#4 Highest Peak of All Time (Wilt '67 wins)

[ElGee]

So Doc, I'm not sure if that entirely answered your question. My issue with James is offensive portability AND with simply how much I think he helps on offense. I consider Bird to quite better on offense. And yes, Jordan too.

I've found big3's arguments to be thought-provoking, but per our last discussion I just don't see him in the mold of Magic, Nash, etc. It's quite possible he could do it if he had a totally different team -- I will not rule that out. (Note: he did NOT play such a role in the 08 Olympics. Nor does he seem to in AS games, although I wouldn't put stock in AS games other than to note his preferred instinct.) I do find his IQ and decision-making incredible, and that's backed up his team's outlying clutch numbers where 3 teams fit the same profile:

-Paul's ball-dominance spikes, his team's are awesome in the clutch
-Nash's ball-dominance spikes, his team's are awesome in the clutch
-Jame's ball-dominance spikes, his team's are awesome in the clutch

So, based on my last post, I don't have the same confidence in an offensive team of shooters around James that I do in, say, Nash. Clearly then, I have LeBron as step down from Nash.

I suppose the question then is do you value LeBron's offense better than Chris Paul's if we agree they play a similar position? I don't. If I did, I'd be ready to vote LeBron probably because I find No. 6's defense to be the best wing defense since prime Pippen. He guards the basket like a big, causes havoc in the passing lines, can guard all 5 positions and as a result has an enormous defensive usage from what I've tracked in 2010 and 2011.

So, why is LeBron better on offense than Paul?
Why is LeBron better on offense than Kobe?

[Doctor MJ]

Cool, that's exactly what I was looking for from you ElGee. It's a philosophy (i.e. subjective preference) point, but very much a valid take.

So then here's the next question:

To me what you implying here is that it becomes much harder to build LeBron's team up to championship levels than it does some other players. From one perspective, I get you mentioning Bird here, because when I think of the dreamiest of dream teams, I think of Magic running the show, not LeBron.

On the other hand though, while i realize that there was a weak schedule involved here, LeBron's Cavs racked up some quite strong ORtgs. Much better than Jordan pre-Jackson.

I don't think there's any doubt that LeBron in Cleveland had a more incompetent team management than Bird, or Magic, or Jordan. Do you really doubt that with a bit better management the team could have gotten even better? And once they are there, can you really not look at them as a championship level team?

If you disagree, I look forward to hearing that.

If you agree, than I'd say what we're talking about is not you only caring about championship level, but you looking better, and better, and better teams, until you're at the very zenith of what's possible. And then I don't think it makes sense to look at Jordan at #1. So how do you reconcile that?

[ElGee]

Best on court Net +/- since 2002 minimum 2400 MP (80 games*30 MPG):
1. 09 LeBron +15
2. 08 Pierce +14.2
3. 07 Duncan +13.8
4. 07 Bowen +13.7
5. 05 Nash +12.7

This is not right. At all. In 2003 alone Garnett and Nowitzki crushed this number. http://www.82games.com/teams05.htm

Best on court Net +/- since 2002, minimum 400 MP:
1. 09 Varejao +16.4
2. 03 Ginobili +15.9
3. 09 Ilgauskas +15.5
4. 10 Lewis +14.9
5. 12 Duncan +14.5

Also looks very very wrong. Off the top of my head, I can think of many guys crushing these numbers (Wade 06? LBJ 08?)

[C-izMe]

I'm not surprised to see LeBron 09 get so much attention, in the same way people will adore Duncan 03 or Kareem 77 or any other "dragging" of a bad team to something near excellent. But I feel maybe I haven't been 100% clear about why portability is such a big issue to me and why I've changed by tune on these kinds of seasons.

I care about winning championships. Period. As such, it does not matter much at all how a player can boost a poor team. "Carrying" a team will win you MVP narratives, it will win you respect, but it won't win you very many championships, because frankly, the teams that are going to log championships regularly are teams with MAJOR (point-differential) advantages over their opponents. Perhaps it's my mistake for assuming people will read my links, but look at what happens when you go from 5 SRS range to 8-9 range:

Great post and it's exactly as I feel but I think the I care about winning championships can get twisted into "Your not picking him because he lost".

And Duncan 03 isn't really a good example because he proved in the PS they were really a 5.65 SRS team like they were in the regular season.

Great post though.

