RealGM Top 100 List #5

[acrossthecourt]

I think I have Duncan over Garnett by a hair, and it's pretty much just due to Garnett hobbled when he joins Boston and Duncan having a better post age 35 career. Then again, Garnett's plus/minus is still excellent, even with different teammates and with NPI plus/minus, indicating that it's not a fluke. I broke down his defense a bit at the beginning of this season to see what Brooklyn's problem was. His pick and roll defense was still incredible.

I think I have Duncan over Shaq because, outside of those Laker title years, Shaq was often disappointing and lazy on defense. I don't put too much stock into character issues, but Duncan's gotta get some credit here. He's such a nice franchise piece. I'm not going to completely dismiss Shaq's annual 15 games missed either. That still affects seeding.

Let's compare LeBron with, say, Shaq. 08 through 14 LeBron versus 96 through 02 Shaq (edit: oops I selected the wrong years.) Like LeBron, some of those early seasons were disappointing for the end result. Shaq destroyed people in '98 when he played, but missed too many games and flamed out in the playoffs. Before Phil Jackson, Shaq did not have a great reputation compared to other all-time greats. And in retrospect, those Cleveland Mike Brown teams ... how is it possible to win 60+ games with them? They didn't win the title, but they didn't look like a contender either. Then LeBron proves him later on by winning with a past his prime Wade, who's a terrible fit for LeBron (except in the open court.) He adapts his game, becomes one of the best post players, and becomes a proficient at the catch and shoot (he was second in % after Korver for players with at least 1.5 attempts a game, according to SportVU.) Complain about '11 all you want, but Shaq wasn't at his best in '97, '99, and '02 ... and the regular season in '01 on defense and he missed games and got pick and rolled to death in '98. So it depends on how you factor in Shaq's post '02 career and what those extra seasons do for you.

Just for fun, using the Favorite Toy method of Bill James/Hollinger, LeBron's projected career totals are: 36,079 points, 9645 rebounds, and 8954 assists. That's insane. He hasn't had a major injury, and those projected totals are actually pretty conservative. He's a big, skilled player who could be a full-time PF when he slows down. A PF who's still quick, most likely, with great range and passing.... That's still deadly. No one else is close to 30k/10k/10k. Oscar's the closest at 26,710/7804/9887. There are only 12 players in the 20k/5k/5k club, actually, and it's a fun group of Hall of Famers. (Try guessing all 12, and as a bonus there's a 13th guy who sorta counts.)

I know we have to wait until his career plays out, but with Jordan/Russell/Wilt/Kareem gone, there's no one who matches his crazy consistent peak. And he's played high minutes for a decade now.


There are lots of people who have complained about RAPM. If you think it's a poor metric, then prove it. Nitpicking certain players, especially with NPI RAPM, won't prove anything. I can cite PER's love of Cousins, how Carmelo led the league in PPG, Dantley's absurd efficiency, how Chris Andersen led (or nearly led) the playoffs in WS/48 last year, etc. RAPM is tested extensively, and it does very well. When it's blended with a statistical box score metric, it's a pretty amazing predictor. I used RAPM a bit when predicting 2013 team win totals, and my predictions beat nearly every NBA prognosticator and Vegas line. It's not insignificant. It's getting at something important and real.


By the way, Win Shares are being cited a lot here, but they're pretty awful when it comes to defense:

Ryan Anderson's decline on defense
Season Drtg Drtg percentile Team rating Team ranking

Code: Select all

2011 101 94.4 101.8 3
2012 105 51.1 104.1 12
2013 112 7.0 110.3 28

Excuse the formatting, but Anderson's defense appears to slip from elite (94th percentile) to awful (7th.) What happened to his defense? Well, he went from sharing minutes on a team with Howard at his best on the Magic to New Orleans in 2013. There are lots of other examples. Asik had two straight years of being at the 99th percentile, then dropped to 80th in Houston even though he played well and competed on defense. In 2013, Blair had the 7th best defensive rating. Why did SAS drop him if he was the 7th best defender in the league?

So yeah sure, complain about defensive RAPM because Kobe's +/- isn't good enough....

Win Shares looks more stable because it's partly tied to a team's defensive rating. But when you look at teams with a lot of personnel change, or project three years into the future, Win Shares does not do a great job at predicting wins or performance.


