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

[Doctor MJ]

I'm sorry if this comes out the wrong way but I hope your joking or completely forgot the 11 Finals. Wade was a one man team out there (Bosh was decent but too). He had WAAAY more help in 06. I picked Dallas to win in 6 but after seeing Wade through the first 4 games I thought that Dallas had no chance. Actually I still believe that without the injury in game 5 they would've won. He was amazing.

That being said 11 is nowhere near his best year. I really think 09 is far ahead of 10 and 11.

I'm talking about the fact that any normal superstar who did so LITTLE as Wade did against Chicago in the ECF that year wouldn't get a chance to play in the Finals hence wouldn't get a chance to burn nuclear.

My opinion on Wade in general: He can burn nuclear over burst more reliably than anyone since at least Shaq, maybe even since Jordan (Jordan was the king of nuclear burn). This is fantastic, and not to be brushed aside lightly, however the way Wade does it is in a sprint. He's not someone with ridiculous season-wide stamina, so when you see him full of energy in the '11 Finals, you've got to keep in mind how dead he looked in the previous series.

I think you need to look at all of Wade's big years from this perspective. This isn't a guy depending on tough jumpers to fall like Kobe, Wade can get better by just cranking up his effort to 110%...but he'll pay for it later. So in '09 where you see him nuts in the back end of the season, well that's when he was using his burn to help his team. In '10 maybe he's waiting more for the 1st round of the playoffs. In his actual title contender years, he's delaying even further.

If you're looking for the year where he used more of this burn than any other per minute played, I'd say you're looking at '09. If you're looking at Wade doing the most playoff burn, well, he's got several years that beat '09 in that regard.

[Doctor MJ]

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).

I think one of the things about Barkley is that he clearly seems a more prolific regular season player early on, but his playoffs are erratic in that period. Later on, it seems like he coasted through the regular season more, and then tore through the post-season every time.

I'm inclined to favor the later years, because what I think you're seeing with this trend is Barkley just becoming smarter and smarter.

However, I also think for Barkley "smarter" also tends to coincide with coasting more and more on defense too.

As far as where he ranks here, I'm still trying to get a handle on him. I'm inclined to say that West, Wade, Dirk and Nash all impress me more.

[Doctor MJ]

Do you think that the fact that Chuck was a 6'6" (some reports put him as being shorter than that) guy playing out of position at the 4 has something to do with this?

Just chiming into say two things:

1) People overestimate the importance of height and leaping when it comes to rebounding. If you get to the right spot, and you're denser than everybody else, you're butt is going to clear space. The taller skinnier guys will bounce off. This is why Kevin Love has come into the league and instantly becoming the best rebounder on the planet. Yes he's taller than Chuck, but he's not tall for a big. What he is though is probably the smartest, densest, and best hustler among any big in the NBA. Chuck of course wasn't known as a hustler, but when he put his mind to something, nothing stopped him.

2) Unless you're trying to use Chuck as a defensive anchor, I think maybe the best thing you can say about him is that you almost can't "play him out of position". He's one of those rare guys who breaks the mold so much that there is no place you're "supposed" to use him, and he's so aggressive that he's going to impact almost no matter what you have him do.

[therealbig3]

I actually tend to lean towards mysticbb's stance regarding Barkley, to be honest. Big box score numbers...but production like that is really not that useful when it's not leading to impact. The whole point is to make your team better. And he has had some legitimate support over the years. In fact, people overlook how much talent he's played with over the course of his career.

I would take Wade, West, Dirk, T-Mac, and Nash over Barkley. They were all better defensively, and were comparable or better offensively.

[Doctor MJ]

Re: Moses.

PTB Fan's posted some great stuff here.

I have trouble gauging Moses, and I think most do because it starts with a confused narrative from contemporaries. He won 3 MVPs, but people didn't rave about him like they did other MVP level stars. Before him, we know much more about Kareem, Julius, and Walton. After him we know much more about Bird, Magic, MJ and even Barkley.

I think the reality with him is that he had a far more simplistic game than any of those other players. For example, with so many of the great bigs in history, you can find some anecdote about "oh and what a great passer", "such a smart player". Pretty hard to find such stuff with Moses. Instead he gets called a garbage man. He's focusing on one thing, and doing it really well...but sometimes people say his myopic focus both hurt his team and inflated his stats.

I think that Moses being the top player on one of the great season teams in all of history certainly helps his case here, but going right along with that is that his stats don't seem to correlate well with his team's success, and nobody hypes up his intangibles.

