#13 Highest Peak of All Time (Julius '76 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

Bill Walton '77 is enshrined. We move on.

[Lightning25]

I think Kobe's name needs to start popping up but he is a tough because it's hard to determine his best season. You could argue '01, '03, '06, '07, '08, or '09. If you guys thought Lebron's peak was a pain, this will be 10x worse.

[ElGee]

Robinson still has my vote here unless proven otherwise. I'll wait to drop an official vote. Wade v Kobe v Mac should be a great debate. Right now I have it Wade, then a few guys till Kobe, then a guys till Mac, but that order is flexible as all these guys are fairly close. Food for thought:

2007 Wade (healthy) v 2007 Kobe

Both right around “peak” level offense for these players, and an interesting comparison to note. We can view LA without Lamar Odom but with Bryant for 25g. We can view Miami without Shaq but with Wade for 33g before Wade's devastating shoulder injury.

Miami
Mourning (the 2007, last legs version)
Haslem
Wright/Kapono
Wade
Payton (the 2007, last legs version), J Williams

33g In: 106.9 Ortg (+0.0), 0.2 SRS
7 g Out: 101.2 Ortg (-5.8), -11.2 SRS

Team stats in those 33 g
Wade 28.4 ppg 58% TS 7.8 apg 11.1 FTA 4.0 TOV 4.9 rpg 2.1 spg 1.2 bpg
Haslem 11.2 ppg 53% TS 8.6 rpg
Kapono 10.4 ppg 64% TS
Williams 10.2 ppg 53% TS 5.1 apg
Mourning 10.1 ppg 58% TS 5.7 rpg 2.9 bpg
Walker 8.8 ppg 48% TS

3-pt shooting outside Wade: 35.0%
FT shooting outside Wade: 69.6%

LA
Kwame/Bynum (19-year old Bynum)
Cook (or Vlad off the bench – basically a stretch 4)
Walton
Kobe
Smush

Controlling for Kobe...
52g In (Odom): 109.3 Ortg (+2.5), 0.7 SRS
25g Out (Odom): 108.5 Ortg (+3.2), -0.9 SRS

Kobe 30.0 ppg 59% TS 6.3 apg 10.4 FTA 3.4 TOV 5.8 rpg 1.1 spg 0.6 bpg
Smush 13.0 ppg 57% TS
Walton 10.8 ppg 50% TS 4.6 apg
Cook 9.5 ppg 58% TS
Evans 9.2 ppg 54% TS
Bynum 8.9 ppg 61% TS 6.8 rpg 2.0 bpg

3-pt shooting outside Kobe: 37.4%
FT shooting outside Kobe: 69.7%

So in this quick sampling experiment, the first thing we notice is that Bryant's offense with really no one else, other than Tex Winter's triangle as an ally, does quite well without any semblance of a second-best player. Of course, we can also note the use of the stretch 4 in Lamar's absence. But there's something else to note, which is the 3-point shooting (which is not unrelated to the use of stretch 4's).

If Wade's teammates shot the ball at 37.4%, they would improve their SRS by 2.9 points and the team's relative Ortg would be almost exactly inline with LA's over this stretch. Now, this is nothing more than a coincidence in these samples, but Smush Parker provided a far better spot-up option for Kobe than anyone did for Dwyane Wade. Consider over this stretch:

3-point shooting over sampled stretch
LA
Smush 37-83 (45%)
S. Williams 8-16 (50%)
Farmar 0-4 (0%)
Total: 43.6%

Mia
J. Williams 50-149 (34%)
Payton 24-83 (29%)
C. Quinn 7-29 (24%)
Total: 31.0%

Wade's spot up “point guards” did not convert their opportunities. Kobe's did. THIS is the difference between Miami looking as good or better than LA over this stretch, and it has nothing to do with Kobe or Wade, it has to do with performance (and variance) in their teammates “Helped Offense.” Wade and Kobe have done the creation (Wade probably more so, but if spot-up shooters don't convert, the offense will suffer.

