#15 Highest Peak of All Time (Kobe '08 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

Oscar Robertson '63 takes the 14 spot. We move on.

Folks not a lot of people voted this last time. If 2 days isn't enough time for people, speak up in the general thread.

I'm going to add LikeABosh to the Voting Panel. Congrats LAB!

[Josephpaul]

I see the argument for Kobe 08 so Im changing my vote Kobe 08

[Dr Positivity]

I'll vote 2010 Wade again until it becomes apparent he's not getting traction. If West becomes a big player in this thread, I've always felt prime Wade was better than prime West because of how he's a step up explosiveness wise

Repeating something from the last thread in regards to 09 and 10 Wade

- The first 2/3s of 2009 Wade's season, he puts up nearly identical numbers to 2010 Wade. The statistical difference comes down to the post ASB stretch (27 Gs) where he averages 34ppg on 51%. So it's not 2009 Wade being better the entire RS, it's more like just for that 27 G stretch where he elevates himself

- 2010 Wade definitely has a better 1st round series than 2009 Wade to me. It's a mix of 2010 Wade being elite (33/7/5/.65 TS%) against the best of playoff defenses including arguably his greatest playoff game in G4 (46 pts, 16 for 24) and 2009 Wade having some shaky moments. In G1 he goes 8 for 21 with 8 TOVs to put up his lowest Game Score of the entire season (5.5), in G4 he goes 9 for 26. In G7 he goes 10 for 25.

To me it's like 64 vs 63 Oscar. 64 Oscar was the more lauded RS as his MVP year, but 63 Oscar was better in the playoffs, and that's why I voted for that season. I think 09 was Wade's RS peak due to that amazing post ASB stretch but playing better in the '10 playoffs matters more to me than that. I can definitely be swayed for arguments for 06 and 11 Wade over 10 though, due to a longer playoff run and great Finals performance

[Radbe]

Kobe 09 gets my vote .He avg 32.4 PPG and 7.4 AST in the finals . The first game he came out firing with 40 PTS 8st 8TRB. For the whole playoffs he avg 26.8 PER had 5.3 TRB 5.5 AST and 30.2PPG . His greatest playoff performance.


Worth a read about Kobe's playoffs performances.

http://thepaintedarea.blogspot.com/2009 ... r.html?m=1

Kobe 09 has my vote , his best playoff performace in my opinion.

you have to be kidding me.

2001,2003,2006,2007,20008 are all better versions of bryant.

he wasn't even in his prime in 09.

[Josephpaul]

Go to the blog. 2001, 2003 as second best player on the team hardly his PEAK year. 06 is my second pick but not enough playoff success.

[drza]

With respect to Dirk and the elite wings that have been discussed in recent threads, right now I'm leaning David Robinson here. I'd also love to see some better cases built for Barkley and Malone(s?), as the wings and this generation players seem to be building up a lead just in terms of words written without any kind of consideration as to whether they were better than the bigs of last generation. But I digress.

Robinson is one of the last truly super-dominant defensive bigs that also provides a great deal on offense as well. One thing I've been thinking about, though...everyone pegs '94 and '95 as Robinson's peak because that's when his scoring (and in '94 his assists) exploded. However, one of the big criticisms against Robinson in these all-time projects is that his style of offense (even at his offensive peak) was not conducive to playoff basketball. And that Malone/Hakeem/Malone exposed him 3 straight years at his offensive peak in the postseason.

However.

I've always been of the mindset that the only reason Robinson exploded offensively in those years was because of a) a change in coaching philosophy (from the Larry Brown years to Lucas/Hill) and b) because Rodman came in and vacuumed the boards/helped on defense, which gave Robinson more energy to focus on offense. Neither of those say anything about him actually becoming a better player in '94 or '95, then, just one with more of an offensive focus. But if offense wasn't his strength anyway...

Could 1991 - 93 be Robinson's real peak? It was certainly his defensive peak, as he set all of his career highs in defensive rebound % (24.8%), steal % (3.1%) and block % (7.4%) during these years. And though those were early years for Robinson in terms of career, these were actually age 25 - 27 for him, which is a typical peak window for players. And offensively, these were also Robinson's most efficient years as a scorer, when he set his career highs in true shooting percentage (61.5%) and EFG% (55.5%) while still averaging well into the mid-20s in ppg. Even his postseason numbers look best here, though the small sample size of games (4 games in '91) aren't big enough to move the needle much. But his regular season was so strong, and the playoffs certainly didn't hurt.

