My new project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever

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Gregoire
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Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#181 » by Gregoire » Tue Dec 24, 2013 7:20 am

Now waiting for these posters to vote:

ElGee
JulesWinnfield
mopper8
tsherkin
Mutnt
jals
NugzHeat3
Durins Baynes
accrossthecourt
rravenred
Infamous1
Boarder Patrol
OnePostLegend
Notanoob
SummitAllstar
parapooper
Modulate
NH13
Rapcity_11
HeartBreakKid
An Unbiased Fan


- Gideon and fpliii - I hope you give your complete top-5 lists in order soon

For posters, who will post here, automatically And-1 free from me. :)
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#182 » by Gregoire » Thu Dec 26, 2013 1:00 pm

With 3 new voters.

I count the results of voting according to system: number one gains 5 points, number 2 - 4 points, 3th place - 3 points, 4th - 2 points, 5th - 1 point.

Here is the top-5 individual peaks ever of RealGM PC board posters voting to 16 december 2013.

1. Michael Jordan - 143 points

2. Shaqiulle O'Neal - 116 points

3. Lebron James - 59 points

4. Wilt Chamberlain - 57 points

5. Hakeem Olajuwon - 28 points

Other players, receiving votes:

6. Larry Bird - 22 points

7. Kareem Abdul - Jabbar - 15 points

8. Bill Russell - 14 points

9. Magic Johnson - 3 points

10. Oscar Robertson -2 points

11. Julius Erving - 1 point

12. Tim Duncan - 1 point


- MJ was included in all lists and his lowest rank was second (12 times).

- Wilt and Lebron are closest as hell, so I hope voting will continue and will help to clarify this debate.

Lets go on, guys!
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#183 » by Gregoire » Fri Dec 27, 2013 9:55 am

Please, give me Christmas present - vote here please! :)
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#184 » by Gregoire » Sun Dec 29, 2013 9:27 am

Now waiting for these posters to vote:

ElGee
JulesWinnfield
mopper8
tsherkin
Mutnt
jals
NugzHeat3
Durins Baynes
accrossthecourt
rravenred
Infamous1
Boarder Patrol
OnePostLegend
Notanoob
SummitAllstar
parapooper
Modulate
NH13
Rapcity_11
HeartBreakKid
An Unbiased Fan

- Gideon and fpliii - I hope you give your complete top-5 lists in order soon
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#185 » by Gregoire » Tue Dec 31, 2013 10:08 am

Now waiting for these posters to vote:

ElGee
JulesWinnfield
mopper8
tsherkin
Mutnt
jals
NugzHeat3
Durins Baynes
accrossthecourt
rravenred
Infamous1
Boarder Patrol
OnePostLegend
Notanoob
SummitAllstar
parapooper
Modulate
NH13
Rapcity_11
HeartBreakKid
An Unbiased Fan
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#186 » by Gregoire » Thu Jan 2, 2014 11:06 am

bumb
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
CBB_Fan
Senior
Posts: 591
And1: 138
Joined: Jul 15, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#187 » by CBB_Fan » Fri Jan 3, 2014 11:20 pm

I'll use the list of players with at least one vote to start my analysis. I'll assume their is not another top-10 peak outside of those players to reduce the body of work. I'll also assume that each player would play the same in this era.

With those two assumptions, I'll go to the advanced analytic methods. Now most would use their favorite version of "reward everything good, punish everything bad" analysis (ie, PER) which would serve as a complete evaluation of these players. It would be easy to line them up by PER, put a ranking to it and just call it good.

The problem with these types of analysis is that the formulas never come from empirical analysis, but are instead derived arbitrarily. This means that instead of working from the data and trying to find out what correlates to creating wins, the people that make these stats simply estimate weights and create formulas to create something that "looks right." They are usually a little better at prediction than PPG, but not much.

Now usually I would say that MPG should be ignored and we should use possession-less stats to get a more accurate picture of each player's production. But for a peak season, minutes ARE important. A player that plays 40 MPG gives more production than the same player playing 20. Every form of analysis has flaws, and while per minute or per possession stats are valuable in many situations I think they start to falter when you are comparing peaks. In this case each player was a star, which eliminates the primary advantage of per-whatever measurements, the ability to compare starters and stars with bench players.

