#17 Highest Peak of All Time (Wade '09 wins)

[drza]

Lots of Wade and West talk now, and has been for the last few threads. But I would really, really love to hear more chatter about Dirk, Karl Malone and Barkley as well at the minimum. In these projects I feel like sometimes the sheer weight of posts can start getting folks in, when others that might be just as good aren't really getting any play. There were a few cases made for Dirk a few threads ago, but it's been quiet on his front lately. Colts? Mystic? Where you at?

I don't think I have the time to build a great case for Barkley or Malone personally, but I did find a good post by Fatal9 in the top-100 project that at least gives us a good starting point for Barkley. Hopefully someone can do something similar to kick things off with Malone as well.

Charles Barkley:

Vote: Barkley
Nominate: Nash

Re: Barkley...

Positives:

- Got the most first place voted in two of the toughest MVP years in the last 25 years ('90, '88 and '93 were the toughest ones IMO). The fact that he was in discussion for best player in the league with MJ, Magic and Hakeem in some of their peak seasons has to be respected. His peak/prime is really really impressive as far as the players go are going 11-20 are concerned.
- Almost unguardable if given enough time to post up, he would basically force you to foul him or get around you. Drew doubles like a dominant center, and he was one of the best passing forwards in history so it was very easy to build the offense around him. Led some great offensive teams over his career as a result (multiple times led top 3 offenses in the league with both the Sixers and Suns). Probably the best offensive player ever at his position.
- His best playoff run ('93) really impressed me. Despite the erratic shooting, he came up huge when his team needed it. Down 0-2 in the first round, he posted 29/12/5 in the final three wins. With the series tied 2-2 against the Spurs, and the Suns down in the fourth quarter of game 5, Barkley put together one of the most amazing fourth quarters I've ever seen in the playoffs (had 20 pts in it and a lot of offensive boards, completely took over the game). Then went out in game 6 and hit the series winning shot while posting 28/21/4/4. Suns were a couple of possessions from losing that series in 6 but Barkley put in some serious work to pull it out. Everyone knows what he did against Seattle in game 5 and game 7... 43/15/10 and 44/24 respectively in the two highest pressure games of the series. I thought he played really well defensively during the playoffs as well.
- Playoff stats of his extended prime years ('86-'95) were: 25.9 ppg, 13.6 rpg, 4.5 apg on 59 TS%, PER = 25.2 (over 82 total games). That's as good as you're gonna get from guys in this range.


Negatives:

- I agree with people saying that his stats do overstate his impact a bit (particularly his numbers from the 80s), but I wouldn't discount them totally either.
- Better have a shot blocking C to pair him up with if you want to have hopes of stopping players in the paint (same is true for Dirk). Barkley could take care of everything else for you though (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, draw tons of defensive attention/doubles, put teams in foul trouble etc etc).
- Has choked away really winnable series, particularly in '94 and '95 (Dirk has black marks like this too)...but if it makes it any better the only players he lost to from '90-'95 were Hakeem and Jordan, two guys who owned the decade.
- Poor shot selection and his 15+ foot shooting could be really erratic/unreliable at times.
- Poor attitude, could feud with anyone on the team/management. Bailed out on at least two teams imo, though I agree with him on wanting to leave Philly. They made some awful, awful moves during his time there.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I'll actually switch up here:

Vote: 2011 Wade

I was thinking about it, and I think he was better this year than in 09. He plays 2nd option to LeBron, a player of a very similar skillset, and has to mold his game around him. Although I am a little bit critical of Wade not doing that as optimally as possible...he still did it quite well. His production next to LeBron was still at elite levels, and according to RAPM, he was actually better than LeBron offensively that year.

His defense was also very good in the playoffs (coasted a bit during the regular season). And we saw that when LeBron struggled (to a certain extent against Boston, and against Dallas), Wade had no problem stepping in and taking over as a fantastic replacement as 1st option.

His only black mark that season was his conference finals struggles vs Chicago. But I think 2 dominant series, one ok series, and one bad series, following a season of underrated domination, is pretty fantastic. He was still physically at his best, he was healthy, and his skillset was the best it had been up to that point.

Ok, I have to ask, why must players be select in tiers or groups? It seems people are trying to find a way for either West or Wade to be selected, as opposed to examining if their peaks were really above the others.