Just saying. If the feeling is that the best part of Robinson is his defense, and that his ideal role is as a super-portable defensive monster who can also give a high-efficiency low/mid 20s points (as opposed to being a near-30 ppg scorer with lesser defensive impact and offense that seemed less effective in the postseason), then it'd seem to me that 1991 might be a better peak year to choose than '94 or '95.

[therealbig3]

I voted Dirk last thread, but some really good arguments against my points came up, which has me re-considering him. For example, how much credit should we give him for his offensive improvement, and how much credit should we give his team for fitting superbly around him?

I still really like his 09, but you know what, bastillon made a great point before: 09 LeBron had the same weaknesses that 10 LeBron had, he was just able to face easier opponents. If that kind of argument is used against Dirk for picking post-07 seasons over his 06 season, then it should have held more water against LeBron with regards to 09 vs 12. I personally didn't see much issue with voting 09 over 12 (even though I think it's almost a toss-up), so I've begun to re-think my stance regarding Dirk's 06, or at least, maybe rethink how highly I think of his 09.

To be clear...I've always thought peak Kobe, peak T-Mac, and peak Wade were better than 06 Dirk, and since I can understand 06 being Dirk's peak more and more, I'm leaning towards one of those 3 now (and I consider them pretty much inseparable, tbh).

And since they seem to have more traction right now anyway, I'll make it official:

Vote: 03 Tracy McGrady

I did admit some concern with his unimpressive 03 RAPM, but as drza pointed out, not all non-boxscore data agreed with RAPM, and some of them ranked him as amazing, what we'd expect from his box score numbers.

From a strictly box score perspective, and from my analysis of his skills, 03 T-Mac could basically do everything Kobe or Wade could do, except with better scoring efficiency, lower TO rates, and superior creation (his court vision, ball handling, and passing ability/willingness rivals LeBron, imo...T-Mac might actually have been better; he really didn't turn the ball over much at all, he was Jordan-esque in that regard).

[lorak]

So why it wasn't worked so good in 1969? Really Wilt's impact was so negative on offense?!

Just responding to this as I think ElGee answered the rest.

Well, you're aware of the huge hate fest between coach van Breda Kolff and Wilt right? If not, do some googling. It was war, and I'm certainly not going defend all of the coaches actions, but looking at things in the current lens, it's very, very interesting:

The story typically starts out with Wilt going to the Lakers (after lobbying to go there, and daydreaming about it the prior season because he wanted to hang out with movie stars), and van Breda Kolff being super-stubborn insisting that Wilt adapt to fit into his existing system. Wilt didn't want to do that, and we can only speculate as to the entirety of his reasoning, but fundamentally: 1) vBK was making him change, 2) vBK didn't make him change because he thought Wilt would be more impactful in his system than Wilt was in Philly, he simply thought his system was better than one with Wilt as the focus, 3) vBK clearly didn't have coach Hannum's or Sharman's charming willingness to "persusade", he saw Wilt's reluctance as defiance and acted like an authoritarian parent.

But now reflecting on how impressive the Lakers offense was with West in in '68, I'd have to say vBK was right. Not in his methods of persuasion of course, obviously that was a problem. However, that offense with no Wilt probably would have set the world on fire, but instead Wilt fought it all year long, and the result was a significantly worse offense. Not a bad offense, a major underachievement given the talent involved.

This is just one more story to add into Wilt's history that new posters will come on RealGM and simply not believe. "How could Wilt possibly make an offense a lot worse?" But data is data. There's no way around that the Laker offense got worse in '69, and there's no way around that the big new addition (Wilt) was absolutely who the coach thought was the reason it was worse.

His famous quote:

We're doing well enough without you

Also an article from mid-season talking about the crazy turmoil and morale issues:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

It ends with this ominous paragraph:

For all the rumblings and despite their obvious shortcomings, the Lakers could still finish with the best record in the league. Even so, Los Angeles right now is not as good a team as Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York. Boston with Russell, San Francisco with Nate Thurmond and Atlanta with its reservoir of muscle are all capable of beating the Lakers in a playoff series. But, come April? The Lakers are just contrary enough to shuck off all the weediness of the past few months and prove that everybody was right after all: you can't beat a team with Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West on it. Or can you?