[ushvinder88]

Tim Duncan 03 should be voted next, the rest of these players all had better supporting casts. In 2003 Duncan was the defensive anchor of his team, leading scorer, leading rebounder, leading passer and leading shot blocker. Bill Russell, Magic, Bird & Kareem never did that on a championship team. They always had other players saving them and relieveing them of duties. However, this is the internet and older players are worshipped like gods. Duncan easily had the 3rd best peak after jordan and shaq, its not even close.

[lorak]

Best on court Net +/- since 2002 minimum 2400 MP (80 games*30 MPG):
1. 09 LeBron +15
2. 08 Pierce +14.2
3. 07 Duncan +13.8
4. 07 Bowen +13.7
5. 05 Nash +12.7

This is not right. At all. In 2003 alone Garnett and Nowitzki crushed this number. http://www.82games.com/teams05.htm

colts data is right:
http://bkref.com/tiny/GPoxd

[therealbig3]

@Doctor MJ

I appreciate the response, and I can't really respond in full right now, but a couple of questions I want to ask:

-Again, where did I say that leading a better defense equals being a better defender? I'm using that as a starting point for my argument...I'm seeing a team defense decline exactly when their superstar declines. I see a dominant defense when that superstar is dominant. And from the data I just checked with Duncan out in 05, it seems that the defense does pretty much fall apart without him. All I'm trying to say is that he was a dominant defender who anchored a dominant defense. I want to see Hakeem's case, there are still statistical ways to prove that.

-I'm talking about the defensive RAPM data when I talk about Duncan vs Garnett from 04-07...Duncan clearly surpassed KG. And you say up until Minny falls apart, KG beats Duncan...so from the complete data we have (and thanks, for some reason I thought 03 was incomplete as well), you're talking about all of 2 years in 03 and 04? And not to mention the ceiling effect, when Duncan did have a better team, so his +5.0 in 03 was probably just as impressive as KG's +6.3 in 03. And again, he surpasses him defensively. And post-07, Duncan declined, so it seems a little unfair to point to KG's superior ranks from 08 onwards and say "See? KG's better!", when we know that Duncan was ranking much better in his earlier years and was clearly surpassing KG.

-I really don't understand why just because Duncan gives you more on defense than on offense that it's a contradiction to say Duncan's offense was great. Duncan gave you great productivity, and so offensively he was great. On top of that, according to RAPM, he's even better defensively than he is offensively.

I don't get why it would be a contradiction to praise both. He was dominant offensively, and it's actually more of a testament to how good he was if we can also say he was even better defensively. His great defense shouldn't take away from his offense.

[Doctor MJ]

So, why is LeBron better on offense than Paul?
Why is LeBron better on offense than Kobe?

I've actually just been going through making some ratings to test out some of your SRS work, and I think the 3 players are quite debatable. Like you, I think the big thing for LeBron relative to these guys is the defense.

LeBron vs Paul I think it's very, very debatable. I don't know if I will rate him above Paul on offense.

LeBron vs Kobe, while I do think the answer might be closer than some think simply because of the inflation that comes with LeBron's ball dominance, to me the difference is about Kobe having some terrible habits. He's bought compltely into the idea that there's nothing better than beating a defense at their strongest point (aka, hero ball), and he does it better than anyone has any right to do, but it's still not where the smart money goes. At different points in his career, this tendency waxes and wanes, so in the context of this project, I might not give LeBron the edge on offense, but generally speaking I find LeBron's willingness to pass more than his ability to pass gives him the nod.

[mysticbb]

Thanks for taking the time mystic. Now that you've got so much data on your site, I need to start incorporating that into my analysis routine to really develop a feel for it.

I strongly suggest only using the SPM values, not the offensive and defensive splits. There was an error in the subroutine which resulted into some really wrong results. For example, Mark Eaton in 1983 ended up with +5 on offense and -5 on defense, meaning, he was supposed to be a huge help on offense while being really bad on defense. That is an extreme example, but I guess you get the idea. I fixed the problem and right now I have all regular seasons on my computer from 1978 to 2012, I still need the playoff data from 1984 to 1990. I should be finished with that probably at the end of August, if I don't waste so much time on RealGM. ;)

[colts18]

Best on court Net +/- since 2002 minimum 2400 MP (80 games*30 MPG):
1. 09 LeBron +15
2. 08 Pierce +14.2
3. 07 Duncan +13.8
4. 07 Bowen +13.7
5. 05 Nash +12.7

This is not right. At all. In 2003 alone Garnett and Nowitzki crushed this number. http://www.82games.com/teams05.htm

Best on court Net +/- since 2002, minimum 400 MP:
1. 09 Varejao +16.4
2. 03 Ginobili +15.9
3. 09 Ilgauskas +15.5
4. 10 Lewis +14.9
5. 12 Duncan +14.5

Also looks very very wrong. Off the top of my head, I can think of many guys crushing these numbers (Wade 06? LBJ 08?)