So we now encounter a theme we've seen over and over again recently. How do you allocate credit between the creator and the person being created for? One statistical attempt that I'm obviously partial to is in my Opportunities Created credit of Expected Value, which is based on the idea that an open 3 is worth something like 13% more on average. (http://www.backpicks.com/2011/04/03/hel ... teammates/) Of course, this is player dependent...but the point is I think we should expect open spot-up shooters to convert at some given rate – eg 38%. Anything over that is value specifically brought by the shooter, and anything under is value lost from the shooter. I digress.

Kobe did miss 5 measly games that should be mentioned. LA posted a 110.8 Ortg (+2.3) and a 0.8 SRS in those 5 games. (This said good things about Odom and the triangle to me. Odom actually missed the 5th of these games and they were blown out by 20 in Milwaukee.) All told, similar situations (different offensive structures), similar results, from similar offensive quality players. Miami looks like the better defensive team and defensive rebounding team. The Lakers definitely have more of an offensive bend with their stretch 4 and with Walton as a passer.

Otherwise, similar teams with results, we could normalize the 3-point shooting to 37.4% to try and create a fairer picture, but...that's slightly unfair because LA's sacrificing D to improve their O. So let's make a more fair adjustment for one final look at these stretches in 2007. Both teams “point guards” shoot 37.4%.

Miami: 1.7 SRS
LA: -1.7 SRS

You should not be jumping up and down and saying “Wade's better!” at this news. But it should be a data point to consider when thinking about these guys. In other words, if those were the rosters, and they had the same “spot up PG's” in essence, how would you treat these players if Miami won 46 games and Los Angeles won 36?

(PS if you lean toward post-injury Wade as a peak, it's understandable to treat the 2006-07 data with a grain of salt.)

[ThaRegul8r]

Well, this makes things simple for me.

Vote: Erving '76.

[Dr Positivity]

I'm leaning towards Wade having the highest peak of the players left. The question is, does 2010 Wade have a case over 2006 if we get away from the Winning Bias? 2009 Wade is clearly the best regular season albeit I can't vote for it because of the playoffs. I think he was right at Lebron's level in the 2009 regular season. 2010 may seem like a surprising choice because he was probably coasting that regular season, knowing the big moves would come that summer. However statistically he isn't any worse in it in the 2006 regular season. It's just in 2006 he was young vs seemingly saving himself in 2010 but if the results are the same it's not a big deal. Also despite seeming like a worse player in 2010 than in 2009, this team was better - In fact winning 47 Gs and getting 2.0 SRS with Jermaine O'Neal, Michael Beasley, Haslem, Qrich, and a bunch of scraps is actually REALLY impressive impact. That supporting cast sucks for a comfortable playoff team, like at a KG Timberwolves/06 Lakers level of sucks. I think Wade was a much better defensive player in 2010 than 2006. In both seasons he's incredible in the playoffs. In fact 2010 against the Celtics might be the best playoff series performance of his career. The argument for 2010 Wade would be that he didn't lose anything from the 2009 RS which I think most agree is the most complete version of Wade we've seen, he just saved himself for the playoffs and then the real Wade came out

I'm probably going to have to change my vote but...

Vote 2010 Wade

[JLei]

I'm leaning towards Wade having the highest peak of the players left. The question is, does 2010 Wade have a case over 2006 if we get away from the Winning Bias? 2009 Wade is clearly the best regular season albeit I can't vote for it because of the playoffs. I think he was right at Lebron's level in the 2009 regular season. 2010 may seem like a surprising choice because he was probably coasting that regular season, knowing the big moves would come that summer. However statistically he isn't any worse in it in the 2006 regular season. It's just in 2006 he was young vs seemingly saving himself in 2010. Also despite seeming like a worse player in 2010 than in 2009, this team was better - In fact winning 47 Gs and getting 2.0 SRS with Jermaine O'Neal, Michael Beasley, Haslem, Qrich, and a bunch of scraps is actually REALLY impressive impact. That supporting cast sucks for a comfortable playoff team, like at a KG Timberwolves/06 Lakers level of sucks. I think Wade was a much better defensive player in 2010 than 2006. In both seasons he's incredible in the playoffs. In fact 2010 against the Celtics might be the best playoff series performance of his career. The argument for 2010 Wade would be that he didn't lose anything from the 2009 RS which I think most agree is the most complete version of Wade we've seen, he just saved himself for the playoffs and then the real Wade came out

I'm probably going to have to change my vote but...