He's still basically doing his thing the two years after the magical '83 season and the team isn't magical any more, then Barkley arrives and very quickly seems to be able to "do Moses" scoring & rebounding volume with much better efficiency, perimeter game, and passing-decision making.

A question arises: If you had prime Barkley instead of Moses on the '83 team, what changes would you need to make to make the team amazing? Your first thought is probably that Moses is a legit big, and so you need a replacement there, and there's some truth to that, but understand: Moses playing center meant the other team won every tip. Moses was small for center too. Yes I'd rather have Moses playing center than Barkley, but Moses at center for the 76ers I think made them really vulnerable to teams that had really legit centers...and the "Moses era" where he's winning MVPs happens right when a strong group of bigs is getting old, and Moses peters out when we start getting that amazing crew of new bigs come in (Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson).

One more thing to think about: Moses played for TEN different teams in his career. When a guy we're talking about at this level players for more than a couple teams, you need to start asking what the problem was, because teams tend to hold on to players who are that good. For some players, there are legit reasons that are no one's fault, for some the player in question was just temperamental. Even Shaq only played for 6 teams though. Moses only plays for 10 teams, because teams just weren't that impressed.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Moses' peak wasn't every bit as impressive as some indicators would make you think to claim - perhaps his strengths only came together briefly. However, while I believe that to some extent here, I think you also need to understand that Moses needed the right situation to really thrive in.

[MisterWestside]

I actually tend to lean towards mysticbb's stance regarding Barkley, to be honest. Big box score numbers...but production like that is really not that useful when it's not leading to impact. The whole point is to make your team better.

I mean, yeah, but why is this always on the player? You can be a great player and be used incorrectly in the team context or not be in the ideal team environment (as a Heat fan, I would think that LBJ didn't forget how to play basketball on the offensive end between 2010 when he "impacted" his teams and when he joined the squad). Do the words "Jim Lyham" and "offensive genius"/expert" occupy the same sentence when you type your posts?

[MisterWestside]

Do you think that the fact that Chuck was a 6'6" (some reports put him as being shorter than that) guy playing out of position at the 4 has something to do with this?

Just chiming into say two things:

1) People overestimate the importance of height and leaping when it comes to rebounding. If you get to the right spot, and you're denser than everybody else, you're butt is going to clear space. The taller skinnier guys will bounce off. This is why Kevin Love has come into the league and instantly becoming the best rebounder on the planet. Yes he's taller than Chuck, but he's not tall for a big. What he is though is probably the smartest, densest, and best hustler among any big in the NBA. Chuck of course wasn't known as a hustler, but when he put his mind to something, nothing stopped him.

All understood, and besides I said that he was a tremendous rebounder in my post.

I'm merely relating this to the "impact" issue. When you can tinker your lineup by using three lengthy players who can be played together to give you what Chuck provides with rebounding, it's a luxury. Not Chuck lacking in the greatness dept.

[Gikeo]

I think you need to look at all of Wade's big years from this perspective. This isn't a guy depending on tough jumpers to fall like Kobe,.

did you even watch prime Kobe? lmao.

[Dr Positivity]

I feel pretty strongly about voting peak Ewing over peak Moses in this project (leaning towards '93 Ewing btw unless someone can convince me the '90 version was as impactful defensively). I'd prefer to build around Ewing, where you set your defense up pretty well and also get solid offense, vs Moses having more offense but a shaky defensive record. While Ewing having an uglier offensive skillset than his numbers worries me, Moses' offensive game isn't exactly pretty either, so it's hard to knock him for it. I think Moses is better offensively just... not by enough of a margin

Btw I dug up a post from last year when I looked at the DRB ranks of Moses' teams, because I was thinking heavily at the time about how big men who excel at getting offensive rebounds more than defensive ones, may be using their high skill of "tracking" the ball on the glass on the defensive end, thus chasing after rebounds instead of boxing out. Moses of course has one of the highest ORB to DRB ratios of all players in history, such as in 1982 having 47% of his rebounds on the offensive glass, 53% DRB. A guy I compared him to as on the opposite end of ORB/DRB ratio, Dirk, had 10% of his rebounds offensive in 2011, 90% defensive, and his team managed to have a lot of good defensive rebounding years. Here are Moses' team rebounding stats:

