3 pointers. People are making this too complicated. 3's are worth 50% more than 2's. That's just the rules. Yes we can talk about comPlex effects of offensive strategy here but to talk as if ts% has something wrong with it because it counts 3 as 3 is just bizarre. To come at this as Part of justifying lower efficiency guys just smacks of grasping at straws to justify prior assumption.

Also to the notion of being "efficient enough" the only time I think at all along these lines is with pLayers from the deep past where are ability to precisely judge a Player is so limited. In general princiPle there is no "enough". If a player came along and never missed a shot he'd blow Jordan away as GOAT scorer not because Jordan was inefficient but simply because the new guy was more efficient.

Of course there's more to scoring than efficiency but the need for nuance certainly does allow us to look at efficiency as a pass/fail metric. Quite the opposite.

[lorak]

Now w that said I object to your formula because if I understand correctly it doesn't factor in league average. If a team allows 9O PP 100 possessions against a league where 100 PP is average then an average team should do 90 against this defense.

Well, why? ;]

[drza]

Need to echo LG on 3 pointers. People are making this too complicated. 3's are worth 50% more than 2's. That's just the rules. Yes we can talk about comPlex effects of offensive strategy here but to talk as if ts% has something wrong with it because it counts 3 as 3 is just bizarre. To come at this as Part of justifying lower efficiency guys just smacks of grasping at straws to justify prior assumption.

Also to the notion of being "efficient enough" the only time I think at all along these lines is with pLayers from the deep past where are ability to precisely judge a Player is so limited. In general princiPle there is no "enough". If a player came along and never missed a shot he'd blow Jordan away as GOAT scorer not because Jordan was inefficient but simply because the new guy was more efficient.

Of course there's more to scoring than efficiency but the need for nuance certainly does allow us to look at efficiency as a pass/fail metric. Quite the opposite.

I just don't agree with your efficiency assertions when it comes to 3s. A player that takes 10 3s and makes 4 of them just isn't the same as a player that takes 10 2s and makes 6 of them. Maybe consistency plays a part in it for me, because on average over the long haul the volume of points will be equal. But over the course of any one game I'm building my game plan as a coach much more around maximizing the latter than the former. Again, 3-point shooting has it's place and it's value. I respect that. But when it becomes such a large part in what we're calling efficiency, and efficiency becomes the standard by which all offense is judged, then the 3-pointer is getting too much credit. It's not THAT awesome.

And frankly for any of us, but especially me, you, ElGee or DavidStern to make any kind of accusation about "making this too complicated" or "grasping at straws" because we aren't willing to except the current status quo thought process as gospel is EXTREME stone-throwing from a glass house. That's what we do: we think critically and analyze, to the nth degree. Just because this time we aren't on the same side of the agreement doesn't mean that this is a time that you get to stand on a soap box for Occam's razor. ESPECIALLY when Occam's razor wouldn't have Reggie anywhere near this spot in the vote.

[FJS]

Vote: Iverson
Nomination: Worthy

[ElGee]

I just don't agree with your efficiency assertions when it comes to 3s. A player that takes 10 3s and makes 4 of them just isn't the same as a player that takes 10 2s and makes 6 of them. Maybe consistency plays a part in it for me, because on average over the long haul the volume of points will be equal. But over the course of any one game I'm building my game plan as a coach much more around maximizing the latter than the former. Again, 3-point shooting has it's place and it's value. I respect that. But when it becomes such a large part in what we're calling efficiency, and efficiency becomes the standard by which all offense is judged, then the 3-pointer is getting too much credit. It's not THAT awesome.

Umm...the 3-pointer literally gets as much credit the rules dictate, which is 3 points. (!!)

I don't understand what you mean by "building a gameplan." If you have a team of free throw shooters and 3-point shooters and you score more points than the other team without every taking a 2, you WIN. It's quite literally the rules.

To me, your "gameplan" comment just centers around the reality that there aren't an abundance of great 3-point shooters...but Reggie Miller IS a great 3-point shooter, and that's part of his offensive value. Why would it be downgraded because other players don't use it as much? (I'm assuming this is what Doc meant by grasping at straws since I've never heard of such an argument against the literal value of a point outside of a clutch debate.)

It's like saying "I just don't gameplan around Paul Pierce getting 10 free throws a game - the free throw may be worth 1 point, but it's just not the same as a field goal." A point is a point is a point.

[drza]

Umm...the 3-pointer literally gets as much credit the rules dictate, which is 3 points. (!!)

I don't understand what you mean by "building a gameplan." If you have a team of free throw shooters and 3-point shooters and you score more points than the other team without every taking a 2, you WIN. It's quite literally the rules.

