#11 Highest Peak of All Time (Garnett '04 wins)

[colts18]

Uhh, to me, it's looking a bit like between KG and Doc here to me, with Walton lurking on the outside. I can't see the latter at this level mainly because he really did not seem to be a prolific scorer at all, and I'm not sure if his high-post passing was Russell/Wilt level. I know he brought enormous contributions on the rebounding/defensive end, but his '77 Portland defense was -1.5 or something in that range, I think, and Russell's peak defenses were -10ish. Not sure if that's enough to cover up for his lack of scoring in comparison to the others.

That's because Walton was injured. They were better when he played. In the post I posted in the OP I showed that the Blazers played better than the 96 Bulls in the regular season when Walton played in 77 and 78. Thats how much impact he had. He took a below average team to 96 Bulls level.

[mysticbb]

But if you add 5-10 teams the league will be weaker as a whole. That's also ignoring the fact that young talent wasn't flying out in the early 70s and the league was thin anyway.

Is there any evidence that this is true? Or is that just idle speculation on your part?

As I said in my last post, we're not comparing the average ABA or NBA player. We're comparing the best of that era vs the best in other eras. And with the best, sometimes it's only against the other best that their warts show. If LeBron played in a league that didn't include the Celtics, there's a very real chance that he posts better playoff stats and leads his team to the Finals every year between 2007 and 2012. That would be a much different (and better) result than what happened for LeBron in real life, even if he himself isn't different. I don't see why it's ridiculous to apply that same line of thought to Dr. J.

You have a big misconception here. First, in average the opponents will be average, that is true for a league of 15 teams as well as for a team of 30 teams. If you devide the talent equally, both times the league will be equally strong. Your analogy failed, because you are taking out a good team, completely changing the scenario and devide the talent not equally. That is not what I was talking about and that is not what happened between NBA and ABA. The fact remains that the players kept their performance level over average in a merged league, when the numbers of professional teams were reduced from 27 to 22. Sorry, but if you can't grasp that, I really don't know how to explain that deviding up a group of people into two equal groups will not change the average player level.

Even today the teams are not playing all the same schedule due to the different conferences. If you have a problem with that for ABA and NBA, you might as well have the problem with today's league as well.

Re-read what I wrote. I said "statistical domination". In Kareem's case this is more in the counting stats, as his top-7 scoring and top-7 rebounding seasons by volume all happened before the merger, and he never got there again afterwards. He got more efficient, but lost the volume. Statistically, what Kareem accomplished in 1971 was greater than what he did in 1977, AND he also won the title. But I think 1977 was more impressive, at least in part because he was doing what he did against tougher competition.

That is a silly argumentation, and you should know way better than that. Check out his minutes and the differences in pace, and you might as well have the much better explanation for the lower overall numbers.

And as for Erving, again, I don't suggest that his changed role might not have been a factor.

Might not? Seriously, look how Garnett's numbers changed with the changed role going from the Timberwolves to the Celtics. Or Chris Bosh going from a 23/10 guy to be a 18/8 player. That was probably also because of some merged leagues. :roll:

What I reject is the notion that going from the ABA to the NBA wasn't ANOTHER factor.

I guess you care way too much about the absolute numbers here. Erving had a different role, played closer to the own basket, was asked to rebound the hell out of the ball for the Nets, and he done that all. Give him the same role in a merged league and he is producing similar numbers. The last 3 seasons on the Nets Erving had 25.5/9.8/4.7 with 2.1 steals and 1.9 blocked shots per 36 min, from 1980 to 1982 Erving has 25.9/7.6/4.4 with 2.1 steals and 1.8 blocked shots per 36 min. Oh well, the bigger rebounding numbers were likely due to worse rebounders in the ABA, not due to circumstances on the Nets. :roll:

And again, we're talking about outliers here. Doc J was not an average player by any stretch of the imagination, and none of your statistical analysis has any kind of curve to correct for player quality.

Seriously, what kind of crap is that? Are you not understanding that in average they just played against average players for the most part? That is also true for today's league.

And for me, the level that you're producing isn't enough. For me.

Yeah, because you are closing your eyes and pretend it is just like you want it to have.

mystic just wrote a great post where he said 90% of the player-minutes were carried over from both leagues. Sounds about right. So if you wanted to say that the merged league was "10% tougher" or something like that, I wouldn't complain.