Moses
Rockets 77 - 5th
Rockets 78 - 15/22
Rockets 79 - 9/22
Rockets - 80 - 21/22
Rockets 81 - 11/23
Rockets 82 - 17/23
Sixers 83 - 13/23
Sixers 84 - 18/23
Sixers 85 - 15/23
Sixers 86 - 17/23 - This is a Barkley/Moses frontcourt year. WTF?
Bullets 87 - 22/23
Bullets 88 - 21/23
Hawks 89 - 22/25
Hawks 90 - 26/27
Hawks 91 - 7/27
Bucks 92 - 23/27

That's rough. I also looked at what happened to the team's after his moves - Rockets move from 17th in DRB in 82 to 18th in 83, Sixers move from 22nd DRB in 82 to 13th DRB in 83. So that's not a bad impact, though he was also replacing Daryl Dawkins, who has probably the worst size of human being to rebounding ratio ever. The Sixers are 17th in both 86 and 87, the Bullets are 20th in 86 and 22nd in 87. The Hawks go from 13th in 88 to 22nd in 89, the Bullets go from 21st in 88 to 12th in 89. The Hawks go from 7th in 91 to 8th in 92, the Bucks go from 21st in 91 to 23rd in 92. So the overall changing from team to team doesn't support Moses being an impact defensive rebounder.

[thizznation]

I have a few more ideas I would like to kick around with the Wade fellas.

For the '10 voters, Is it that post season flash? Or the very high RAPM score he received that year in comparison to all his other years? If that's the case then you might want to reexamine '11 Dirk and switch your vote to him since he is hitting those catagories even harder than '10 wade? I think Dirk and Wade are neck and neck in this project but I personally have wade a hair over for reasons I don't want to get into now, trying to stay on point.

For the '11 voters, I believe it's only therealbig right now. I was following your narrative and agreed on most of it of Wade adapting his game and being more well rounded and that increasing his portability which is a criteria that has been being used in the project. The question I would like to ask you is if we transported the 27 year old '09 wade and put him in that role he was filling in '11...how do you think he would do? Similar? Better?


I love the 06 run but I believe we can't get carried away in weighting post season success so heavily when talking about the level of the prime the player was playing at.

To the 06' voters I will ask you to try to visualize a similar scenario I proposed to therealbig, accept put the 09' version of wade back in time to 06' and how do you think he would do?

From reading heat posts on the forums from fans, who have watched a lot more wade games than I, have been saying that his defense came quite aways from that of his '06 year. I think the few extra years of NBA experience under his belt and him still being at 27 years old would be some more factors that show 09 wade would recreate the '06 post-season if put in 06's shoes..


Statistically, Physically, All Around B Ball game seemed to be peaking in terms of synergy at 27 years old in 09'.


This post wasn't ment as much as to persuade but to more along the lines of get some discussion going with the wade guys, it looks like there has been split votes for a few weeks now with little debate on the subject. Thanks.

pardon me for being a little ranty, I was getting rushed at the end

[Dr Positivity]

2009 vs 2010 Wade: I'm seeing it as 09 Wade having the 27 G post ASB stretch (34ppg/51%) and 2010 Wade having the better 1st round. If you look at 09 Wade's splits he's actually the same guy as 2010 Wade until the all-star break.

So the question I have, is that if one cares about small sample sizes, why not treat that post ASB as susceptible to sample size? Wade has been a 26-28ppg player very consistently otherwise. 2006, 2007 before he got injured, first 2/3s of 2009, and 2010 he's basically in that 26-28ppg range. All of a sudden for 27 Gs he turns into 1990 Michael Jordan by dropping 34ppg/51%. This sounds a lot like a "hot streak" to me too.

If we take the leap to saying one of the reasons for Wade being so much more potent a scorer at that time was a deadly hot midrange shot, this http://www.hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=Dwyane%20Wade is a good resource. Wade has been between 36 and 38% every year since 07 from 16-23 ft, except 09, where he hit 42% of them. Wade in 2009 hits 52.4% of his 2s, Wade in 2010 hits 50.9% on 2s. But in 09 Wade his 51.1% on 2s before the ASB, very similar to the 2010 overall number and his overall career average of 50.7% - While after the ASB he hits a sparkling 54.8% on 2s. What this really looks like to me, is that it's the post ASB of 09 that's responsible for his shooting % going up, and specifically raising that 42% midrange number. If we assume Wade getting hot from midrange is what led to his post ASB shooting percentage, what's likely is that he hit 45-50% on long 2s for that 27 G stretch, enough to take him from a likely ordinary season of 36-38% on 2s before the ASB, up to the overall number of 42%. We can also say that to get to nearly 55% from the field on 2s, it's very likely his midrange shots were over 45%, they'd drag down his percentage too much otherwise. Now this REALLY looks like an outlier to me, considering how consistent Wade has measured at 36-38% from 16-23 ft in the seasons before and after. Wade has proven he's simply not a guy who hits midrange shots at 45-50%, he can't even break 40% any other season.