Vote 2010 Wade

What makes his 2009 playoffs so bad that you would choose 2010 over 2009 Wade?

[ThaRegul8r]

I'll be paying attention to arguments for the next group of guys as I haven't decided on who and where yet.

[drza]

I was curious as to whether Doc would win this in a walk, or whether it would be a competition. Early returns suggest competition.

I'm partial to hearing/making cases for Oscar Robertson and David Robinson, outside of the wing talk we're getting early. I remember coming away from the RPoY project incredibly impressed with Oscar, and having that re-kindled last year in the top-100 project. Essentially the argument that I remember is that Oscar was basically the progenitor for Magic and LeBron, somewhat combined together. His team offenses were always at the top of the NBA, usually with him leading the league in assists and often in scoring as well (at great efficiency), and at least one of his in/out seasons was like off-the-wall spectacular.

As for DRob, stylistically he fits the mold of the player type that has been most impressing me in this project. He's the 7-footer with super-elite defense that is also strong enough to carry an offense in the right circumstances and is both unselfish and a great team player. Seems ultra- portable, and if the +/- stats existed in the 90s I don't doubt that Robinson would have been among the annual league leaders. Plus...for a center, his game and entrance to the league were just electric. He moved in ways that 7-footers weren't supposed to, and he was absurdly athletic. His postseason struggles have dropped him down in previous projects, but with us picking a single season I don't know that him getting embarrassed by Hakeem in '95 is such an indictment since Hakeem was top-5 in this project. Plus, with the concepts of portability being brought forth here, it seems to me that Robinson would fit on any type of championship contending team.

[Dr Positivity]

Wade was inconsistent in the 09 playoffs. Games 1 and 4 were awful statistically - 8-21 with 8 TOVs in G1, 9-26 in G4, and weak FTA in each - 5.5 and 9.6 Game Score respectively in those games which is a terrible number. I don't love Game Score but to give an idea, only 4 of Wade's 79 regular season games were under 10 Game Score, and the 5.5 from Game 1 of the series was the worst score he recorded the whole year. In the 7th game he went 10 for 25. Because of his other performances I think it was a respectable enough performance to still make 09 an amazing year, but I'd rather have 2010's combination of a better playoffs and weaker RS than 2009's better RS and weaker PS if I was trying to win a title, especially considering the Heat's team results indicate Wade's 2010 RS impact may have been comparable anyways

[Doctor MJ]

I totally get that Dr. J had a dominant playoff run of 13 games, 6 of which were against an all-time great defender, on his way to a championship.

But from strictly a value/skillset standpoint I'm having a hard time seeing Dr. J's inclusion with the "sacreds" (whose peaks, I would generally agree, are a step above the rest). Based on the discussion so far it seems like a given that he'll be voted #13...but why, exactly? To me he seems closer to the next group of guys (Robinson, Wade, Kobe, etc.) than he does to the top 12 assuming Walton takes this one... Offensively, a step or two down from guys like Wade, Kobe, McGrady; defensively it's harder to say but although I do think Dr. J was a disruptive defensive player I don't see his defense clearly pushing him over the Wade/Kobe group and into the top 12 group. Personally I wonder if I'd even have him top 15, again, from purely a value/skillset/impact perspective which is how I'm evaluating these players' peaks for my own personal list.

I wanted to start things off by putting this post in people's mind, and by me responding to it.