Thats on court net +/-. Which means the 09 Cavs were +15 when LeBron was on the court, not that the Cavs were points/100 better with LeBron on the court in comparison to off the court. I would do +/- but B-R doesn't have that data. But Basketballvalue does have it from 08-12:

1. 09 LeBron +21.83
2. 09 CP3 +19.65
3. 12 Griffin +18.65
4. 11 Pierce +17.75
5. 10 Durant 16.80
6. 09 Odom +16.63
7. 10 LeBron +16.61

Top +/- from 03-05, based on 82games:
03 KG +22.8
03 Dirk +18.0
04 KG +17.9
05 Duncan +16.6
05 Kidd +16.0
05 Ginobili +15.5
05 Dirk +15.3
05 Nash +15
05 Brand +14.7
05 Marion +14.5
03 Duncan +14.3

[Doctor MJ]

Best on court Net +/- since 2002 minimum 2400 MP (80 games*30 MPG):
1. 09 LeBron +15
2. 08 Pierce +14.2
3. 07 Duncan +13.8
4. 07 Bowen +13.7
5. 05 Nash +12.7

This is not right. At all. In 2003 alone Garnett and Nowitzki crushed this number. http://www.82games.com/teams05.htm

colts data is right:
http://bkref.com/tiny/GPoxd

ElGee is must have read colt as saying on/off.

Here are the on/off leaders from '02-03 on based on my records from back when 82games actually worked properly:


1. '03 Garnett +22.8
2. 09 LeBron +21
3. '04 Garnett +20.2
4. '12 Paul +18.2
5. '03 Dirk +18

[MisterWestside]

I've found big3's arguments to be thought-provoking, but per our last discussion I just don't see him in the mold of Magic, Nash, etc. It's quite possible he could do it if he had a totally different team -- I will not rule that out. (Note: he did NOT play such a role in the 08 Olympics. Nor does he seem to in AS games, although I wouldn't put stock in AS games other than to note his preferred instinct.)

No sure I agree with you here. That's not what I watched - he focused on shooting less and moving the ball more. It's not like he isn't capable of playing a more "pure" point role if his team calls for it.

Magic/Nash? Okay fine; no. But LeBron has played te facilitator role before successfully.

[Lightning25]

I'm a huge Lebron fan but I am awfully surprised that he is getting mentioned up here before Wilt, Hakeem, and Kareem.

I'm not sure what the argument that Duncan's peak was better than Hakeem's peak either.

[ElGee]

@Chris -- To a degree, yes. The more roles/circumstances/context the better. Always. And we hope the player doesn't change much during that time. I'll be voting Walton soon, but it's with a smaller degree of confidence in the sense that I only get to evaluate him in the same context for 1.5 years...

@C-Ize -- Duncan 03 is an example because Dirk was hurt in 03 and as I've outlined in other posts, it is one of the weaker casts of competition to a title. So yes the Spurs were steady in the RS performing quite well, but people overstate it...especially when vilifying the supporting cast. Production by committee is not the same as no production. (I have 02 Duncan right with 03 Duncan, for instance.)

@Doc - Management and coaching is a totally valid point. As I said, these aren't really damning concerns to James, they just limit how high I evaluate his peak. Let's talk about Jordan here for a second though:

Jordan's best pre-Jackson team ORtg was 1.3. He did this on dreadful offensive teams and without the "collect 3-point shooters" as a viable option at the time. It also was not his peak on offense IMO, as the balance he would pick up under Jackson (even if it took some strong nudging on Phil's part) made him a better Global threat on offense.

But look at 1989 for a second.

Yet when Jordan famously played "point" (google archangel offense) at the end of the 89 season after the Mar 8 loss to Boston, the Bulls offense would jump to +5.3 on offense for the next 18 games and +3.3 for the rest of the season. (The PS offense was +3.1.) The DRtg barely changed, suggesting there wasn't a strategic shift, and again, the team TOV% dropped from 14.7% to 12.9%. To me, these are encouraging signs that "Michael Jordan, Lead Guard" is going to give you a pretty darn good offensive team, triangle or not.