And that is not even the case. Most of that is normal fluctation (rookies, retired players, end of bench guys). That is just what happened. If anything, we could look at the drop of the NBA players by 4% and can interpret the numbers of the NBA players in 1976 as if they were inflated by 4%. So, of drza likes, he can claim that the NBA players in 1976 had it easier than the ABA players in 1976. But well, we should probably just reduce the sample size here and go with a few selected players ignoring role changes, possible injuries, etc. pp. :roll:

[Doctor MJ]

and changed almost whole roster!
(minimum 1000 minutes played)
1976
Simpson
Skywalker
Issel
Jones
CH. Williams
Beck
Terry
Gerard


1977
Skywalker
Issel
Jones
McClain
Silas
Taylor
Wise
Price
Webster

So only 3 rotation players were the same on both teams and of course coach.

Well this is a good post DS. You're bringing new things to the table.

You overstate things though. "Only 3 rotation players"?

First off, the 3 guys you're talking about are the nucleus. They are the 3 stars on the '76-77 team. EVERYBODY else is a journeyman just happy to be playing somewhere. All you are talking about is depth man. That's it.

I'll also mention that Webster was on both teams, and that Williams and Gerard were in the rotation in '77 until they got traded, and that Denver's record was better before the trade.

I won't claim though that Denver's moves for depth were of no importance, so it's good point you make.

And 1976 Nuggets weren't anything special on defense. Only -0.7 drtg, so just below league average. 1977 team changed most of the roster and improved a lot defensively: -3.4 drtg. Completely different teams. 1976 version was offensively oriented, 1977 defensively.

You're missing a huge point though here. What's so remarkable about defense in these two years is how much the ABA influenced the elite defense in the NBA post-merger.

1. The best defensive team in the ABA was the Nets. They got broken up by the merger of course. Their best defensive player, Erving, gets moved to Philly, and they see their defense improve to Top 5 levels. The hapless Erving-less Nets fall apart...but their defense is STILL better than NBA average (defense fell hard, but it was the offense that turned into a total joke).

2. The second best defensive team in the ABA was the Colonels. They of course weren't allowed into the NBA, because the Bulls' had NBA rights to their star player Artis Gilmore and wouldn't agree to the merger if Kentucky was allowed in the league. Gilmore would lead the Bulls to the #2 defense in the NBA that next year.

3. The third best defensive team in the ABA was the NUGGETS! Think about what that means. This is a 6 team league (for most of the season). How good would you expect the Nuggets relative DRtg to look if they are only 3rd of 6? Not very good obviously.

The Nuggets were a roughly average team in the ABA...but they were the best ABA defense that got to keep it's core together going into the merger, and that turned our to be good enough to be better than any other defense still existing on the planet....and we're seriously debating whether Erving torching that core should be treated as if it was a minor league defense?

How am I the only one who sees this as crazy?

One last point getting into the numbers here: You're really using some small numbers as if they're big.

You're talking about a difference of 2.7 between Nugget defenses. The Nets' offense by comparison dropped off by over 7 points in between those years, which is not too far difference from what happened to the Cavs when they lost LeBron (that was over 8 though). So the number you're talking about is small, and when you then remember that the median points for the two different leagues have no reason to be considered equal, it's pretty hard for me to fathom acting like these are two completely different teams.

[mysticbb]

it matters in our discussion because the whole "Dr J led his team to a title" means a lot less.

That shouldn't be used as an argument anyway.

[ThaRegul8r]

Dr. J - Was competition a factor? He played in a split league during the mid 70s. A pretty weak era (off the top of my head the next great draft class was in 79 and 73 is probably bottom 5 along with some others) by many accounts and the weakest era IMO.
Is he highly portable? His next season marked a major fall in numbers and impact. Some say his relationship with McGinnis is the reason why but I'm not sure if that completely explains it away. His game was mostly putbacks, cuts, and transition baskets (with the occasional post up) so it seems his game should be portable.

It's as though I never posted in detail about this, including his own teammate's admission about the team's part in it. It seems people already come into the subject with their own preconceptions and no amount of facts presented will change that preconception.

Oh well.

[lorak]

The Nuggets were a roughly average team in the ABA...but they were the best ABA defense that got to keep it's core together going into the merger, and that turned our to be good enough to be better than any other defense still existing on the planet....and we're seriously debating whether Erving torching that core should be treated as if it was a minor league defense?