So my questions are these:
-Why is Magic ranked under Duncan? Just longevity? What about their best, say, 8 seasons? How do they compare?
-Shaq at his best was extraordinary. How does that factor in?
-How do you rate LeBron 09 through 14? For me, it's enough that he's a contender right now. I imagine people think peak Duncan isn't far from 2013 LeBron? (The only guys who I think were peers with LeBron in that respect that I witnessed where Jordan and Shaq.)

Also, what years of the NBA are we considering? Does it start in '47? '49? '56? I didn't find a clear answer about the shot clock era.

[drza]

Magic vs LeBron: My OPINION using an RPoY framework

Some of you may remember that in earlier threads I tried to estimate what kind of impact Russell's defense might have in the present-day NBA. There was a lot of discussion about how his defensive dominance wouldn't translate to the modern, 3-point era. I made the case that Russell's combination of horizontal defense and shot-blocking would be most similar to a combination between KG and Mutombo. To estimate what that impact might be on today's RAPM scales, I looked at the 3-year and 5-year RAPM peaks of Mutombo and Garnett, compared those with similar peaks for the best offensive players, and estimated that "if Russell's defense was as much better than Mutombo's as Mutombo's was to Ben Wallace", then Russell's defense could measure out around +11 and be higher than the best total RAPMs that we've seen in this generation.

That post was mainly my opinion, but tied to what I know about the styles and impacts of the players involved, using a scale that many of us have an intuitive idea of how to interpret.

I propose to do the same thing, now, with Magic's offense. Like Russell, we don't have any RAPM data on Magic. But, like Russell, we have a history of extremely strong team offensive results that holds steady across a variety of different teammates. Outside of that, I've got my eye tests (on skill and impact) and my own opinions on how things might play out today.

The top-2 5-year peaks we see in DocMJ's normalized PI RAPM spreadsheet from 1998 - 2012 are from Steve Nash (+45.4, avg. +9.1 per year) and LeBron James (+40.7, average +8.1 per year). Nash's 3-year peak was closer to +10 (best mark: +10.22). The highest offensive mark for 1 year was actually registered by Dwyane Wade (+10.65). I actually think Nash and LeBron are the two best comps for Magic in this current generation offensively, because Magic has the floor generalship genius of Nash but similar size/mismatch ability to LeBron. Stylistically Magic doesn't play much like either, but I believe that his style would translate effectively to present day. He'd still be able to get extremely high efficiency personal scoring opportunities, and his passing might lead to more effective offense compared to his day because of the emphasis on the 3-point shot. As a unipolar star surrounded by finishers (Nash's role) or a focal star surrounded by other talent (~Miami LeBron) I think that Magic would actually be a bit more effective than either. And like we saw with Nash as Phoenix's supporting talent dwindled, the high impact seems scalable to poorer support.

Based on this, I'd estimate that Magic's offensive impact might measure out in the +10 - 11 scale on offense. The top-3 overall 5-year peaks in total RAPM over this stretch have been in the +10.5 - + 11 range (KG, LeBron and Shaq). I believe that Magic could measure out on their level, primarily with offense.

I agree Lebron is superior to Magic defensively, but have we actually established Lebron as one of the great two-way players?

Spoiler:

Im legit asking because I don't know. I certainly don't think of him in those terms. I know he's had a couple of really strong defensive seasons, but maybe he's been much better defensively throughout his career with me somehow being unaware of it?

Any help anyone could give me to help me better understand his defensive impact would be greatly appreciated.

Spoiler:

I think I may have Lebron too low on my rankings because I had him at 7 to start this(ahead of Wilt btw) so I have had Shaq/Duncan/Magic ahead of him but Im starting to think he deserves to move up. But I need to do more research on this.

Spoiler:

On factoring in defense in LeBron vs Magic, I am. But I personally think LeBron hasn't had enough years when he was the game changer on defense that he's being spoken of as.

2009 was the first year he was a real difference maker on that end. Thought he improved slightly in 2010 offensively but fell off defensively. 2011-12 he was great on that end both years. 2013 he was lacking effort in the regular season, turned it up only in the Playoffs. Same for 2014.

So I wouldn't call LeBron "one of the great two way players" because that makes him sound like Hakeem or KG, which he's not. He can play very effective and great defense but he doesn't always do it. When he does at his peak he's better than Magic but for their whole careers I think Magic is ahead by enough offensively (team results speak here) to make it not make a difference.

Also, Is KG's offense really that much greater than LeBron's defense?

If interested, this is what RAPM contributes to this discussion about LeBron's defense (and KG's offense):

LeBron's 5-year peak in defensive normalized RAPM: +14.2 over 5 years, or +2.8/year (#68 on the list).