Now we're talking about solid offenses in the +3 to +5 range, without the 3-point armada and without a shift to crashing the glass (that I can tell). The BEST RS LBJ offense was in 2009 at +4.1. Not surprisingly, I rank 89 Jordan well above James on offense.

Your tendency, I know, is to think Jordan has all the negatives or overlaps of a volume scorer. And while I don't find him as portable as my high-portability guys (eg Bird, Miller, etc.) I think he's better in this regard than many volume scorers because he did it so well. And what I mean by that is, literally, his ability to get good shots for himself with the dribble on really quick actions/decisions was just unmatched, really, ever. Jordan's not a ball-stopper, he's not a clogger, and that makes him a special kind of "iso" scorer. And as such I have confidence in his ability to be a lead-guard with good teammates around him or to play off-the-ball and still do his thing quite well (with some diminishing returns). And I think the height of the dynastic Bulls offenses supports that to a degree.

Do you really doubt that with a bit better management the team could have gotten even better? And once they are there, can you really not look at them as a championship level team?

Of course, because there is not a large gap between James and the other players we're discussing. Without going into four factors and such detail, just look at the broad strokes:

0 SRS team adds James --> maybe they go to 7 SRS.
3 SRS team adds James --> maybe they go to 9 SRS.

I view these as the same thing. So yes, with a better team, James "moves" into that category. I'm just fearing people are gawking at the 09 team as some crap team without LeBron (true to a degree) and some super-team with him (false). But would I rather have?

0 SRS team adds Bird --> maybe they go to 7 SRS.
3 SRS team add Bid --> maybe they go to 10 SRS.

Yes!

If you agree, than I'd say what we're talking about is not you only caring about championship level, but you looking better, and better, and better teams, until you're at the very zenith of what's possible. And then I don't think it makes sense to look at Jordan at #1. So how do you reconcile that?

While it's interesting to think of Jordan not being on a "dream" team (I could actually see that), I cannot ignore the 96 and 97 Bulls. The better you get, the less portability matters because the ceiling is so darn high to being with...and unlike the difference between +5 and+8 SRS teams, there isn't a huge difference between a true +11 (75%) and +14 (90%) team ITO of title odds. *reconciled*

[drza]

OK. Much as what happened last year in the Top 100 project, I typed out a long response to like the 10th post in the thread, then didn't get to finish it for family reasons, and when I came back to it hours later there have been like 60 more posts, some of which covering what I said. I don't care, I'm going to post at least some of it anyway:

Re: Duncan doing well by RAPM. What specifically are you seeing that you like? I'm not saying he's bad by any means, but from what I see, his offensive impact in his peak according to that metric is very underwhelming. I don't know how you can take that seriously, and also take his productivity that seriously. In fact, I'll say that Garnett's clear edge in APM & RAPM stats is part of what made me reconsider Duncan vs Garnett, Hakeem, and other people.

Year by year, RAPM from 04-08:

04 Duncan: +4.9 (+0.9 offense, +4.1 defense)
04 Garnett: +8.0 (+4.5 offense, +3.6 defense)

05 Duncan: +6.0 (+2.2 offense, +3.8 defense)
05 Garnett: +4.4 (+3.1 offense, +1.3 defense)

06 Duncan: +6.1 (+2.4 offense, +3.6 defense)
06 Garnett: +4.4 (+2.5 offense, +1.9 defense)

07 Duncan: +8.8 (+6.3 offense, +2.5 defense)
07 Garnett: +7.0 (+2.7 offense, +4.3 defense)

08 Duncan: +6.3 (+3.2 offense, +3.1 defense)
08 Garnett: +8.1 (+3.0 offense, +5.2 defense)

Where is KG's clear advantage here? And like I said, Duncan's 98-03 run isn't fully covered by RAPM (partially in 02 and 03), and that's when he was at his physical peak, so his defense may have been even better. Duncan comes out ahead of Garnett from 05-07, and is actually pretty close in 08. The only time KG has clearly outclassed Duncan according to RAPM is 04, which was his peak year.

