#14 Highest Peak of All Time (Oscar '63 wins)

[drza]

Still leaning '63 Oscar, and wanting to hear more about peak DRob as well.

@Ardee: the reason that I think Oscar is more impressive than any of the elite wings is that he has the point-guard-team-explosive-effect in addition to the super impressive wing scoring numbers. Generally speaking, it seems to me that when looking outside of the box scores it tends to be the bigs and the point guards that tend to have larger impacts that you might expect. I believe that this is because point guards (offense) and big men (defense) tend to have larger global impacts on one particular unit than super-wings do. Super-wings tend to be devastating personal scorers, or great 1-on-1 defenders, but they are (again, generally speaking) more lone wolf types. They're excellent 1-on-1. But they rarely have the team impact that the others do.

That's why, IMO, the historical leaders in the in/out or +/- or team-trend stats tend to be your Russells/Waltons/Garnetts or your Magic/Nash/Oscars. Their team effect goes so far beyond the box scores that they can just have much larger global impacts. There are of course exceptions to this, as ElGee has been pointing out West's huge in/out (though he also had some point guard in him) and Dirk has been hugely impactful in +/- studies (postulated boosts due to some combo of his extreme big man spacing and perhaps his strong offense tending to allow better defenders to be on the court with him)...but for the most part if a player is super-elite at running an offense and/or proven elite as a defensive anchor, I tend to expect their impact likely exceeds what the boxes tell us. That's a big part of why I want to hear more about DRob, because he was an electric defensive player in addition to his offensive gifts, and the other players that are most like him have already been enshrined on this list. But I digress.

Bringing it back to Oscar vs Kobe, their scoring prowess is comparable. If anything, at their peaks it appears that Oscar was scoring at similar volumes but much higher efficiencies than Kobe. And that post in the last thread about how Oscar did against his historic defense test (the 1963 Celtics, Oscar exploded on them offensively) vs how Kobe did against his historic defensive tests (the '08 Celtics, but also the '03 Pistons or '04 Spurs) was a nice cherry on top. Even as scorers, this was a close match-up that Oscar might have won.

But when you look at global offensive impact, Oscar appears to take this one in a walk. Because in addition to providing Kobe-like scoring, he also provided Magic-like team generalship. Offensively, in fact, Oscar is like a LeBron who was a better/more effective passer and team general. I can buy that argument that LeBron's defensive impact might bridge that gap over Oscar because LeBron is a legitimate (and measured) impact defender. But Kobe's defense in the years most under question (2006 and later) was clearly not on that level defensively, and his defensive numbers even from 2003 also do nothing to suggest he was having much defensive impact.

So when I compare Oscar and Kobe, I see Oscar as a comparable scorer on better efficiency with a much larger global offensive impact that makes him an overall much better offensive player than what Kobe's defense can overcome. And then ElGee's in/out runs help to confirm that, as my understanding is that Oscar has one of (if not THE) top runs still left on the list while Kobe's +/- scores (while great) have never been nearly on that level. Thus, I have Oscar pretty clearly in that comparison.

[MisterWestside]

I like Dirk's 2006 season a bit more than his 2011 season.

If the refs didn't screw him/the Mavs over in the Finals, the causal narrative of Dirk would've been interesting to see regarding his place among the all-timers.

[Zasterror]

What people tend to forget is that Dirk had his fair of "choking" during the 06 Finals which consequently paved the way for Wade to snatch their title away from them.

[therealbig3]

06 Dirk had the same problem that 05 and 07 Dirk did: couldn't exploit smaller defenders that had decent length, athleticism, and quickness. He didn't incorporate his deadly mid-post game until 08 onwards, after the GS loss.

Seriously, what is Dirk's case in 11 over 09? Is it really just because he won the title? He wasn't doing anything offensively that he wasn't doing in 09, and he was a better rebounder and defender in 09.

[therealbig3]

And to be honest, as someone who had a major problem with the reffing at the time and as someone that has gone back to review it, the reffing really wasn't nearly as bad as people now make it seem. For example, Wade really wasn't getting calls that Kobe wasn't getting from 08-10.

[MisterWestside]

06 Dirk had the same problem that 05 and 07 Dirk did: couldn't exploit smaller defenders that had decent length, athleticism, and quickness. He didn't incorporate his deadly mid-post game until 08 onwards, after the GS loss.

Perhaps so. I went with '06 Dirk because I felt he was still terrific overall while carrying a larger load in more minutes played: similar efficiency, a bit more effective on the offensive glass, etc.

Seriously, what is Dirk's case in 11 over 09? Is it really just because he won the title?

Probably the higher +/- numbers. But I still out other Dirk seasons over '11.