Dirk 11' was better than Wade 11', and I don't even count 2011 as Dirk's peak. Dwight was better than Wade in 2009(IMO), so how exactly does Wade get the nod, while Howard isn't even mentioned? With West, I feel 1966 is his clear peak, yet I still don't see many in depth comparisons between him and the other in contention.

Also, I'm surprised Paul or Payton haven't come up. Jason Kidd deserves some run, as does Pettit, King, Malone(both of them), and others. A guy like Nash had a Top 5 offensive peak, while Dwight has had the best defensive peak of his era(3 straight DPOY).

It just seems that people have a pre-defined list in their head.

[PTB Fan]

I still think Baylor's 62 peak is arguably better than West's 65/66/68 season..

[mysticbb]

There were a few cases made for Dirk a few threads ago, but it's been quiet on his front lately. Colts? Mystic? Where you at?

I'm not in the voting panel and I don't think that Nowitzki had a higher peak than Wade 2010 anyway.

Regarding Barkley I have to say that his statistical peak was in 1991. I estimated 5.7 SPM for him that season (in both, regular season and playoffs seperately as well as the combination). Well, and I somehow doubt that Barkley provided so much more outside of the boxscore. Nowitzki has multiple seasons higher than that (2003, 2006 and 2007), while 2005 was at the same level. A healthy Nowitzki in 2011 is in the same ballpark (his playoff SPM is +7.06). No, I doubt that Barkley had a higher peak than Nowitzki.

The rest of the discussion becomes a bit worthless to me, because I would just repeat what I previously said and somehow I don't have the impression that people are actually interested in that anyway.

[nikomCH]

Just curious why is there no SPM data for those early 90s years and most of the 80s?

[lorak]

vote: Wade 2009

[JordansBulls]

Wade 2006

[toodles23]

I don't see the case for '10 Wade at all. If you're going to nitpick his series against the Hawks, remember that against Boston, Wade got criticism for being too passive early on in the series. In the first two games he only took 18 FGA in each of them with just 6 FTA per game, and that includes an extremely winnable game 1 where Miami actually had the lead going into the 4th. Wade only scored 6 points in that 4th quarter though, watching Boston's lead expand before finally making a few baskets after the game was pretty much decided.

And if we're so concerned about injury affecting Wade's play, remember how he tweaked his ankle late in game 3 and wasn't able to play defense on the final possession (where Pierce ended up nailing a 20 footer at the buzzer)?

If we're going to pick nits like you're doing with Wade's '09 season, I can do plenty of that with his '10 series against Boston. I just don't get how a 5 game series against a team he never came close to beating can catapult the entire season over his obviously superior '09 campaign, and really, it's not like he went completely bonkers against Boston either. Wade himself has had better playoff series.

[mysticbb]

Just curious why is there no SPM data for those early 90s years and most of the 80s?

They exist, but only on my hdd so far, I haven't finished the collection of the playoff data for some season, but I have SPM data for a regular seasons from 1978 to 2012, while having playoffs for 1978 to 1984 and 1991 to 2012. So, when I come around to do the other years, I will upload all years.

[Chosen01]

Wow haven't been following, Robinson got in over Wade and West?

[thizznation]

There seems to be a lot of dispute between Wade's peak. I personally have either 06' or 09'

I would like to hear why people arn't endorsing 06' over 09'. Do you really think his defense improved that much from 06' to 09'? Are people discrediting his stats slightly because of playing with Shaq?


RAPM for 06' and 09' are nearly identical, If you factor in 06' Wade's post season with regular season wade was scoring 27.5 PPG on 0.581 TS% compared to 09' Wades 30.1 ppg on .573 TS%. I guess 09 has the slight edge here

With seasons that look very similar I would go with 06' Wade considering how much damage he did in the post season as a tiebreaker (even when not heavily weighting the PS success)


Could some 09' Wade guys care to give a few quick points on your main reasons for 09 over 06? (I read most of the previous project threads but if someone wants to post a re-link to a certain post of theirs, that will be fine.)

[Lightning25]

Vote: 2009 Dwyane Wade

I'm not sure why Wade's peak is having such dispute. 2009 Wade was quite clearly when Wade was at his best when it came to everything. His defense was at his peak, his mid-range game, his jumper in general, etc.

But like I said, I do find it odd that Wade was better defensively in 2009 when he had virtually no help and had to carry all the weight for his team than he was in 2006 when his team was stacked, had Shaq, and didn't have to do as much heavy lifting.