So first I'll try and derive some way to tell empirically which statistics tend to be the most important. Or to be frank, I'll let others pave the way for me. Ben Morris (from Skeptical Sports Analysis) has already done much of this work, and most of my reasoning originates from his series on Dennis Rodman (fascinating stuff, I recommend it to anyone who cares about sports analysis). To cut this short, he calculated the relative importance of each stat with a linear regression, the result of which is below:

Image

Now is as good of time to mention a third assumption that I've made by omission. I've assumed that each of these scales linearly. IE, the difference between getting 1 rebound and 2 is the same as the difference between getting 4 and 5. But that isn't always the case. For some stats, extreme values are much more predictive of winning a game. The biggest example is TOs. Losing the ball once is negligible, and simply multiplying that by 10 still seems like a fairly small impact. But losing the ball 10 times has a much larger impact than that.

Below is a chart to address that as well. The graph is hard to understand, so I'll explain it. The numbers on the bottom correspond to the exponent of regression. What we are looking for are the peaks for each stat. These peaks show where the stat is most predictive. If they peak close to 1, they are nearly linear. If it peaks at a higher exponent, then it diverges from linearity and extreme values are more predictive than smaller values.

Image

Anyway, I tried to throw the numbers into some sort of equation. It isn't perfect, but it gave the following:

If we treat high rebounding values well (ie, give priority to extreme cases):

#1: Shaq 99'-00'
#2: Bird 84'-85'
#3: Jordan 88'-89'
#4: James 09'-10'
#5: Durant 09'-10'

Problem is that this didn't give enough to get a ranking for Russell, Chamberlain, Olajuwon, Johnson, Duncan, Oscar Robertson, Erving or Kareem. However, treating things more linearly for rebounding (none of them have high enough TO% to hurt themselves) gives:

#1: Jordan 87'-88'
#2: Shaq '99-00'
#3: Bird 87'-88'
#4: James 07'-08'
#5: Bryant 05'-06'

This is still far from a complete analysis. I'll probably redo it with the normally selected peak years of each player to try and get a ranking closer to normal. From what I've seen though, the rankings almost have to have Jordan and Shaq in the top 2, and Bird probably should be higher than most have him. And James has already put up seasons that are good enough to rank with the best all-time.

For ranking purposes, use the second group of five.
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#188 » by Gregoire » Sun Jan 5, 2014 2:13 pm

CBB_Fan wrote:I'll use the list of players with at least one vote to start my analysis. I'll assume their is not another top-10 peak outside of those players to reduce the body of work. I'll also assume that each player would play the same in this era.

With those two assumptions, I'll go to the advanced analytic methods. Now most would use their favorite version of "reward everything good, punish everything bad" analysis (ie, PER) which would serve as a complete evaluation of these players. It would be easy to line them up by PER, put a ranking to it and just call it good.

The problem with these types of analysis is that the formulas never come from empirical analysis, but are instead derived arbitrarily. This means that instead of working from the data and trying to find out what correlates to creating wins, the people that make these stats simply estimate weights and create formulas to create something that "looks right." They are usually a little better at prediction than PPG, but not much.

Now usually I would say that MPG should be ignored and we should use possession-less stats to get a more accurate picture of each player's production. But for a peak season, minutes ARE important. A player that plays 40 MPG gives more production than the same player playing 20. Every form of analysis has flaws, and while per minute or per possession stats are valuable in many situations I think they start to falter when you are comparing peaks. In this case each player was a star, which eliminates the primary advantage of per-whatever measurements, the ability to compare starters and stars with bench players.