My first thought is that I'm not really one for Immortal or Sacred groupings. I don't have a problem with what they represent - a clear tier, after which there's a clear dropoff - I just rarely see anything as that cut. As such, I certainly don't have a problem with Erving being debated with other guys for the 13 spot, I'm just weirded out though if everyone else things that we really had anything so clear cut BEFORE the 13 spot.

Second thing I'll say is that I think it is perhaps a good sanity check people are applying on the thinking I've been doing with Erving when they refer to Erving's playoff run as a "run of 13 games", but it does still weird me out.

To be clear, without Erving's playoff run being so huge in '76, I certainly don't see his peak being clearly ahead of the other high volume scoring wingmen out there, which ties into why for example, I voted Kobe ahead of Erving in the last Top 100 project. However, we're talking about peak here, and so yes, I tend to look at that playoff run like it's a really big deal

I feel like I'm seeing people do general analyses of Erving's game looking at everything they can about the guy all through his career, and in general I think that's great, but in the end Erving was absolutely off the hook through his entire run in those playoffs. You're not going to find stuff outside of that run that adequately captures how he was playing at that time, so to me it largely comes down to: Are you willing to toss out a single post-season performance as a fluke, or are you not?

To anyone willing to toss it out, I really think that might be awesome. To do it right though, you've got to take a position so extreme that 99.9% of sports fans are going to call you crazy, so I feel like if people are doing that, I should be seeing someone really being bold here.

If we're not willing to do this, then what I see with Erving is someone who in general is clearly in the ballpark with any perimeter scorer we see generally, who then went insane when it mattered the most.

And in case there's doubts about what Erving did here:

He scored 35 PPG on 61% TS with a PER of 32 while being the defensive catalyst for his team as they won the title.

I look at Kobe's playoff runs and there's no full playoff run that looks anything like this. That might be a touch unfair given that Kobe had to win 4 series to win the title, but can anyone come up with any 2 series stretch where he matches up with what Erving did here?

Consider also that if Wade in his glorious '06 Finals run, he still didn't score with Erving's efficiency despite the fact that he was racking up free throws in a manner that not a soul ever believed didn't have everything to do with a major issue with the Mav defense, and that when he did this he wasn't as important to the Heat defense as Erving had been to the Nets.

(Let's remember as we do this that the Heat won first and foremost with their defense, and Wade didn't average 30+ against any the other 3 teams they faced.)

If you want to get into later Wade we can, that might be a good debate, but just remember that Wade's most celebrated performance still doesn't pop out like what we saw with Erving.

McGrady? We're talking about a guy for whom you can safely say he up'ed his game in the playoffs by scoring 30 PPG on 55% TS in losing causes. I really don't see much of a comparison there.

While I'm at it here, I do want to point out that in the NEXT year in '77 against a great NBA defense, Erving went for 30 PPG on 60% TS. Neither Kobe nor Wade have ever done that either.

So yeah, if you see something I'm missing, do let me know, but I just have a real tough time not seeing Erving's playoff performance here being more astounding than the others, and I've yet to hear anyone really explain why we shouldn't treat that performance like it's legit.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Julius Erving '76

To make it official.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I think Kobe's name needs to start popping up but he is a tough because it's hard to determine his best season. You could argue '01, '03, '06, '07, '08, or '09. If you guys thought Lebron's peak was a pain, this will be 10x worse.

I would say 2006. To put this season in context, Kobe arguably had the two greatest scoring months in modern NBA history, in the same season. And did it at a 90.9 pace.

January 2006 - 43.4 ppg, on 61.1% TS
April 2006 - 41.6 ppg on 62.1% TS

LA had endless injuries to their frontcourt, and had Smush at PG, yet still put up an above average DRtg, and ended up with a 2.52 SRS(#7), which is rather remarkable considering how thin that team was. The other 6 teams who finished above LA had superior talent. To put things in perspective, LA would have had the #3 SRS in the Eastern Conference, and a much more favorable matchup than the #2 Suns at 5.48 SRS.