The core you are talking about is: Skywalker, Issel and Jones. First two weren't good defenders. Jones obviously has great defensive reputation, but seriously, I don't see his impact, I think he is overrated as defender and I think '77 Nuggets defense was so good more because of Silas than Jones.

Anyway, I don't know how you can still repeat that Erving torched that "great" (not so great looking at drtg relatively to LA) Nuggets defense, when in fact he faced completely different team in 1976 (offensively oriented).

mysticbb,
you convinced me that talent level was equal. Still, I'm not sold on Dr J, not yet anyway, but I will vote for him soon (Walton and Wade are in the same group as Doc for me). But now my vote goes to: KG 2004

[colts18]

I still don't see why Dirk is not being discussed. He beat 7 All-NBA players, he beat a 5+ SRS team and 3 7+ SRS teams. he did this with no other all-stars on his team. He had similar regular season impact to Walton and better than Dr. J or KG. In the postseason he was better than KG and similar to Walton/Dr. J. You have to go back to 94 to find a champion with a supporting cast as weak as Dirk's.

[mysticbb]

mysticbb,
you convinced me that talent level was equal. Still, I'm not sold on Dr J, not yet anyway, but I will vote for him soon (Walton and Wade are in the same group as Doc for me). But now my vote goes to: KG 2004

I don't think that Garnett or Erving or Walton are unreasonable selections at that point. Hard to seperate such players when we just consider peak level of play. But I'm somewhat surprised by seeing Wade's name here, even though he had nice peak. But I'm probably just somewhat less impressed.

[colts18]

I don't think that Garnett or Erving or Walton are unreasonable selections at that point. Hard to seperate such players when we just consider peak level of play. But I'm somewhat surprised by seeing Wade's name here, even though he had nice peak. But I'm probably just somewhat less impressed.

That's because he beat your team with the help of the refs. He had arguably the best finals ever. His postseason performance was better than Walton's or KG's especially his Pistons and Mavs series (both top 10 defenses). In the 2 series vs. the Pistons/Mavs, Wade averaged 31/7/5, 2.3 stls, 1.3 blks, .616 TS%. That's is better than some of the guys we are discussing in this thread.

[mysticbb]

I still don't see why Dirk is not being discussed.

Likely his production level during the regular season is the answer. His SPM in the playoffs was actually as high as in his peak seasons in terms of production and efficiency (2006, 2007), which is quite impressive. If I look at my blended SPM+RAPM values, I have 2006, 2007 and 2011 at the same level, being slighly higher (really, really slightly :)) than Wade in his best seasons (2006, 2009 and 2010). I would say choosing between Wade and Nowitzki would be based upon personal preference more than anything. But I also have them behind Garnett 2004 anyway, and I find the arguments for Walton or Erving pretty reasonable as well. Oh well, I don't have a vote anyway, thus I shouldn't think about it too much ...

[colts18]

In the final 4 finals games when his team was down 12 with 8 minutes to go down 2-0, Wade stepped it up with one of the greatest performances ever. His final 4 games stats were 39-8-4, .616 TS%, 18 FTA, only 9.3 TOV%, 122 O rating. And he did this with guys like Antoine Walker, Jason Williams, Posey as his supporting cast. Not an championship supporting cast. He drew 18 FTA per game. That's what his team needed to win and Wade did it. Walton was averaging 3 FTA/game and KG under 5 FTA/game during their primes. Wade was doubling that and putting the opposing team in foul trouble

[therealbig3]

Well, I've got T-Mac, Kobe, and Wade as pretty inseparable in terms of peak, and I'd barely take Dirk ahead of all of them.

BTW, I am getting a little concerned though about T-Mac's unimpressive RAPM in 03. It doesn't make much intuitive sense to me, because when Kobe and Wade had to carry poor teams, they had big RAPM values. How does someone like peak T-Mac, who plays pretty much just like them, and does many important things superior than them (scoring, passing, taking care of the ball), end up with unimpressive RAPM as opposed to them?

I can't help but think it has something to do with only partial season data from 02 being used, or maybe something about his team that year. Like, if RAPM is about scoring margin on the court, if no matter what the lineups were that they put out there around T-Mac, they would still be unimpressive in terms of scoring margin.

Or is it really the case that T-Mac simply wasn't on their peak level, despite the box score and the eye test very clearly telling us that he was?