A couple things:

1) Re: KG's APM advantages over Duncan. You and DocMJ are starting from different places regarding the utility of multi-year APM studies. I've seen Mystic make the case that multi-year APM isn't good, and from what he writes his argument is compelling, but having not looked at the data and analysis directly (and not having seen corroborating sources outside of Mystic) I'm not ready myself to completely disregard what had previously been considered a strong approach. I can't speak for Doc MJ, but my understanding is that he also hasn't been convinced that multi-year APM doesn't have value. At the most basic level, multi-year APM may have issues with players changing values through the years...but on the flip side, it is calculated entirely through real data. SPM and RAPM both require mathematical estimations based on regression schemes that actually change the data. It changes the data in ways that is potentially (very) useful, but it is still a change.

Anyway, my point here isn't to argue APM vs RAPM. Perhaps Mystic is right. I'm just pointing out that not everyone has been fully convinced to do away with multi-year APM, and as such that is one of the data points Doc MJ is using when he says that KG has "a clear edge" in the APM stats.

2) Re: KG's RAPM advantage. Even completely ignoring multi-year APM, KG still has an advantage in what we know of the RAPM studies at their peaks. Universally, in this project people will be voting 2003 as Duncan's peak and 2004 as Garnett's peak. Modifying the information you gave in your post above:

Year by year, RAPM from 2003 - 04:

03 Duncan: +5.0 overall (2nd in NBA):
(+1.3 offense (not ranked), +3.7 defense (2nd in NBA))

03 Garnett: +6.3 overall (1st in NBA):
(+3.6 offense (2nd in NBA), +2.8 defense (7th in NBA))

04 Duncan: +4.9 overall (3rd in NBA)
(+0.9 offense (not ranked), +4.1 defense (2nd in NBA))

04 Garnett: +8.0 overall (1st in NBA)
(+4.5 offense (1st in NBA), +3.6 defense (3rd in NBA))

In your post you mentioned RAPM not fully covering Duncan's 2003 peak, but it should be pretty accurate. Englemann's site has the full information for all of 2003, including the playoffs, and the 2003 estimate is supported by about 1/3 of 2002 including the entirety of the playoffs. Considering that the prior year is only used to stabilize the estimate for the current year, I think that 1/3 of season + playoffs is enough to perform that stabilization for 2003.

And what we see from RAPM only for those 2 seasons is that in both years Duncan had a small edge on defense while Garnett had a big edge on offense that, on the whole, made Garnett measure out as clearly the better player at their peaks using RAPM.

3) Re: Duncan and KG vs LeBron

When comparing across years for players at the very top, I'm not sure how much we can rely purely on numbers (be they RAPM, SPM, PER, whatever) as our separating factors. To some extent we can, but if we look at the rankings for several of these stats in the regular and postseason for these players, we see:

2003 Duncan - 3rd in PER (26.9), 2nd in postseason PER (28.4), 2nd in RAPM (+5.0), +24 playoffs on/off

2004 Garnett - 1st in PER (29.4), 2nd in postseason PER (25), 1st in RAPM (+8.0), +25 playoffs on/off

2009 LeBron - 1st in PER (31.7), 1st in postseason PER (37.4!), 1st in RAPM (+9.3), +11 playoffs on/off

I mean, in all 3 cases we're talking clearly at the top of the league in every measure. LeBron's postseason PER was crazy, but on the whole once you get to the top I'm not sure that there's enough info in his boxscore domination to say for sure that this was more valuable than the huge 2-way impacts that Duncan and Garnett were having. In the end, once the stats agree essentially that these guys are "best of best" caliber statistically, from there I think the discussion moves more to situational analysis, scouting, discussions like the "portability" issue, and things of that nature.

To me these are the three most impressive peak seasons of the past decade, with Dirk, Wade, Nash and Kobe a step back. I'm just not as convinced as some that LeBron is clearly (or at all) better than Duncan and KG. I think he'd be third among the three on my ballot.

[ElGee]

So, why is LeBron better on offense than Paul?
Why is LeBron better on offense than Kobe?

I've actually just been going through making some ratings to test out some of your SRS work, and I think the 3 players are quite debatable.

Isn't that a fun little exercise? Really makes you think about it in new ways.

LeBron vs Kobe, while I do think the answer might be closer than some think simply because of the inflation that comes with LeBron's ball dominance, to me the difference is about Kobe having some terrible habits. He's bought compltely into the idea that there's nothing better than beating a defense at their strongest point (aka, hero ball), and he does it better than anyone has any right to do, but it's still not where the smart money goes. At different points in his career, this tendency waxes and wanes, so in the context of this project, I might not give LeBron the edge on offense, but generally speaking I find LeBron's willingness to pass more than his ability to pass gives him the nod.