So first I'll try and derive some way to tell empirically which statistics tend to be the most important. Or to be frank, I'll let others pave the way for me. Ben Morris (from Skeptical Sports Analysis) has already done much of this work, and most of my reasoning originates from his series on Dennis Rodman (fascinating stuff, I recommend it to anyone who cares about sports analysis). To cut this short, he calculated the relative importance of each stat with a linear regression, the result of which is below:

Image

Now is as good of time to mention a third assumption that I've made by omission. I've assumed that each of these scales linearly. IE, the difference between getting 1 rebound and 2 is the same as the difference between getting 4 and 5. But that isn't always the case. For some stats, extreme values are much more predictive of winning a game. The biggest example is TOs. Losing the ball once is negligible, and simply multiplying that by 10 still seems like a fairly small impact. But losing the ball 10 times has a much larger impact than that.

Below is a chart to address that as well. The graph is hard to understand, so I'll explain it. The numbers on the bottom correspond to the exponent of regression. What we are looking for are the peaks for each stat. These peaks show where the stat is most predictive. If they peak close to 1, they are nearly linear. If it peaks at a higher exponent, then it diverges from linearity and extreme values are more predictive than smaller values.

Image

Anyway, I tried to throw the numbers into some sort of equation. It isn't perfect, but it gave the following:

If we treat high rebounding values well (ie, give priority to extreme cases):

#1: Shaq 99'-00'
#2: Bird 84'-85'
#3: Jordan 88'-89'
#4: James 09'-10'
#5: Durant 09'-10'

Problem is that this didn't give enough to get a ranking for Russell, Chamberlain, Olajuwon, Johnson, Duncan, Oscar Robertson, Erving or Kareem. However, treating things more linearly for rebounding (none of them have high enough TO% to hurt themselves) gives:

#1: Jordan 87'-88'
#2: Shaq '99-00'
#3: Bird 87'-88'
#4: James 07'-08'
#5: Bryant 05'-06'

This is still far from a complete analysis. I'll probably redo it with the normally selected peak years of each player to try and get a ranking closer to normal. From what I've seen though, the rankings almost have to have Jordan and Shaq in the top 2, and Bird probably should be higher than most have him. And James has already put up seasons that are good enough to rank with the best all-time.

For ranking purposes, use the second group of five.


Very good post. So, at this moment you have top-5:

Jordan
Shaq
Bird
Lebron
Kobe?
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#189 » by Gregoire » Mon Jan 6, 2014 7:55 am

Still waiting for these posters to vote:

ElGee
JulesWinnfield
mopper8
tsherkin
Mutnt
jals
NugzHeat3
Durins Baynes
accrossthecourt
rravenred
Infamous1
Boarder Patrol
OnePostLegend
Notanoob
SummitAllstar
parapooper
Modulate
NH13
Rapcity_11
HeartBreakKid
An Unbiased Fan
DHodgkins
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#190 » by Gregoire » Thu Jan 9, 2014 2:55 pm

With 1 new voter.

I count the results of voting according to system: number one gains 5 points, number 2 - 4 points, 3th place - 3 points, 4th - 2 points, 5th - 1 point.

Here is the top-5 individual peaks ever of RealGM PC board posters voting to 09 january 2014.

1. Michael Jordan - 148 points

2. Shaqiulle O'Neal - 120 points

3. Lebron James - 61 points

4. Wilt Chamberlain - 57 points

5. Hakeem Olajuwon - 28 points

Other players, receiving votes:

6. Larry Bird - 25 points

7. Kareem Abdul - Jabbar - 15 points

8. Bill Russell - 14 points

9. Magic Johnson - 3 points

10. Oscar Robertson -2 points

11. Julius Erving - 1 point

12. Tim Duncan - 1 point

13. Kobe Bryant - 1 point


- MJ was included in all lists and his lowest rank was second (12 times).

- Wilt and Lebron are closest as hell, so I hope voting will continue and will help to clarify this debate.