To me, your "gameplan" comment just centers around the reality that there aren't an abundance of great 3-point shooters...but Reggie Miller IS a great 3-point shooter, and that's part of his offensive value. Why would it be downgraded because other players don't use it as much? (I'm assuming this is what Doc meant by grasping at straws since I've never heard of such an argument against the literal value of a point outside of a clutch debate.)

It's like saying "I just don't gameplan around Paul Pierce getting 10 free throws a game - the free throw may be worth 1 point, but it's just not the same as a field goal." A point is a point is a point.

Believe it or not, I'm enjoying this exchange between you, me and Doc MJ because it's forcing me to actually put some thought into my dissatisfaction with the treatment of 3-ptrs in efficiency measures instead of just sitting on it. And yes, at this point I'm no longer talking about Reggie vs Nique, I'm speaking of 3-point shooting and it's role in efficiency measures in general.

And building off of my last post, I think the missing term might be "variance". When actually characterizing a system, no one uses just average. Average and variance tend to go hand-in-hand. Not just how many points a person scores, but also how regularly they score those points. And TS% can't capture that.

Take, for example, Ray Allen in the 2008 playoffs. His TS% over the full course of those playoffs was 58%, an excellent mark. But if you look game-to-game, he was absoultely PUTRID as a shooter over a 9-game stretch from game 7 of the 1st round through game 1 of the ECF. Over that stretch he averaged 9 points on 35% FG, .6 3s made, 2.6 FTs/game. But on the flip side, outside of that time window, he also had a game where he dropped 7 treys in a blowout, and four others where he dropped 5 treys. So for those playoffs, if anyone looks up his TS% or his offensive ratings, Ray looks like a sterling, high-efficiency scorer. But if his team actually NEEDED him to be a consistent high-efficiency scorer, they'd have been out in round 2.

Again, TS% can't capture that.

A point is NOT a point is NOT a point. Not alone. Now, again, when Ray knocked down those treys in '08 they were valuable. Tangibly valuable. But they were NOT enough to make him the efficient scoring paragon that his postseason TS% would have painted him to be. We have to look further than that.

[penbeast0]

So you also believe in knocking down inconsistent players that get hot sometimes and go cold sometimes v. more consistent scorers? Do you factor this into your player evaluations?

Changing vote from Elvin Hayes to Reggie Miller. The efficiency and playoff difference between Miller and Nique more than make up for the difference in accolades.

[Fencer reregistered]

Suppose Reggie and 'Nique try 5 shots each. Suppose Reggie sinks 2 three-pointers, while 'Nique sinks 3 2-pointers. Who helped his team more?

To a first approximation, it's equal -- 6 points each. To a second approximation, Reggie's ahead, since his team has one more chance at an offensive rebound.

That said, 'Nique gets more offensive rebounds than Reggie, so don't sleep on that either.

[Fencer reregistered]

I just don't agree with your efficiency assertions when it comes to 3s. A player that takes 10 3s and makes 4 of them just isn't the same as a player that takes 10 2s and makes 6 of them.

Sorry for the double post, but -- the guy who sinks the 4 3s is actually BETTER, because he got the same number of points, yet gave his team 6 offensive rebounding chances rather than 4.

[Laimbeer]

I don't like Nique's game and I wouldn't want to build with him, but this is about body of work as a player as well, so he goes ahead of Miller. He's a one option and pretty clearly a tier over Miller.

Moncrief is running away but the guy made one first team and five all-stars. Time to put Schayes up - 6 firsts and six seconds as well as a title.

Vote: (Holding nose a bit) Nique
Nominate: Dolph Schayes

[Doctor MJ]

Now w that said I object to your formula because if I understand correctly it doesn't factor in league average. If a team allows 9O PP 100 possessions against a league where 100 PP is average then an average team should do 90 against this defense.

Well, why? ;]

D'oh. Damn internet ambiguity. Emoticon makes me think you get what I'm saying, but we've been disagreeing too much I feel the need to clarify.

A team accumulates it's DRtg by playing, on average, average teams. Therefore, their DRtg is essentially by definition what we'd expect that defense to do if they played an average team. Any metric that predicts some other result is therefore wrong.

ElGee I believe is using a model something like this:

Improvement = (Series offense - Opponent season defense) - (Season offense - League average defense)

It passes that sanity test.

An alternative model I could see is:

Improvement = (Series offense / Opponent season defense) / (Season offense - League average defense)

Various combinations of the models could be done, but given the fact that difference in efficiency is so small compared with pace, I doubt we'd see drastically different results as long as a valid metric was used.