I look at Kobe's peak was 2008 (nod to healthy 2010 Kobe). I understand the abstract arguments for 2006, and especially 2007. His "balance" was much better in those years, so let's only focus on that.

In those times, Kobe still goes into hero ball mode, especially in the clutch. He still presses a bit and relies on the jumper against the crazy-good defenses, but he doesn't do it that much. There were some ugly games against Boston in 08, but he never shot it 35 times. He also worked incredibly well with Gasol, and worked quite well with his 3-point shooters, achieving some monstrously large offensive numbers at that point in time. As of right now, I side with peak Kobe.

[ElGee]

RE: RAPM

NB: My understanding was the values cannot be compared across years because of the way Engelmann did the math on the early years. As such, you cannot say 09 LeBron is 3x better than 02 Shaq.

Anyone who knows more about this please chime in.

[Chris435]

One other thing I wanted to ask you Elgee is Jordan's defense. I've seen you discuss his defense relative to other players, but what about Jordan's impact on that end? What class of players would you peg his defense in? This includes Pippen, Artest, Lebron, Moncrief, Bowen, Wade, etc.

[Doctor MJ]

@Doctor MJ

I appreciate the response, and I can't really respond in full right now, but a couple of questions I want to ask:

-Again, where did I say that leading a better defense equals being a better defender? I'm using that as a starting point for my argument...I'm seeing a team defense decline exactly when their superstar declines. I see a dominant defense when that superstar is dominant. And from the data I just checked with Duncan out in 05, it seems that the defense does pretty much fall apart without him. All I'm trying to say is that he was a dominant defender who anchored a dominant defense. I want to see Hakeem's case, there are still statistical ways to prove that.

No problem realbig, I think you have good thought.

To your point here: I'm actually rejecting your starting point. I'm saying it's leading you to err on one side that leaves any defense of your opinion in the face of incomplete data easily rebutted. Now, perhaps that's not the concern for you that it is for me and you want to continue in that, but I come to the opinions I have by playing internal chess against myself.

-I'm talking about the defensive RAPM data when I talk about Duncan vs Garnett from 04-07...Duncan clearly surpassed KG. And you say up until Minny falls apart, KG beats Duncan...so from the complete data we have (and thanks, for some reason I thought 03 was incomplete as well), you're talking about all of 2 years in 03 and 04? And not to mention the ceiling effect, when Duncan did have a better team, so his +5.0 in 03 was probably just as impressive as KG's +6.3 in 03. And again, he surpasses him defensively. And post-07, Duncan declined, so it seems a little unfair to point to KG's superior ranks from 08 onwards and say "See? KG's better!", when we know that Duncan was ranking much better in his earlier years and was clearly surpassing KG.

Well, it's '03 & '04 a lot , and I guess that doesn't sound like much. Perhaps I make too much of it because of my historical background here. +/- stats came out and Garnett was WAY ahead of Duncan in on/off at the exact time where the Duncan vs Garnett debate was really the debate for best player of the game.

At the time, the only defense for Duncan was the ceiling effect you describe, and then Minny fell off and the consensus swung to Duncan never to really get doubted again. Some of us though have long memories, and when Garnett shattered through the supposed ceiling on the Celtics, it made us completely re-evaluate majority opinion. If Garnett could slaughter Duncan by that metric on slightly weaker team, and he could keep it up on a great team, then how important is this ceiling effect anyway?

Of course there are other factors here:

-There is a clear potential ceiling effect on on/off data, but in APM, it's not so clear cut. And in APM, Garnett's lead remained. Ilardi came out with his 6-year APM estimates, and Garnett was totally off the charts.

-"The ceiling effect" ties directly into the "portability" phrase that ElGee's doing a great job of introducing into the discussion now, and of course when we see Garnett's ability to adapt his game ridiculously in Boston, it's pretty clear that Garnett's portability is far better than most stars, and hence a ceiling isn't going to apply to him that much.

I'll take a moment to touch on RAPM, and that it is the state of the art, and while it typically favors Garnett (not just the non-Minny nadir years, but in multi-year studies), it's not as extreme as APM or on/off. That's probably the thing to go by more than the other stuff, but I will say RAPM is systematically design to be skeptical of outlier data - the really out there stuff that's unlikely to repeat itself. Well, the stuff that happened to Garnett's teammates, that was one of the most amazing runs of "unlikely to repeat itself" stuff I've seen.