[ardee]

On Barkley:

Ok, I never realized 1990 was THAT good

It's quite hard to pick a peak for him, really.

Best regular season, stats wise: 1990
Best regular season, success wise: 1993
Best Playoffs, stats wise: 1986? (25-16-6 on 63% TS)/1994?
Best Playoffs, success wise: 1993

This will be an interesting debate to hash out. I think people are really underestimating Chuck here... During the late 80s and early 90s he used to eat teams alive on the offensive end. 1989 Playoffs (lost in a 3 game sweep, but still): 27-12-5 on 64% FG, 69% TS!!

1994 Playoffs: 28-13-5 on 58% TS, the famous 56-14 game against Webber (11-11 in the opening quarter, highest Playoff Game Score ever).

[PTB Fan]

We need more Chuck stuff.

[mysticbb]

We need more Chuck stuff.

Like, in 1991, when Barkley had his career high in PER with 28.9 and his second highest WS/48 with 0.258, he missed 15 games. During those 15 games the 76ers without Barkley played like a -2.35 SRS team, in the 67 games with Barkley and his tremendous production and efficiency the 76ers played like a 0.05 SRS team. That equates to the crazy difference of 2.4 between with and without Barkley. If Barkley was such a great player, why couldn't he improve such team more like other superstars usually do?

[colts18]

We need more Chuck stuff.

Like, in 1991, when Barkley had his career high in PER with 28.9 and his second highest WS/48 with 0.258, he missed 15 games. During those 15 games the 76ers without Barkley played like a -2.35 SRS team, in the 67 games with Barkley and his tremendous production and efficiency the 76ers played like a 0.05 SRS team. That equates to the crazy difference of 2.4 between with and without Barkley. If Barkley was such a great player, why couldn't he improve such team more like other superstars usually do?

How did the offense do with him vs. without him?

[MisterWestside]

We need more Chuck stuff.

Like, in 1991, when Barkley had his career high in PER with 28.9 and his second highest WS/48 with 0.258, he missed 15 games. During those 15 games the 76ers without Barkley played like a -2.35 SRS team, in the 67 games with Barkley and his tremendous production and efficiency the 76ers played like a 0.05 SRS team. That equates to the crazy difference of 2.4 between with and without Barkley. If Barkley was such a great player, why couldn't he improve such team more like other superstars usually do?

Because 1) it's a sample size of 15 games, and 2) with/without isn't the one and only definitive measure of player performance?

[mysticbb]

How did the offense do with him vs. without him?

Tbh, I don't care. We can't really conclude anything out of this information, because they can be so many shifts that an mainly offensive player might as well have a great effect on the defense. For me the scoring margin is all that matters, because that gives us an impression about the strength of the team with and without a certain player.

Because 1) it's a sample size of 15 games, and 2) with/without isn't the one and only definitive measure of player performance?

And in the end the 76ers with him were still just a 0.05 SRS team. How much do you think they overperformed during those 15 games in order to justify such small difference?

Also, it would be nice, if you can show me where I said that with/without would be the only defintive measure of player performance. Because I know you can't, you should stop implying that I would use such data as such measure. ;)

[ardee]

We need more Chuck stuff.

Like, in 1991, when Barkley had his career high in PER with 28.9 and his second highest WS/48 with 0.258, he missed 15 games. During those 15 games the 76ers without Barkley played like a -2.35 SRS team, in the 67 games with Barkley and his tremendous production and efficiency the 76ers played like a 0.05 SRS team. That equates to the crazy difference of 2.4 between with and without Barkley. If Barkley was such a great player, why couldn't he improve such team more like other superstars usually do?

Because 1) it's a sample size of 15 games, and 2) with/without isn't the one and only definitive measure of player performance?

+1

[An Unbiased Fan]

Because 1) it's a sample size of 15 games, and 2) with/without isn't the one and only definitive measure of player performance?

I have to agree with this bigtime. I've brought up it a few times already, but this line of comparing still seems to dominate. There are just way too many variables when a player misses games, to then correlate that to his actual impact. Roster depth, the system they run, the player's utility to the team, SOS, coaching, they all play just as big of a role.

Pretty much any star who misses significant time will see his team's performance dropoff at a high rate. Less durable players have been getting an unfair advantage. Even the same player is being parsed out by this(1966 vs 1968 West for example). I would think what a player did while actually playing...... would be more paramount than what his team did without him.