I would say 2006 Kobe was his best mix of athletic ability/skill/leadership.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm leaning towards Wade having the highest peak of the players left. The question is, does 2010 Wade have a case over 2006 if we get away from the Winning Bias? 2009 Wade is clearly the best regular season albeit I can't vote for it because of the playoffs. I think he was right at Lebron's level in the 2009 regular season. 2010 may seem like a surprising choice because he was probably coasting that regular season, knowing the big moves would come that summer. However statistically he isn't any worse in it in the 2006 regular season. It's just in 2006 he was young vs seemingly saving himself in 2010 but if the results are the same it's not a big deal. Also despite seeming like a worse player in 2010 than in 2009, this team was better - In fact winning 47 Gs and getting 2.0 SRS with Jermaine O'Neal, Michael Beasley, Haslem, Qrich, and a bunch of scraps is actually REALLY impressive impact. That supporting cast sucks for a comfortable playoff team, like at a KG Timberwolves/06 Lakers level of sucks. I think Wade was a much better defensive player in 2010 than 2006. In both seasons he's incredible in the playoffs. In fact 2010 against the Celtics might be the best playoff series performance of his career. The argument for 2010 Wade would be that he didn't lose anything from the 2009 RS which I think most agree is the most complete version of Wade we've seen, he just saved himself for the playoffs and then the real Wade came out

I'm probably going to have to change my vote but...

Vote 2010 Wade

Ooh, yeah I want to strongly encourage you to re-think that one. Forget my Erving vote for a second and just focus on Wade vs Wade here:

What you're doing is essentially ignoring that Wade '10 was clearly worse in the regular season than Wade '09 because Wade had huge numbers in the playoffs. But that playoff run was a single series which his team lost in a short series, during which the Celtic defense limited the Heat to an astoundingly low ORtg of 96.2. I couldn't disagree with this logic more, I'll say it again:

A defense's job is to stop the other team, not to stop their star. If they are doing their job with huge success, then it makes no sense to talk as if the opposing star is "burning" them, even if he scored 60 PPG on 80% TS. This is not to say I want to berate the individual star in question. I'm not saying you should drop the guy, but by no means does it make sense to lift the guy like crazy based on the performance.

So for me, the debate Wade vs Wade is between '06, '09 & '11.

Of those 3, I find '09 vs '11 relatively easy to compare. '09 Wade was without question his best regular season, and his "disappointing" playoffs, still left him with comparable efficiency to '11 on much great volume. I understand Wade's impact in the '11 playoffs varied a lot based on the series and that he was unreal in the Finals, but it seemed pretty dang clear that he was putting in effort in the Finals that was only possible because of the energy he got to conserve earlier which had everything to do with his newfound teammates. Hence, I don't really think it makes sense to weight the finals run without weighing the other stuff too, add it all up and this just isn't a guy doing as much as '09 had to.

'06 vs '09 is really tough. Apples vs oranges. '06 Wade's entire case is based off an opportunity he'd have never had with the '09 supporting cast, but it's not really right to assume that '09 would raise his game the same way particularly when he had a do-or-die situation in the 1st round and didn't play at that level.

Gun to my head right now, I think I'd go with '09. The thing about the Heat's title run is that I never really felt like they had raised their game to unstoppable levels. I think they were very fortunate to win that title even with Wade's elevated play, and to me this isn't even a debate unless Wade gets to the finals...and even then, if the Spurs win out in the West, I don't see Wade doing the same thing to them.

Perhaps my thinking is flawed, but when in doubt, I tend to ask myself, "Which players reputation is based more on specific things that were out of his control that benefitted him?", and then I tend to vote for the other guy.

[Josephpaul]

Kobe Bryant 2009 season was a season where Kobe proved he could win a title without a HOF of the likes of Shaq, a season that propelled him into the top 15. A playoff run where he avg 30.2/ 5AST/5 Trb . In the finals he avg 32.4 points and 7.4 AST , the second player to avg these types of a numbers in the NBA finals. This is the year you can say Kobe Bryant was transcending to different level.