What people tend to forget is that Dirk had his fair of "choking" during the 06 Finals which consequently paved the way for Wade to snatch their title away from them.

Didn't say Dirk played amazing. Just saying a little less biased officiating might've swung the series to the Mavs and the narrative about Dirk afterwards would be different.

[GrangerDanger]

06 Dirk had the same problem that 05 and 07 Dirk did: couldn't exploit smaller defenders that had decent length, athleticism, and quickness. He didn't incorporate his deadly mid-post game until 08 onwards, after the GS loss.

Seriously, what is Dirk's case in 11 over 09? Is it really just because he won the title? He wasn't doing anything offensively that he wasn't doing in 09, and he was a better rebounder and defender in 09.

Proof of this? Mavs played better D when Dirk was off the court in 09 (.9 ppg better), but were a much worse defense when he was off the court in 11 (6.6 ppg worse)

[ElGee]

More data on HCA.

You want more data -- look at the 4,000 game set I used.

You barking up a tree about the information I've presented as "ridiculous" and then trying to contradict it without controlling for team strength (the whole point of the exercise) and with a super small sample prone to variance (see for yourself) against a dataset 40x bigger.

Here, I'll save you the time. Here's my research of 3,513 games from the last 3 years:


Home Team SRS Advantage -- % of Games Won -- Sample Size
15 92.7% 55
14 88.9% 27
13 93.5% 46
12 90.2% 51
11 90.5% 63
10 84.0% 94
9 82.2% 90
8 83.5% 115
7 83.2% 137
6 80.3% 142
5 79.5% 176
4 78.2% 188
3 66.2% 195
2 66.8% 223
1 62.4% 210
0 58.5% 195
-1 58.8% 187
-2 54.1% 170
-3 40.3% 191
-4 49.7% 167
-5 37.2% 148
-6 37.6% 149
-7 33.6% 113
-8 25.4% 114
-9 27.1% 70
-10 29.6% 54
-11 13.7% 51
-12 34.5% 29
-13 13.3% 30
-14 9.1% 22
-15 18.2% 11

You'll notice with a 3500 game sample I STILL have a variance issue in the outlying games. According to seasonal research, the effect would probably be bigger in the 80's than today. Now, can we move on to discussing top peaks again?

[ardee]

Vote: 1963 Oscar Robertson

For the reasons already outlined so well by drza and others. It was a difficult choice to change my vote from Kobe, but I think the Original Triple Double deserves his props.

[Dr Positivity]

I see peak Nash as slightly but clearly better than peak Paul, so I can't consider Paul until Nash gets voted in.

Well we know Paul is better defensively. So are we really saying Nash is a clearcut superior offensive player to make up for that?

I know people are in love with the ORTGs Nash anchored, but there's a lot of situational variables in those numbers. A Marion/Amare frontcourt, a ton of 3pt shooters, and the fastest pace/Mike D'Antoni's offense only mindset (players have said he doesn't coach defense in practices), albeit they also put up an elite number in 2010. The Suns and Royals having better ORTGs than the Hornets doesn't necessarily mean Nash and Oscar are better offensive players. Those teams paid the price defensively to be that good offensively. Playing Amare at C in particular and having a devastating pick and roll play as a result is poison candy, it might taste really good for a while, but then it will make you sick and kill you

[Dr Positivity]

Does 2008 Paul have a case against any of Wade, Kobe, Oscar, West, Tmac? I did feel he should've gotten MVP before Kobe that year, then had a great playoffs. I'm almost definitely voting 08 Paul over the best Nash season

I would say in '09 Paul was just a much superior all-around player.

I would say 09 Paul is a better RS player, but his poor playoff performance make it a pretty easy decision towards 08 for this project IMO

[colts18]

You want more data -- look at the 4,000 game set I used.

You barking up a tree about the information I've presented as "ridiculous" and then trying to contradict it without controlling for team strength (the whole point of the exercise) and with a super small sample prone to variance (see for yourself) against a dataset 40x bigger.

Here, I'll save you the time. Here's my research of 3,513 games from the last 3 years:


Home Team SRS Advantage -- % of Games Won -- Sample Size
15 92.7% 55
14 88.9% 27
13 93.5% 46
12 90.2% 51
11 90.5% 63
10 84.0% 94
9 82.2% 90
8 83.5% 115
7 83.2% 137
6 80.3% 142
5 79.5% 176
4 78.2% 188
3 66.2% 195
2 66.8% 223
1 62.4% 210
0 58.5% 195
-1 58.8% 187
-2 54.1% 170
-3 40.3% 191
-4 49.7% 167
-5 37.2% 148
-6 37.6% 149
-7 33.6% 113
-8 25.4% 114
-9 27.1% 70
-10 29.6% 54
-11 13.7% 51
-12 34.5% 29
-13 13.3% 30
-14 9.1% 22
-15 18.2% 11

You'll notice with a 3500 game sample I STILL have a variance issue in the outlying games. According to seasonal research, the effect would probably be bigger in the 80's than today. Now, can we move on to discussing top peaks again?