Garnett's 5-year peak in offensive normalized RAPM: +26.9 over 5 years, or +5.4/year (#12 on the list)

[colts18]

I think I have Duncan over Shaq because, outside of those Laker title years, Shaq was often disappointing and lazy on defense. I don't put too much stock into character issues, but Duncan's gotta get some credit here. He's such a nice franchise piece. I'm not going to completely dismiss Shaq's annual 15 games missed either. That still affects seeding.

Let's compare LeBron with, say, Shaq. 09 through 14 LeBron versus 96 through 02 Shaq. Like LeBron, some of those early seasons were disappointing for the end result. Shaq destroyed people in '98 when he played, but missed too many games and flamed out in the playoffs. Before Phil Jackson, Shaq did not have a great reputation compared to other all-time greats. And in retrospect, those Cleveland Mike Brown teams ... how is it possible to win 60+ games with them? They didn't win the title, but they didn't look like a contender either. Then LeBron proves him later on by winning with a past his prime Wade, who's a terrible fit for LeBron (except in the open court.) He adapts his game, becomes one of the best post players, and becomes a proficient at the catch and shoot (he was second in % after Korver for players with at least 1.5 attempts a game, according to SportVU.) Complain about '11 all you want, but Shaq wasn't at his best in '97, '99, and '02 ... and the regular season in '01 on defense and he missed games and got pick and rolled to death in '98. So it depends on how you factor in Shaq's post '02 career and what those extra seasons do for you.

Let's say that 09-14 LeBron equals 96-02 Shaq (btw thats 7 years of Shaq vs 6 years of LeBron), the rest of Shaq's career outshines LeBron's by a margin.

xRAPM numbers for Shaq:
93-8th
94- 2nd
95- 2nd

03- Tied for 2nd (with KG)
04-1st
05-2nd
06-5th

That's 4 elite years outside of his peak. 05-08 LeBron doesn't compare to that.

Average xRAPM from 03-06:
Duncan: +10
Shaq: +9.4
KG: +9.0

That's out of peak Shaq against Peak Duncan and peak KG and he still compares well vs them.

You decided to compare 09-14 LeBron to 96-02 Shaq. How do they compare out of that timespan? Let's just look at the years they both played. Shaq has the advantage in xRAPM every year from 04-06. Is having 07 and 08 LeBron better than having 93-95 Shaq, 03 Shaq, and 07-11 Shaq? Absolutely not.

[therealbig3]

I think I have Duncan over Garnett by a hair, and it's pretty much just due to Garnett hobbled when he joins Boston and Duncan having a better post age 35 career. Then again, Garnett's plus/minus is still excellent, even with different teammates and with NPI plus/minus, indicating that it's not a fluke. I broke down his defense a bit at the beginning of this season to see what Brooklyn's problem was. His pick and roll defense was still incredible.

Garnett was physically declined in 2014 though, which affected him offensively, and Kidd was severely holding him back...but yes, his defense was still excellent, and the general consensus among Nets fans was that he should have received A LOT more playing time.

[ceiling raiser]

I think I have Duncan over Shaq because, outside of those Laker title years, Shaq was often disappointing and lazy on defense. I don't put too much stock into character issues, but Duncan's gotta get some credit here. He's such a nice franchise piece. I'm not going to completely dismiss Shaq's annual 15 games missed either. That still affects seeding.

Let's compare LeBron with, say, Shaq. 09 through 14 LeBron versus 96 through 02 Shaq. Like LeBron, some of those early seasons were disappointing for the end result. Shaq destroyed people in '98 when he played, but missed too many games and flamed out in the playoffs. Before Phil Jackson, Shaq did not have a great reputation compared to other all-time greats. And in retrospect, those Cleveland Mike Brown teams ... how is it possible to win 60+ games with them? They didn't win the title, but they didn't look like a contender either. Then LeBron proves him later on by winning with a past his prime Wade, who's a terrible fit for LeBron (except in the open court.) He adapts his game, becomes one of the best post players, and becomes a proficient at the catch and shoot (he was second in % after Korver for players with at least 1.5 attempts a game, according to SportVU.) Complain about '11 all you want, but Shaq wasn't at his best in '97, '99, and '02 ... and the regular season in '01 on defense and he missed games and got pick and rolled to death in '98. So it depends on how you factor in Shaq's post '02 career and what those extra seasons do for you.