[Doctor MJ]

I seriously could nominate any of the guys mentioned. I still think Nique is better than Reggie; I understand his playoff heroics, but I don't know if that's enough to overweigh clearly superior play in the regular season in terms of greater volume, better rebounding and arguably even more impressive impact on team ORTGs than even Miller.

Here's the thing:

The playoffs means EVERYTHING. If a guy is better in the playoffs - truly better, then he's the better player in a sport where more than half the teams make the playoffs and there is no championship given for regular season performance.

Of course if you think Miller wasn't really better in the playoffs, then by all means, rank Nique over him.

Where I've been really trying to argue though is that it's not right to look at what Miller did as a few great things here or there. Yes he did have incredible moments which cause him to be love/hated in New York in a way that Nique never achieved against an opponent. However Miller's general move toward a more prominent player was not something that happened sporadically, but rather something that happened consistently as things mattered more.

Let's consider things also from what we've learned from 82games' clutch numbers. Basically that stars often become a hell of a lot more prominent in the clutch. LeBron in '09-10 scored 66 points per 48 minutes of clutch time. His peak rate of scoring per 48 minutes of general play is only at around 36 points per 48 minutes. Huge difference.

Steve Nash also. Nothing like a volume guy in general, maxes out at about 25 points per 48 minutes generally. But we've often seen him score at 40+ points per 48 in the clutch which puts him in the top 5 of the league.

Were I to tell you that Miller had a similar clutch jump, would you be at all surprised? I'm not saying you should Miller "what if" credit, just that you should be really careful in saying what someone like Miller was "lacking" as a performer given what we actually know about his playoff/clutch reputation.

[Doctor MJ]

I just don't agree with your efficiency assertions when it comes to 3s. A player that takes 10 3s and makes 4 of them just isn't the same as a player that takes 10 2s and makes 6 of them. Maybe consistency plays a part in it for me, because on average over the long haul the volume of points will be equal. But over the course of any one game I'm building my game plan as a coach much more around maximizing the latter than the former. Again, 3-point shooting has it's place and it's value. I respect that. But when it becomes such a large part in what we're calling efficiency, and efficiency becomes the standard by which all offense is judged, then the 3-pointer is getting too much credit. It's not THAT awesome.

And frankly for any of us, but especially me, you, ElGee or DavidStern to make any kind of accusation about "making this too complicated" or "grasping at straws" because we aren't willing to except the current status quo thought process as gospel is EXTREME stone-throwing from a glass house. That's what we do: we think critically and analyze, to the nth degree. Just because this time we aren't on the same side of the agreement doesn't mean that this is a time that you get to stand on a soap box for Occam's razor. ESPECIALLY when Occam's razor wouldn't have Reggie anywhere near this spot in the vote.

drza, I like you. I think you bring strong intellectual firepower to the boards and I welcome that. But when you assert 3 != 3 this is a problem.

Now look, I'm all for analysis to the nth degree that would give a quantitative estimate for things like this, and if that happened I would expect that a 3-pointer wouldn't be worth exactly 3 points (though a 2-pointer wouldn't be worth exactly 2 points either). However, the issue is incredibly complicated and I don't see how there's any basis for saying how the result would go, let alone that it would go in the direction you want to the extent that we'd say TS% becomes a seriously flawed stat.

For you to bring it up like it's a big deal as you ponder why you don't personally buy the Miller argument seems to me to be the hand waving of the intellectual which I'll admit that I have done in my life. One becomes so accustomed to using your logical/argumentative prowess in an academic setting that one starts using such techniques to bolster pre-rational opinions.

So when I say you're making things too complicated, maybe that's not quite right. Where I object is in you bringing in an additional layer of implied depth as part of you opinion without giving enough actual meat to justify the addition.

[Doctor MJ]

Longevity is also an issue for Dennis...Curious, who would you DRAFT first, Rodman or

Lanier
Parish
Thurmond
Gasol
Cowens
McAdoo
Webber?

This is a good question.

See, I very much factor bad behavior to drafting, and drafting to this project. However, while I'd be concerned about drafting Rodman, how much did his craziness really get in the way of things during his career? I mean, Artest is concerned the modern Rodman in a lot of ways, but literally Artest destroyed a team that had a young core and already a best-record in the league season and bounced from mediocre team to mediocre team. Rodman won 5 rings and played on a successful Spur team.

He was crazy, he couldn't be your team leader, but it's awful hard to say he kept you from winning in any way.

Still thinking this through.

[Doctor MJ]

Last minute, gotta pick someone...

Nominate: KJ