HCA is big when the two teams are closer as I showed in the posts above. Here is more data on conference finalists.

Team with HCA is:
5-5 series record when having a worse SRS
7-4 series record when SRS difference is between 0 and +1

Team w/HCO at home:
+1.98 better than opponent in regular season (by SRS)
+5.27 point differential
+3.28 HCA

Team w/o HCO at home:
-1.97 worse than opponent in regular season
3.22 point differential
+5.19 HCA

Average HCA is +4.24 based on that.

Teams that are within -1 to 1 SRS of each other:
Home team: 69-35 (.663)
home team: +3.85 point differential

Teams that are within -0.5 to 0.5 SRS of each other:
Home team: 46-23 (.667)
Home team: +4.10 point differential

Games 6 and 7 for teams within -1 to 1 SRS of each other:
home team: 12-4 (.750) record
point differential: +5.19

So even with teams that are very even (within 1 or 0.5 SRS) with each other, HCA is still big. It's about 2/3 for the home team and that advantage increases later in the series.

[LikeABosh]

Doctor MJ, I'd like to play along in this project, but would it be unfair if I missed the first 13 selections and just jumped right into #14?

[thebottomline]

Oscar wasn't scoring with Kobe-like volume when you consider the fact that Oscar was playing 35-40 more offensive possessions per game than Kobe. Oscar peaked at 21.7 pts/75 in 1964... in 1963 he was at 19.5 pts/75. Kobe has averaged 27+ pts/75 for the last 7 seasons, with several seasons near or above 30.

Oscar was closer to Magic in scoring volume than the elite wings imo... Oscar's career pts/75 is 18.9, Magic's is 19.0.

Still, Oscar's offensive impact was obviously tremendous so I'm not saying he doesn't deserve consideration here.

[lorak]

Oscar wasn't scoring with Kobe-like volume when you consider the fact that Oscar was playing 35-40 more offensive possessions per game than Kobe. Oscar peaked at 21.7 pts/75 in 1964... in 1963 he was at 19.5 pts/75. Kobe has averaged 27+ pts/75 for the last 7 seasons, with several seasons near or above 30.

Oscar was closer to Magic in scoring volume than the elite wings imo... Oscar's career pts/75 is 18.9, Magic's is 19.0.

Still, Oscar's offensive impact was obviously tremendous so I'm not saying he doesn't deserve consideration here.

True, Oscar's volume wasn't anywhere near Kobe's, but Robertson was more efficient scorer and overall more valuable offensive player.

[Radbe]

how about the fact that oscar was in a 8-team league playing against a bunch of white UN-athleic guards with 12-130 possessions to work with while kobe was in a 30 team league with far better scouting/defenses/athleticism/perimeter competition. and about 90 possessions a game.

the league in the 00's was just so much better

[lorak]

how about the fact that oscar was in a 8-team league playing against a bunch of white UN-athleic guards with 12-130 possessions to work with while kobe was in a 30 team league with far better scouting/defenses/athleticism/perimeter competition. and about 90 possessions a game.

the league in the 00's was just so much better

Wilt and Russell from the same 8 team league are already selected, so...

[ElGee]

As for Oscar v West, I'm really surprised to see people sort of defaulting to Oscar. I assume a lot of this is based on his 1968 in/out numbers of 19 g (we can kill two games where he barely played). But let me explain why I feel really comfortable with peak West > peak Oscar even though they are obviously close in this same glop of players.

In 1968, Oscar's Royals were -10 SRS in those 19 games. With him, they were +2.6.
In 1968, West's Lakers were -0.5 SRS without him in 31 games. With him, they were +8.1 SRS.

Which do you think I find more impressive? Easily. Both because of sample size and because of the height to which one team is being raised...

West has a tremendous pattern of value this way throughout the decade, as I've posted. But let's look at it from another POV...people love the Royal's ORtg's throughout the decade. But what about the Laker ORtgs???