So is it any worse to rewrite Wade's 2010 season for his 1st round playoff performance, than it is to rewrite 2009 Wade's season for 27 Gs of insane midrange shooting? 2009 was an amazing season and if we were voting on best RS peak I wouldn't take anything away from him for getting hot, as getting hot is part of impact. But getting hot is part of impact in the postseason too, and even if 2010 Wade was "hot", I'm more confident in 2010 Wade adding more value to his team's playoff run by getting hot in the 1st rd, than 2009 Wade doing it for the last 1/3 of the season

[C-izMe]

http://www.hoopdata.com/splits.aspx?pla ... &year=2009

Your wrong Positivity. He didn't get hot from midrange in post allstar. He actually shot WAY BETTER (in terms of percentage and volume) post all star. He got hot from deep but he also cooled down from midrange (almost evened out). What really happened in the second half of the year is that he stopped shooting midrange shots (instead opting for threes) and got into the paint at will. His shot was wet all year and I don't feel right calling that many games and shot attempts a fluke.

[thizznation]

Dr. Positivity, do you think it is possible to have one bad series, even when you are at the peak of your career?

[C-izMe]

Do you think it is possible to have one bad series, even when you are at the peak of your career?

He had a back injury...

[thizznation]

I know, that wasn't really the point I was making.

[Dr Positivity]

I didn't even know hoopdata had a splits page for the shot charts, thanks for that C-iz me. You are correct that I was wrong tieing Wade's increased shooting percentage on 2s that year to his midrange shooting. I'm willing to give 09 Wade more credit for his midrange shot. However I still don't feel 2010 Wade is capable of less in the playoffs than 2009 Wade

[C-izMe]

I see both years as this:
09 - Wade goes 100% for 27 games
10 - Wade goes 100% for 5 playoff games

I usually take PS games to count more but unless you count 1 PS game as much as 6 RS games ranking 10 over 09 is wrong. And with how high you rank PS I don't understand how your putting 10 over 11 and 06 (both better playoff runs) or even putting Wade over Dirk 11.

[Dr Positivity]

I'd definitely trade a better regular season for a better 1st round series. The only thing excellence in the RS gets you is a better seed and HCA. Being better in the 1st rd can mean the difference between winning the title or not. 07 Mavs might win the title if Dirk is great, 11 Mavs might lose in Rd 1 against Portland if Dirk is subpar. The series that stopped Karl Malone from getting a ring the most was probably a Rd 1 (95 against Houston). That's why I see the PS as so valuable even if it's a 1st rd series

Now I do think there's a line where a player being better in the boxscore in the PS doesn't mean he's a choice to take in the playoffs. 09 Paul is still a better choice to take in the postseason than 09 Parker. However I would definitely take whatever less 10 Wade gives me in the RS vs 09 Wade, in exchange for a better PS performance. Especially considering we don't even know if 10 Wade is less valuable in the RS judging by his RAPM, SPM and the fact that his team was better.

I do feel slightly better about the idea of 09 Wade getting in though, based on that I know his midrange shot is better. Someone could make an argument I'd buy that playoffs Wade having a good midrange shot in 09 makes him a more valuable player than playoffs 2010 Wade. I just don't see Wade's midrange shot as that significant a thing to change his value though, especially considering it's not like 2010 Wade couldn't hit them, it's just he hit them at a slightly worse level. What really sells it to me though is the sore back thing for 2009 Wade. That tells me there's a reason to dislike his form in 09 that goes beyond just the stats dropping off in a few games

[thizznation]

Dr. Positivity is there any part of Wade's game that he improved on noticeably going from the 09' to 10' seasons?

Like what was '10 wade doing for you that 09' wasn't? Besides those better games in the first round.

[Dr Positivity]

Dr. Positivity is there any part of Wade's game that he improved on noticeably going from the 09' to 10' seasons?

Like what was '10 wade doing for you that 09' wasn't? Besides those better games in the first round.

2010 Wade wasn't doing anything in the RS more than 2009 Wade, I believe. The 1st rd performance is enough for me to pick 2010 Wade over 2009 Wade. I would feel much more strongly about the cases for 06 and 11 Wade vs 10 because of his equal excellence in the playoffs those years