Let's say that 09-14 LeBron equals 96-02 Shaq (btw thats 7 years of Shaq vs 6 years of LeBron), the rest of Shaq's career outshines LeBron's by a margin.

xRAPM numbers for Shaq:
93-8th
94- 2nd
95- 2nd

03- Tied for 2nd (with KG)
04-1st
05-2nd
06-5th

That's 4 elite years outside of his peak. 05-08 LeBron doesn't compare to that.

Average xRAPM from 03-06:
Duncan: +10
Shaq: +9.4
KG: +9.0

That's out of peak Shaq against Peak Duncan and peak KG and he still compares well vs them.

You decided to compare 09-14 LeBron to 96-02 Shaq. How do they compare out of that timespan? Let's just look at the years they both played. Shaq has the advantage in xRAPM every year from 04-06. Is having 07 and 08 LeBron better than having 93-95 Shaq, 03 Shaq, and 07-11 Shaq? Absolutely not.

Just wondering, what's the relevance of xRAPM numbers for the bolded seasons if play-by-play data doesn't exist before 96-97?

[shutupandjam]

By the way, Win Shares are being cited a lot here, but they're pretty awful when it comes to defense

Don't know why WS and PER are quoted so often when there are great SPM box score metrics available that predict much better out of sample and look more reasonable. I understand that PER and WS are the common metrics that everyone knows about, but most posters here are fairly advanced (rapm is cited constantly), so why not use spm metrics more often?

[colts18]

Just wondering, what's the relevance of xRAPM numbers for the bolded seasons if play-by-play data doesn't exist before 96-97?

They are't as precise as xRAPM with play by play data but the 90's data comes from estimated play by play. The results are more precise to me than NPI RAPM. If you look at the yearly results for xRAPM in the 90's, it looks pretty good.

[MacGill]

I think I have Duncan over Shaq because, outside of those Laker title years, Shaq was often disappointing and lazy on defense. I don't put too much stock into character issues, but Duncan's gotta get some credit here. He's such a nice franchise piece. I'm not going to completely dismiss Shaq's annual 15 games missed either. That still affects seeding.

Let's compare LeBron with, say, Shaq. 09 through 14 LeBron versus 96 through 02 Shaq. Like LeBron, some of those early seasons were disappointing for the end result. Shaq destroyed people in '98 when he played, but missed too many games and flamed out in the playoffs. Before Phil Jackson, Shaq did not have a great reputation compared to other all-time greats. And in retrospect, those Cleveland Mike Brown teams ... how is it possible to win 60+ games with them? They didn't win the title, but they didn't look like a contender either. Then LeBron proves him later on by winning with a past his prime Wade, who's a terrible fit for LeBron (except in the open court.) He adapts his game, becomes one of the best post players, and becomes a proficient at the catch and shoot (he was second in % after Korver for players with at least 1.5 attempts a game, according to SportVU.) Complain about '11 all you want, but Shaq wasn't at his best in '97, '99, and '02 ... and the regular season in '01 on defense and he missed games and got pick and rolled to death in '98. So it depends on how you factor in Shaq's post '02 career and what those extra seasons do for you.

Let's say that 09-14 LeBron equals 96-02 Shaq (btw thats 7 years of Shaq vs 6 years of LeBron), the rest of Shaq's career outshines LeBron's by a margin.

xRAPM numbers for Shaq:
93-8th
94- 2nd
95- 2nd

03- Tied for 2nd (with KG)
04-1st
05-2nd
06-5th

That's 4 elite years outside of his peak. 05-08 LeBron doesn't compare to that.

Average xRAPM from 03-06:
Duncan: +10
Shaq: +9.4
KG: +9.0

That's out of peak Shaq against Peak Duncan and peak KG and he still compares well vs them.

You decided to compare 09-14 LeBron to 96-02 Shaq. How do they compare out of that timespan? Let's just look at the years they both played. Shaq has the advantage in xRAPM every year from 04-06. Is having 07 and 08 LeBron better than having 93-95 Shaq, 03 Shaq, and 07-11 Shaq? Absolutely not.

And it's not even with LBJ that I have a problem with here....it's the excuse that because of his health he isn't a viable option here? I mean, we see where advanced metric's place him in comparison to the other all-time greats....at leasty ATC said it does effect his ranking which is fair..but with others saying it's a deal breaker to act like the value of his skillset and regular season games played + playoff performance doesn't make-up for his health is crazy!! He wasn't Walton health wise.