1961 Cin 3.5 LA -1.3
1962 Cin 4.5 LA 2.1
1963 Cin 3.7 LA 1.7 *** But +4.1 w West in if we simply assume a constant pace
1964 Cin 3.9 LA 3.3
1965 Cin 4.4 LA 4.0
1966 Cin 2.8 LA 3.5
1967 Cin 2.1 LA 1.4 *** But +1.9 w West in
1968 Cin 4.4 LA 5.3 *** LA is +8.7 w West in (106.3 offense!!!) and Cin +6.6 w Oscar in
1969 Cin 4.8 LA 3.6 *** LA is +4.8 w West in
1970 Cin -0.7 LA 0.2 *** Cin -0.5 w Oscar in, LA +3.0 w West in
1971 Mil 7.3 LA 1.3 *** LA +3.0 w West in
1972 Mil 5.2 LA 6.3 *** Mil +5.8 w Oscar in
1973 Mil 2.2 LA 4.0 *** +5.8 w West in

So the estimations are obviously a bit fuzzy because we have to assume a constant pace, and that's unlikely, but it's also unlikely that there was much of a deviation one way or the other. In other words, the small error that would be present here is not much different than the small error from offense/defense strategy that we are unaware of as well, so it's at least good to know these numbers as another data point. And what do they say?

They say that with both players in the game, West had a better offense 6 times in 11 years, with 1969 being a tie. We also know that West had, pretty clearly, the best looking offense of the era basically in 1968. Some things to consider when interpreting the numbers:

-Oscar played w Jack Twyman, a big-time score, in 1961 (Twyman started to tail off after 62)
-In 64, the Royals add Jerry Lucas
-By 69, Tom Van Arsdale has become a 20 ppg scorer
-In 70, Bob Cousy coaches the team and clashes w Robertson

-West joins Elgin Baylor's team that posted +0.7 and -3.0 ORtg's in the prior years
-Baylor misses 32 games due to military service in 1962. Est ORtg (constant pace) w him: +3.8.
-Baylor injures his knee at end of 1965 (misses PS) and struggles physically in 66 (in and out of lineup)
-68 Lakers hire Van Breda Koff, implement something like Princeton offense and pick up Archie Clark.
-69 Lakers pick up Wilt, lose Clark and Goodrich
-In 70, Wilt missed the whole season (but 12)
-In 71, Lakers get back Wilt, Goodrich and add Happy Hairston, no more Baylor
-In 72, Bill Sharman (fantastic coach) takes over, Jim McMillian becomes 19 ppg scorer
-Hairston misses most of the 73 season

In general, I find the 70 to 73 numbers to be a wider distribution because of the rapid expansion and split leagues. So again, I find something like the 68 Laker offense to be the most impressive of all these offenses by far. Furthermore, if you look at it from West's prime through the end of the decade, you could say when both guys were in:

1962 Lakers weren't far behind Royals with Baylor in
1963 Lakers were slightly better
1964 Royals were slightly better -- added Jerry Lucas
1965 Royals were slightly better
1966 Lakers were better despite a hobbling Baylor
1967 Royals were barely better.
1968 Lakers were clearly better. GOAT-level offense
1969 Even (Lakers lose 2 guards, add Wilt. Van Arsdale emerges for Cin)
1970 Lakers WAY better, even without Wilt (Cousy and Oscar but heads)

And during it all, the Lakers were always a much better TEAM. We're trying to isolate one half of the ball but West had a reputation as a ball hawk and his overall team results were, obviously, much better in the 60s.

There's a statistical component that is incredibly impressive from both of them. And stylistically, I'm reminded of some of the Magic-Bird debate. West truly is a lead guard -- he's a very good passer. Oscar is an amazing passer who was the originator of the QB-style PG. He used space, angles, PnR, and was just on-ball all the time. Amazing, of course. West, OTOH, posses a basic attribute that I constantly tout when discussing portability: he was an unreal shooter. So he could drive (look at those FTA's!), pass, and shoot for himself and shoot off the ball in a system. I'm actually not surprised, having seen them both play, that you could claim West's 68 Lakers were the highest peak offense of the era (even though I only stumbled upon this information this year).

And a giant PS: I think West was a better defender based on contemporary praise and limited eye test (long, long arms). More flashbacks of Bird-Magic...

[ThaRegul8r]

Hmm. Interesting. As I look at my notes, I see that I had made note of the fact that '68 was West's most efficient regular and postseasons, and I remember looking at the games West had missed that season during the Retro Player of the Year Project, but I wasn't aware of just how good the Lakers were with West versus without him, as quantitative analysis is not my area of specialty. Out of curiosity, what year exactly would you pinpoint as Oscar's peak?

[Doctor MJ]

Doctor MJ, I'd like to play along in this project, but would it be unfair if I missed the first 13 selections and just jumped right into #14?

My rule has been:

1) tell me you want in
2) participate for a bit without voting so i know you're legit
3) then i'll consider adding you to the panel.

So just follow that. PM me if you have questions.