[colts18]

Well, I've got T-Mac, Kobe, and Wade as pretty inseparable in terms of peak, and I'd barely take Dirk ahead of all of them.

BTW, I am getting a little concerned though about T-Mac's unimpressive RAPM in 03. It doesn't make much intuitive sense to me, because when Kobe and Wade had to carry poor teams, they had big RAPM values. How does someone like peak T-Mac, who plays pretty much just like them, and does many important things superior than them (scoring, passing, taking care of the ball), end up with unimpressive RAPM as opposed to them?

I can't help but think it has something to do with only partial season data from 02 being used, or maybe something about his team that year. Like, if RAPM is about scoring margin on the court, if no matter what the lineups were that they put out there around T-Mac, they would still be unimpressive in terms of scoring margin.

Or is it really the case that T-Mac simply wasn't on their peak level, despite the box score and the eye test very clearly telling us that he was?

What was T-Mac's APM that year?

[therealbig3]

All I've got is his single year RAPM from 03 (T-Mac):

ORAPM: +1.4
DRAPM: -0.5

Overall: +0.9

That's way below guys like Duncan and Garnett, who he was being compared to, and a lot lower than Kobe as well, who was +3.0 that year (+2.5 offense, +0.5 defense).

[SideshowBob]

Well, I've got T-Mac, Kobe, and Wade as pretty inseparable in terms of peak, and I'd barely take Dirk ahead of all of them.

BTW, I am getting a little concerned though about T-Mac's unimpressive RAPM in 03. It doesn't make much intuitive sense to me, because when Kobe and Wade had to carry poor teams, they had big RAPM values. How does someone like peak T-Mac, who plays pretty much just like them, and does many important things superior than them (scoring, passing, taking care of the ball), end up with unimpressive RAPM as opposed to them?

I can't help but think it has something to do with only partial season data from 02 being used, or maybe something about his team that year. Like, if RAPM is about scoring margin on the court, if no matter what the lineups were that they put out there around T-Mac, they would still be unimpressive in terms of scoring margin.

Or is it really the case that T-Mac simply wasn't on their peak level, despite the box score and the eye test very clearly telling us that he was?

RAPM doesn't cover any time we would consider OFF (correct me if I'm wrong). 82games tells us that ORL was a -8.9 with him off the floor (+11.8 net overall), however the individual player/team pages for 02-03 aren't available, and thus we can't get a look at the Off/Def splits.

A quick look at the 03 ORL SRS with Mcgrady IN/OUT (excluding the 1 game in which he did not start)

74 Games IN: -0.22 SRS, 106.1 ORTG, 105.4 DRTG
7 Games OUT: -0.80 SRS, 97.8 ORTG, 99.2 DRTG

So what to take from that? It seems both the IN/OUT numbers and the RAPM data are suggesting that Mcgrady was hurting the defense (not necessarily directly, they might have just been running more defensive-minded lineups with him off the floor). Again, it's hard to make to many conclusions without the Off/Def On/Off splits, as then we could compare what we see in the RAPM study for the other top tier players with the On/Off data. Though I don't want to come to any hasty conclusions, I still find myself leaning towards Mcgrady just not having the kind of impact his box-score numbers would suggest, but that doesn't necessarily diminish him; as you said, it could just be because of the god-awful cast he had around him, that just so poorly fit that he just wasn't able to get much out of them

[An Unbiased Fan]

Well, I've got T-Mac, Kobe, and Wade as pretty inseparable in terms of peak, and I'd barely take Dirk ahead of all of them.

BTW, I am getting a little concerned though about T-Mac's unimpressive RAPM in 03. It doesn't make much intuitive sense to me, because when Kobe and Wade had to carry poor teams, they had big RAPM values. How does someone like peak T-Mac, who plays pretty much just like them, and does many important things superior than them (scoring, passing, taking care of the ball), end up with unimpressive RAPM as opposed to them?

I can't help but think it has something to do with only partial season data from 02 being used, or maybe something about his team that year. Like, if RAPM is about scoring margin on the court, if no matter what the lineups were that they put out there around T-Mac, they would still be unimpressive in terms of scoring margin.

Or is it really the case that T-Mac simply wasn't on their peak level, despite the box score and the eye test very clearly telling us that he was?