So we have two options:
1. two years from his GOAT season Wilt was negative on offense by 4-5 ortg pts (!), because of his clash witch coach
or
2. 51 games sample from 68 isn't representative enough to judge quality of Lakers offense with West.

I really don't know how you and Elgee so easily believe in option no 1.

[therealbig3]

Oh and btw, a couple of questions:

-I actually did agree with peak Oscar going over the other wings (Wade/West/Kobe/T-Mac), but I had some trouble pinpointing his specific peak. Why 63 Oscar over 64 Oscar?

-I still can't really go with 10 Wade over 09 Wade. I don't agree with throwing out a large sample size of superior play in favor of a 5 game explosion. I can actually understand 11's case, but does anyone want to break that down further? 11 Wade vs 09 Wade?

[Dr Positivity]

Is it possible the combination of West, Baylor, Clark and Goodrich was just awesome together? Clark was a 19.9ppg player that year and Goodrich 13.8 in limited minutes (19 per 36). Both had the talent to eventually have 25ppg seasons, Goodrich of course a HOFer, who in 69 immediately jumped out to 23.8ppg. The Lakers jumping up and then falling down again offensively may have had at least in part something to do with the Clark/Goodrich combination's role in 68 and then departure

[LikeABosh]

Thanks Doctor

I'll vote 2010 Wade again until it becomes apparent he's not getting traction. If West becomes a big player in this thread, I've always felt prime Wade was better than prime West because of how he's a step up explosiveness wise

Repeating something from the last thread in regards to 09 and 10 Wade

- The first 2/3s of 2009 Wade's season, he puts up nearly identical numbers to 2010 Wade. The statistical difference comes down to the post ASB stretch (27 Gs) where he averages 34ppg on 51%. So it's not 2009 Wade being better the entire RS, it's more like just for that 27 G stretch where he elevates himself

- 2010 Wade definitely has a better 1st round series than 2009 Wade to me. It's a mix of 2010 Wade being elite (33/7/5/.65 TS%) against the best of playoff defenses including arguably his greatest playoff game in G4 (46 pts, 16 for 24) and 2009 Wade having some shaky moments. In G1 he goes 8 for 21 with 8 TOVs to put up his lowest Game Score of the entire season (5.5), in G4 he goes 9 for 26. In G7 he goes 10 for 25.

To me it's like 64 vs 63 Oscar. 64 Oscar was the more lauded RS as his MVP year, but 63 Oscar was better in the playoffs, and that's why I voted for that season. I think 09 was Wade's RS peak due to that amazing post ASB stretch but playing better in the '10 playoffs matters more to me than that. I can definitely be swayed for arguments for 06 and 11 Wade over 10 though, due to a longer playoff run and great Finals performance

I understand your reasoning and I doubt I'll be able to convince you to abandon it: one great playoff series >>> 27 game hot streak. I can buy that, but.....I have to ask....why not vote for 05-06 wade? He had a comparable regular season to 2010, but he got to the line an insane amount of times (10.7 - more than peak lebron), and that season has what you seem to value: great playoff performances against good defensive teams (#4, #5, #6, and #12). The more you make the case for 2010, the more I think you should just vote for 05-06.

For me, I'm settled on 09 wade being his best season. Next is to compare it to kobe, dirk, paul, and drob. I'm still undecided between 03 or 06 for kobe. I'm open for a good argument for either year

[thebottomline]

-I actually did agree with peak Oscar going over the other wings (Wade/West/Kobe/T-Mac), but I had some trouble pinpointing his specific peak. Why 63 Oscar over 64 Oscar?

Seems to be based almost entirely on Oscar putting up better numbers in the playoffs against the Celtics in 1963, despite Oscar's better pace-adjusted numbers overall in 1964, despite the Royals being better across the board in 1964, despite 1964 being the Celtics defensive peak (2 points better than in 1963), and despite the 1964 playoff injuries to Oscar and especially Lucas. As I just stated in another post, this would be like arguing Kobe's 2010 playoffs > 2008 playoffs because in 2010 he put up better numbers against a worse Celtics defense. Given all that I think Oscar was better in 1964. If RealGM looks back on this list and finds certain picks questionable I think 1963 Oscar will be one of them.

[Radbe]

Go to the blog. 2001, 2003 as second best player on the team hardly his PEAK year. 06 is my second pick but not enough playoff success.

if you don't want to choose a year where he was the #2, then why not 06 or 08. he was easily a better player than he was in 09. kobe 09 clearly lost a step compared to 08. his defense wasn't as good. he wasn't getting to the rim as much. his free-throw rate went down. his passing/play-making declined. he didn't have the same stamina. come on..theres no way in hell his peak was 2009.