Lets go on, guys!
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Notanoob
Analyst
Posts: 3,475
And1: 1,223
Joined: Jun 07, 2013

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#191 » by Notanoob » Thu Jan 9, 2014 3:58 pm

Pretty hard to pick for sure, but I'll throw in my 2 cents:
1. First Three-peat Jordan
2. Wilt '67
3. Hakeem (93/94/95, hard to really pick one year as his outright peak)
4. LeBron James '13
5. Shaq '00
Gregoire
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Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
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Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#192 » by Gregoire » Thu Jan 9, 2014 4:36 pm

Notanoob wrote:Pretty hard to pick for sure, but I'll throw in my 2 cents:
1. First Three-peat Jordan
2. Wilt '67
3. Hakeem (93/94/95, hard to really pick one year as his outright peak)
4. LeBron James '13
5. Shaq '00


Great list, I think for Hakeem 93 was his best season, but its debatable.
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#193 » by Gregoire » Thu Jan 9, 2014 6:15 pm

Still waiting for these posters to vote:

ElGee
JulesWinnfield
mopper8
tsherkin
Mutnt
jals
NugzHeat3
Durins Baynes
accrossthecourt
rravenred
Infamous1
Boarder Patrol
OnePostLegend
SummitAllstar
parapooper
Modulate
NH13
Rapcity_11
HeartBreakKid
An Unbiased Fan
DHodgkins


and others!!
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#194 » by Gregoire » Thu Jan 9, 2014 6:25 pm

These guys I know are often online, so I want them to vote soon or to officially refuse of participation, because their votes are very important and I tried a lot to ask them in the past.

JulesWinnfield
mopper8
tsherkin
Mutnt
accrossthecourt
rravenred
SummitAllstar
Modulate
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
JordansBulls
RealGM
Posts: 60,467
And1: 5,349
Joined: Jul 12, 2006
Location: HCA (Homecourt Advantage)

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#195 » by JordansBulls » Thu Jan 9, 2014 7:37 pm

Instead of listing all the posters you want to comment on this thread and bumping the name list every other day, why don't you just PM each of them and see if they want to participate. If they don't then you have your answer.
Image
"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships."
- Michael Jordan
Gregoire
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Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#196 » by Gregoire » Thu Jan 9, 2014 8:26 pm

JordansBulls wrote:Instead of listing all the posters you want to comment on this thread and bumping the name list every other day, why don't you just PM each of them and see if they want to participate. If they don't then you have your answer.


Yes, I PM all of posters I wanted but they didnt answer. And for some I cant PM.
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#197 » by Gregoire » Fri Jan 10, 2014 8:59 am

Some new posters I want to participate.

Grandpa Waiters
MisterWestside
IG2
ISB
DEEP3CL
JLei
G35
JVL
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#198 » by Gregoire » Sun Jan 12, 2014 11:35 am

Waiting soon for fpliii list.
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
Gregoire
Analyst
Posts: 3,529
And1: 669
Joined: Jul 29, 2012

Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#199 » by Gregoire » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:53 pm

With 1 new voter.

I count the results of voting according to system: number one gains 5 points, number 2 - 4 points, 3th place - 3 points, 4th - 2 points, 5th - 1 point.

Here is the top-5 individual peaks ever of RealGM PC board posters voting to 13 january 2014.

1. Michael Jordan - 153 points

2. Shaqiulle O'Neal - 121 points

3. Lebron James - 63 points

4. Wilt Chamberlain - 61 points

5. Hakeem Olajuwon - 31 points

Other players, receiving votes:

6. Larry Bird - 25 points

7. Kareem Abdul - Jabbar - 15 points

8. Bill Russell - 14 points

9. Magic Johnson - 3 points

10. Oscar Robertson -2 points

11. Julius Erving - 1 point

12. Tim Duncan - 1 point

13. Kobe Bryant - 1 point

- MJ was included in all lists and his lowest rank was second (12 times).

- Wilt and Lebron are closest as hell, so I hope voting will continue and will help to clarify this debate.

Lets go on, guys!
Heej wrote:
These no calls on LeBron are crazy. A lot of stars got foul calls to protect them.
falcolombardi wrote:
Come playoffs 18 lebron beats any version of jordan
AEnigma wrote:
Jordan is not as smart a help defender as Kidd
User avatar
Quotatious
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Re: My own project: top-5 1-year player peaks ever 

Post#200 » by Quotatious » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:59 pm

Magic's and Duncan's peaks seem to be hugely underrated. I'm also confused about Shaq having so many more votes than LBJ or Hakeem. Wilt is kinda understandable (although I strongly disagree) given his bad reputation around here.

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