RAPM may have been correct in essentially labeling things as luck, but in the court of public opinion, they weren't being labeled as luck, or as a positive for Garnett. They were being used against Garnett unknowingly to end the Duncan vs Garnett debate prematurely.

-I really don't understand why just because Duncan gives you more on defense than on offense that it's a contradiction to say Duncan's offense was great. Duncan gave you great productivity, and so offensively he was great. On top of that, according to RAPM, he's even better defensively than he is offensively.

I don't get why it would be a contradiction to praise both. He was dominant offensively, and it's actually more of a testament to how good he was if we can also say he was even better defensively. His great defense shouldn't take away from his offense.

Oh wow, you're really struggling with the logic here. Sorry that sounds condescending, but you're struggling. I'm having trouble thinking of how I can really get at the root of it for you so I'll just stay literal:

Productivity and Offensive RAPM are not measuring the same thing. These are not meters and feet where you can simply convert from one to the other. Hence, you cannot say "Well productivity says the offense is alright, so by definition whether RAPM says about offense is officially 'alright', and I'll just judge defense by using Offensive vs Defensive RAPM proportions.".

Productivity, to the extent it is measuring offense, in 2003 it's telling you that Duncan is the best in the league. Offensive RAPM on the other hand is telling you that Duncan is 34th in the league. Right there, you have to stop and recognize that the two metrics are disagreeing with each other VERY strongly. They can't both be right, so what you need to apportion credibility. Either you side with one, or the other, or you keep using both but with not a ton of confidence on their own.

You're still using both, so that means you should be acting cautious with them. Instead, you're using them as a foundation for your analysis as if they are allies. That's a problem. It makes it so that, for example, I can rebut your arguments before you even get started. I can't imagine that's what you want.

[colts18]

3) Re: Duncan and KG vs LeBron

When comparing across years for players at the very top, I'm not sure how much we can rely purely on numbers (be they RAPM, SPM, PER, whatever) as our separating factors. To some extent we can, but if we look at the rankings for several of these stats in the regular and postseason for these players, we see:

2003 Duncan - 3rd in PER (26.9), 2nd in postseason PER (28.4), 2nd in RAPM (+5.0), +24 playoffs on/off

2004 Garnett - 1st in PER (29.4), 2nd in postseason PER (25), 1st in RAPM (+8.0), +25 playoffs on/off

2009 LeBron - 1st in PER (31.7), 1st in postseason PER (37.4!), 1st in RAPM (+9.3), +11 playoffs on/off

I mean, in all 3 cases we're talking clearly at the top of the league in every measure. LeBron's postseason PER was crazy, but on the whole once you get to the top I'm not sure that there's enough info in his boxscore domination to say for sure that this was more valuable than the huge 2-way impacts that Duncan and Garnett were having. In the end, once the stats agree essentially that these guys are "best of best" caliber statistically, from there I think the discussion moves more to situational analysis, scouting, discussions like the "portability" issue, and things of that nature.

To me these are the three most impressive peak seasons of the past decade, with Dirk, Wade, Nash and Kobe a step back. I'm just not as convinced as some that LeBron is clearly (or at all) better than Duncan and KG. I think he'd be third among the three on my ballot.

The postseason +/- is all but meaningless because the SSS of off court data (only 18 minutes of off court data vs. Lakers). But the on court data does have some meaning. KG played at least 42 Minutes in every playoff game but 2. I'll compare KG with LeBron first then I'll add Duncan.

LeBron 35-9-7, .399 WS/48, .618 TS%, 128 O rating-100 D rating
KG 24-14-5, .163 WS/48, .513 TS%, 100 O Rating-95 D rating

LeBron's WS/48 was over 2x higher and his TS% is 10 points higher. That efficiency gap is huge. If KG shot at LeBron's efficiency, he would have scored 90 more points which would add up 5 PPG extra.

On Court +/-:
LeBron 09: +15.0
KG 04: +2.5

Massive difference

avg Game score:
KG 19.2
LeBron 29.9



KG's team was outscored for the whole playoffs despite having HCA throughout. They +3.1 defensively compared to the average in those playoffs while the Cavs were -5.0. Cavs were +4.9 offensively compared to TWolves +3.1.