[therealbig3]

With respect to Dirk and the elite wings that have been discussed in recent threads, right now I'm leaning David Robinson here. I'd also love to see some better cases built for Barkley and Malone(s?), as the wings and this generation players seem to be building up a lead just in terms of words written without any kind of consideration as to whether they were better than the bigs of last generation. But I digress.

With regards to this, I kind of have a hard time taking big men whose main contributions are offense (Barkley and the Malones) over elite wings (and someone like Dirk, who I think is on their level offensively), since the elite wings have inherent advantages offensively. The big men who I would consider over elite wings for offense would be guys like Shaq and Kareem, who were just aberrations in terms of how good they were offensively, and those two are the best of the best when it comes to big man offense...if you compare them to the best of the best offensive wings, you end up with quite a few I would take over them (Magic, MJ, Oscar, LeBron, Bird).

Typically, big men have the advantage over wings because of defense. But in Barkley's case (which is why I tend to not think super highly of him, despite how good he was offensively), he might have been a net negative defensively, despite great rebounding. Moses was similar, though maybe a bit better defensively. K. Malone is interesting, because he actually was a very good defensive player, but mainly with regards to man defense. His help and team defense wasn't anything super amazing imo.

And then you consider: Wade, T-Mac, Kobe, and West at their defensive peaks were also very good defenders, and quite possibly on the same level as someone like K. Malone.

[Doctor MJ]

I'll vote 2010 Wade again until it becomes apparent he's not getting traction. If West becomes a big player in this thread, I've always felt prime Wade was better than prime West because of how he's a step up explosiveness wise

Not sure exactly what you mean because I could see it going either way.

1) If you just mean Wade is more agile, then I'd agree, although I think West's shooting edge makes up for it.

2) If you mean Wade's excellent ability to explode in the playoffs, this is a great time for me to point out just how awesome West was at exploding.

Here's the list of guys with the most 30 game points in the Finals:

1. West 32
2. Jordan 23
3. Baylor 17
4. O'Neal 16
5. Kareem 15

Of course, the fact that you see both West and Baylor is a tip off that those Laker teams played in a lot of finals, in part because there were less teams back in the day. But you can see that West almost doubles Baylor despite the fact he spent much of his career shooting less than Baylor.

West scored 30 or more in 58% of his NBA Finals games. There are only a few guys who've done it 50% of the time who played in multiple series (and obviously none who did it year in and year out):

Barry 80% (shot a ridiculous amount, not very efficiently, still quite good)
Jordan 66% (is awesome)
West 58%
Pettit 56% (pretty awesome)
O'Neal 53% (is awesome)

You crank it up 40, and West once again laps the field:

1. West 10
2. Jordan 6
2. O'Neal 6
4. Baylor 4
5. Barry 3

At this point if you look at percentages West actually passes Jordan (though O'Neal passes them both, and Barry remains the most likely to do it).

In case you're wondering in comparison to current guys:

West had 10 40s and 32 30s in 55 games

Kobe has 1 40 and 13 30s in 37 games
Wade has 2 40s and 6 30s in 17 games
LeBron has no 40s and 2 30s in 15 games
Dirk has no 40s and 2 30s in 12 games

and for the heck of it

Iverson had 1 40 and 4 30s in 5 games
Miller had no 40s and 2 30s in 6 games

[Doctor MJ]

So yeah, if you're wondering why West was known as "Mr. Clutch" it was because the bigger the stage got, the bigger he got.

[Doctor MJ]

So we have two options:
1. two years from his GOAT season Wilt was negative on offense by 4-5 ortg pts (!), because of his clash witch coach
or
2. 51 games sample from 68 isn't representative enough to judge quality of Lakers offense with West.

I really don't know how you and Elgee so easily believe in option no 1.

Very strange the way you're attempting to boil it down here:

You're implying you believe the answer is #2, which implies that you're deciding what is and is not adequate sample size on the fly in order to make yourself not feel weird. (Apologies if you're really just trying to say you're not sure, it felt to me like when I read it you were going beyond that.)

If someone's going to say they think 51 games not enough but 82 games is enough, to me that's close enough in the order of magnitude that there's no reasonable way to say that without all sorts of deep statistical analysis.