My vote Kobe 09.

[Doctor MJ]

I would say 2006. To put this season in context, Kobe arguably had the two greatest scoring months in modern NBA history, in the same season. And did it at a 90.9 pace.

January 2006 - 43.4 ppg, on 61.1% TS
April 2006 - 41.6 ppg on 62.1% TS

LA had endless injuries to their frontcourt, and had Smush at PG, yet still put up an above average DRtg, and ended up with a 2.52 SRS(#7), which is rather remarkable considering how thin that team was. The other 6 teams who finished above LA had superior talent. To put things in perspective, LA would have had the #3 SRS in the Eastern Conference, and a much more favorable matchup than the #2 Suns at 5.48 SRS.

I would say 2006 Kobe was his best mix of athletic ability/skill/leadership.

While I'm at it I'll chime in here with 2 points:

1) Obviously, if Kobe had played the way he did in those two runs all season long, that would be his peak year. However, he didn't, and what's more, he's never been able to play like that in the playoffs. To me this ends up tying into my feeling that judging players based on their hottest play is fool's gold.

ElGee has said earlier that all he cares about is winning titles, not whether a player can get you to the 2nd or 3rd or 4th round of the playoffs. I think that's a nice way to think about it, but it's still relatively arbitrary. What's not arbitrary though is that the entire basis for what constitutes better and worse teams at season's end is what you you can typically do in a Best-of-7 series. If a player has a gift that's simply not reliable enough that you can count on it in such a series, well then it's really just a carnival attraction: Fun, but not to be taken too seriously.

The core of what a player should be judged on is what he can give you in a typical game with pressure turned up to Max.

2) With that in mind, what we see with Kobe on average in '05-06 is something that's very good, but not really an approach you'd probably use if you were seriously trying to contend for a title. It's a unipolar offense at its most extreme, and it has extreme variance in what it can actually pull off. When the team actually played with an offense that was a threat to contend, they played differently, with Kobe in a much more balanced manner.

Now, this doesn't make for an easy decision between the seasons of Kobe. After all, if Kobe truly was at his best in '05-06, and simply did what he could given what he had, then you may very well not want to penalize him based on what he should have done if he'd have had different teammates.

Where I've always felt a nudge in a particular direction though is this: If playing style X isn't going to be what you're going to do when you actually try to win a title, and all you care about is titles, then why would you ever play style X?

This isn't a rhetorical question. To re-phrase: If you're going to have to play something more like style Y when you try to win a title, why would you choose not to play style Y in the years where you're trying to get your core prepared to play style Y as well as possible?

Perhaps there's an answer here, but I don't have one. To me it's clear that Jackson always wanted Kobe to play more within the Triangle, but Kobe would alternate in his approach on that front, which pissed Jackson off a great deal. And of course, the absolute high point of Kobe breaking out of the offense was '05-06. So what we're talking about here is a year where people often fall in love with it in essence because of Kobe's refusal to play by Jackson's methods at that time...which is pretty weird given that Jackson's methods have proven so successful before and after that season.

I think in the end with Kobe, he breaks out of the team offense when he doesn't trust his teammates, so it's not right to look at 27 year old Kobe as a trouble maker and 29 year old Kobe as a saint. But of course, 27 year old Kobe was largely the same guy as 26 year old Kobe, and we're certainly going to hold what the 26 year old failed to do in '04-05 against him here.

When I think of peak Kobe, I'm thinking of the guy playing the right way, and that's the Kobe in years where his teams were strong enough that he kept his faith. Probably that will mean '07-08 for me, although that's not set in stone.

[Josephpaul]

intresting to put blame on kobe for 04-05 run.

[therealbig3]

Pretty easy vote for me, going with Erving. Dominant all-around season...great offense, great defense, outstanding leadership...the only fault I can really see with him is that there just happened to be 12 guys that were a little better at their best.