Tmac didn't really carry the Magic anywhere, so I'm not surprised that his utility rating was low. I really wish the old BSPN boards were still around so people could see how Tmac was viewed back then.

But for those who think Tmac carried the Magic, look at their record before he got there.

2000 - No Tmac, yet Orlando goes 41-41, 0.43 SRS. Doc Rivers wins COY

2001 - Tmac joins, Orlando goes 43-39, 0.38 SRS. So we see that the Magic win only 2 more gmaes, and their SRS actually drops.

2002 - Orlando goes 44-38, 1.25 SRS. Tmac is peaking, but they're still not much better than they were 2 years before without him.

2003 - Orlando goes 42-40, -0.39 SRS. Tmac is a big primadonna this year, and played little defense. HIS numbers get better, but at the expense of his team. People can look at his PER, or WS, or whatever, BUT the guy was a horrible leader, took credit when things went well, and threw his teammates under the bus when it went wrong.

2004 - Orlando goes 21-62, -7.25 SRS. Tmac actually sits out games at the end just to preserve his scoring title. Says it all. he then wants out of ORl.

The problem is that people look at Orlando and assume it was a crappy team without Tmac, but they were a 40+ win team before he even got there. In fact, Toronto did better without Tmac too, in 2001.

I'm just baffled why people overrated Tmac so much.

[GSP]

I still don't see why Dirk is not being discussed.

Likely his production level during the regular season is the answer. His SPM in the playoffs was actually as high as in his peak seasons in terms of production and efficiency (2006, 2007), which is quite impressive. If I look at my blended SPM+RAPM values, I have 2006, 2007 and 2011 at the same level, being slighly higher (really, really slightly ) than Wade in his best seasons (2006, 2009 and 2010). I would say choosing between Wade and Nowitzki would be based upon personal preference more than anything. But I also have them behind Garnett 2004 anyway, and I find the arguments for Walton or Erving pretty reasonable as well. Oh well, I don't have a vote anyway, thus I shouldn't think about it too much ...

Just curious but around where you have Dirk and Wade? Say after Garnett, DrJ and Walton are in, would those two have arguments after? Do you see Dirks peak superior to someone like Barkley?

[C-izMe]

If it explains anything I checked his raw +/- from that season and iirc it was between (per 100 possessions) +10~+11 (~+14 offensively) and I remember thinking it matched up strangely well with Wade's in 09. I'll try to see if I can find it because I posted it on realgm before and I don't have my laptop.

But it seemed way more in line with what I expected.

[bastillon]

it matters in our discussion because the whole "Dr J led his team to a title" means a lot less.

That shouldn't be used as an argument anyway.

yes, you're right. but it is used as an argument by some people and it needs to be pointed out that his title isn't as valuable on a team level because his team wasn't necessarily the best team in the world. he was more like a conference champion to me.

[bastillon]

Dr. J - Was competition a factor? He played in a split league during the mid 70s. A pretty weak era (off the top of my head the next great draft class was in 79 and 73 is probably bottom 5 along with some others) by many accounts and the weakest era IMO.
Is he highly portable? His next season marked a major fall in numbers and impact. Some say his relationship with McGinnis is the reason why but I'm not sure if that completely explains it away. His game was mostly putbacks, cuts, and transition baskets (with the occasional post up) so it seems his game should be portable.

It's as though I never posted in detail about this, including his own teammate's admission about the team's part in it. It seems people already come into the subject with their own preconceptions and no amount of facts presented will change that preconception.

Oh well.

good post from reg as always. it's almost been beaten to death in several threads on realGM so I think it's high time that everybody knows it. 77-79 Doc had some issues with health and his role on the team was far from perfect. McGinnis/Erving were like Wade/LeBron in terms of their dynamics. it was impossible for them to maintain their numbers. health was a major part of this as well, and Doc himself admitted it multiple times. you can watch some '79 NBA games with Doc (this stuff is available on the internet to download) and they were saying this multiple times. then in '80 Doc's health improved a lot and so his numbers went back up. as a matter of fact his 80-82 numbers are right in line with his pre-merger production. the only difference is mins/pace. so what we're seeing from Doc in 80-82 (awesome playoff performer, outplayed Bird in the postseason, might as well be the best finals performer of those years, lost to LA/BOS who were the eventual champs) is pretty much what we would be expecting from '76 Doc. there's no need to mythologize ABA Doc.