I think what really hammers this home is the fact that if you take the Lakers' full 82 games that year, it's one of the top 2 offenses of the 60s. That right there, we're not talking about a team that's strictly might have been. This is a huge offensive accomplishment that on its own deserves analysis as to what caused the break through.

The shock when you get down deep into it is that it's a tale of two seasons. One with West, one without, and the former is so good that even with the latter, their combination is arguably the greatest offense of the 60s.

More generally here, what we're dealing with here is what I've called before the Matilda Complex (after the children's story): Basically, when the truth is too far removed from preconception, the truth gets rejected. When the truth and the preconception are closer, it's easy for people to leap to the truth, but when things are too far away from each other, it essentially forces people to conclude that one of the two sources is completely without merit, and they are unlikely to believe their preconception can possibly have no merit, so the new source is rejected without consideration.

This happens with Wilt over and over again.

You can't believe that Wilt could possibly have a huge negative effect, but it's actually pretty easy to understand when you consider that players can't "feel" these effects unless they are big enough that the team's record becomes a huge problem.

To the extent Wilt could even feel anything at all in a negative way, it would feel like shooting it in the wrong basket obviously. it also wouldn't be so much that the team was clearly missing potential but rather a confusion as to why what they were doing wasn't taking the giant step forward that they hoped.

And what we're talking about here, for lack of a more well known term, are systems. After floating at a certain levels for years, the Lakers when healthy finally took that next step when they tried a completely new offense (which is a pretty typical reason why you'd see such a major jump, and precisely the reason you'd expect when a team doesn't add stars like in '68). The new system involved all 5 players reading and reacting together to pinball the ball to the open man.

So what happens when you get a new star who refuses to play pinball? Well the system is going to break down. Not break down to levels where the offense is terrible because with the 3 stars they had, the offense was going to still be pretty good. But that breakthrough they made that finally made the Baylor-West duo make sense, that went away.

So it's not hard to believe at all: Someone had a good idea, and someone else didn't like it. The guy who didn't like it is keeping the good idea from truly getting implemented, and so he's being counterproductive.

Let me also remind that we already know with Wilt that it's not like he was producing great offenses everywhere he went. This disappointing Laker offense was still the 2nd best offense Wilt had ever been on. Typical Wilt offenses are downright mediocre, so most definitely Wilt's not going to sense that there's something wrong with the Laker offense. He hadn't been able to sense the problems with much worse offenses, which is why such a drastic solution was needed by Hannum in Philly.

Here's where I'll segue one more time and talk about how big of a deal I think "homing instinct" is in sports. There are just some players who have a sense for the right way to get through the maze, and while there's a spectrum of abilities on this front, I think that most players, like most viewers, would have no idea if they were winning without looking at the scoreboard. This sense for what feels more right that let's certain guys travel upstream toward the optimal even when the scales are so incredibly subtle is absolutely invaluable to any player who is tasked with running a team offense, or a defense for that matter.

Wilt being utterly tone deaf on this front meant that it was not only possible, but pretty much a given that sometimes he'd actually end up sending his team up a path that was significantly less beneficial to what could have been.

[therealbig3]

@Doctor MJ

What about pace though? I mean wouldn't 30 and 40 point games be more common in an era with a lot of pace? Understood, it's still really impressive by West, since it's not like anyone else at the time was doing it, but when you compare it to modern players at slower pace, like Jordan or Wade or Kobe or Shaq, I think adjusting for pace matters.

[Expert-Sizzle]

Hey guys... I'd like to start participating alittle in these discussions if its alright and maybe later on start voting if you like my input.

[Expert-Sizzle]

I have examined the current candidates (and a few of my own) and I think Wade deserves the next spot.
He was just really... really nasty in 2009 and 2010.

I could maybe see an argument for 06 also based on his playoff run but I think his actual peak as a player came in the two years I listed above.

The big reason why those two years stand out for me (besides his production and performances) is really the perfection in his game.
For whatever reason his jumper was excellent those two years.
He was elite from mid-range and even consistently knocking down the 3ball.
He could just pull-up off the dribble from anywhere on the court and put it in the basket.
That combined with his GOAT level slashing ability / first step and ability to score around the basket and in the paint just made him unstoppable offensively.

Defensively he was also rock solid. Elite m2m and Help D.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUGJCy6zcoM&feature=fvst[/youtube]

For anyone considering Wade, check out this video.