Vote: 76 Erving

On a side note: Dirk has my #14 vote as of right now. Robinson to me is Amare with elite defense (to be clear: damn good player, and a top 20 peak ever). Not a great passer, can't really create for himself consistently, and his only real attribute offensively is his crazy athleticism which he uses to face up and finish around the rim and get to the line. Good player offensively, but not really close to what Dirk provides as an offensive player. And Dirk is super portable offensively. IMO, I would take Robinson over Dirk if Dirk was a bad defensive player, but that's not the case, because Dirk is definitely a positive impact player on defense, even if it is small, and even if you can't build a great defense around him specifically.

Dirk just had more impact at his peak than Kobe/T-Mac/Wade, and is easier to build around, which is why I'm going with him over them. Admittedly, I'm still not super sure about where West or Oscar go, but since I have them around the same level as Kobe/T-Mac/Wade, I have Dirk ahead of them as of right now too.

Really haven't heard anything convincing against Dirk, and why he can't be considered at this level.

[Dr Positivity]

Well, the rest of the Heat were INSANELY bad offensively in that series. JO was one of the punchlines of the 1st round for his 4.2ppg 20.5% performance, Haslem was 6ppg 35%. Beasley Beasley'd at 10.4ppg 45%. Chalmers and QRrich somewhat showed up hitting 3s. In terms of PER Joel Anthony was 2nd at 11.6, QRich 3rd at 11.1, Chalmers at 10.3 and everyone else was under 10. The Heat were already rock bottom for offensive support beside Wade in 09 and 10, then JO, Beasley and Haslem not showing up for the series basically pushed them below the Mendoza line of ineptitude. Wade may have had less offensive support than any star... ever, playing against a team with an incredible playoff history defensively. I don't put it on him for the Heat's ORTG being poor any more than the Heat not being any good, that team just sucked big balls. I think he was bringing out his full 2009 and 2010 arsenal, which I consider his peak.

[therealbig3]

Well, the rest of the Heat were INSANELY bad offensively in that series. JO was one of the punchlines of the 1st round for his 4.2ppg 20.5% performance, Haslem was 6ppg 35%. Beasley Beasley'd at 10.4ppg 45%. Chalmers and QRrich somewhat showed up hitting 3s. In terms of PER Joel Anthony was 2nd at 11.6, QRich 3rd at 11.1, Chalmers at 10.3 and everyone else was under 10. The Heat were already rock bottom for offensive support beside Wade in 09 and 10, then JO, Beasley and Haslem not showing up for the series basically pushed them below the Mendoza line of ineptitude. Wade may have had less offensive support than any star... ever, playing against an incredible defensive team. I don't put it on him for the Heat's ORTG being poor.

But that may have been the Celtics' strategy...let D-Wade get his, shut down everyone else. In the end, Wade looks like a demi-god, but the Heat offense sucks. Don't get me wrong, Wade was still seriously impressive, but it's not really close to being an all-time great series against an all-time great defense, because that's how the Celtics played him...it's not really in the same ballpark as LeBron's 12 series against the Celtics for example.

In fact, I'd take 11 Wade's series against the Celtics over 10 Wade's series.


I'm starting to lean more and more towards 11, now that I think about it, but 06 and 09 have great arguments. Until now, I was pretty sure 09 was his peak, but admittedly, I was mainly just basing it off the box score, which I know can be affected by a lot of things. 06 Wade was his peak athletically, and he was money from midrange (he's been way more inconsistent since then, but he was back at that level in 09 and 11). He wasn't quite as smart offensively or defensively though (lots of TOs, wasn't all that good defensively), as he would be in 09 and 11.

Yeah, so it's probably between 09 and 11 to me.

[Doctor MJ]

intresting to put blame on kobe for 04-05 run.

"blame" can be a dangerous word. What we're talking about here is essentially "credit", and obviously Kobe's going to get less credit for his '04-05 performance than he is for other years.