[shutupandjam]

Just wondering, what's the relevance of xRAPM numbers for the bolded seasons if play-by-play data doesn't exist before 96-97?

Yeah, xRAPM pre-2001 isn't particularly great and certainly isn't the same as 2001 and on. It's half JE's spm (which really overrates bigs imo) and half bizarre quarter by quarter on-off splits.

[microfib4thewin]

In a similar narrative, I view Lebron as someone who despite the great stats as someone not very portable and whose skillset is the easiest to neutralize when facing elite competition/teams.

This is how Lebron did against teams with a top 3 Drtg in the playoffs:

Code: Select all

 Opponent     PT   REB  AST   TS  TOV%

2008 Celtics 26.7  6.4  7.6  .480  16.0
2009 Magic   38.5  8.3  8.0  .591  11.3
2010 Celtics 26.8  9.3  7.2  .556  15.7
2011 Celtics 28.0  8.2  3.6  .553  11.8
2011 Bulls   25.8  7.8  6.6  .569  13.7
2012 Celtics 33.6  11.0 3.9  .587  10.7
2013 Pacers  29.0  7.3  5.3  .609  10.7
2013 Spurs   25.3  10.9 7.0  .529  9.7
2014 Pacers  22.8  6.3  5.5  .637  15.7
2014 Spurs   28.2  7.8  4.0  .679  15.5


In total:

Code: Select all

GP  FGM  FGA     FG  3PM  3PA  3FG%  FTM  FTA   FT    TS    PPG  RPG  APG  TPG
61  9.9  20.6  .481  1.5  4.5  .338  7.3  9.6  .758  .578  28.7  8.2  6.0  3.6


As for your second point, how can you even prove that Lebron is/isn't marginalizing his teammates? All we really could see is how Lebron's team has functioned over the years. What we do see is:

-Cleveland completely fell apart after Lebron left, we are talking about a shift that is even worse than Jordan, Pippen, and Phil leaving the '98 Bulls.
-2011 was the only year Miami had superteam potential, in which they had a Pythagorean record of 61-21(T-1st), 6.76 SRS(1st), +4.4 Ortg(3rd), -3.8 Drtg(5th). While their team metric is great it's still short of what we expected from a superteam especially when we consider how they finished in the Finals.
-2013 Heat had a 27 win streak as well as break the NBA record of highest eFG in a season.
-Four Finals runs(albeit with rather weak competition out East in 2013 and 2014) and 2 peat
-And to round out the other Heat teams:

2012 - Pythagorean: 47-19(3rd), SRS: 5.72(4th), Ortg: +2(8th), Drtg: -4(4th)
2013 - Pythagorean: 62-20(2nd), SRS: 7.03(2nd), Ortg: +6.4(2nd), Drtg: -2.2(9th)
2014 - Pythagorean: 54-28(4th), SRS: 4.15(7th), Ortg: +4.2(5th), Drtg: -.9(11th)

[acrossthecourt]

One thing you're missing is minutes though. LeBron gives you a high level of production with few missed games. It's one of the main advantages for Shaq. And since xRAPM does overrate big men (http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/ASPM.html -- Chandler and DeAndre Jordan are second and third, respectively, by the SPM-only version, and Robin Lopez is like 11th), as height is a positive variable, I'm not saying that's great evidence of Shaq over LeBron. I do think '08-'14 LeBron beats '96-'02 Shaq. I hope I'm not alone.

And 300 pounds was at his rookie season. I don't care what the newspaper clippings tell you, Shaq had at least 50-60 pounds on Wilt, so while they were the same height and both beats of their day, Wilt had long skinny legs, not the tree trunks O'Neal had. And what I mean here by that is we simply don't have really anyone that we can sample Shaq against in this department. Wilt is the closest, and yet there was still a weight difference.

While he did miss regular seasons games, why aren't posters crediting him more for being able to play at the level he did, for as long as he did. And it's because not one person making any of these statements, understand what it is like to be that size. One would think with all the size he carried he'd end up like Oden but what bothers me is that because we have documented events of playing into shape, and his health concerns, that his career has somewhat become a symbol of that?? I mean, if Shaq played a more finesse game, without the ground and pound he took, he may have possibly been able to increase his stamina and health, but acting like he could change his genetics and worked harder to maintain better shape when you seen what he did at that level is just silly.

Just use context here, that's all. He wasn't built like Russell or KAJ or Duncan and all of those guys bulked up. Hell look at Wilt when he came into the league...dude looked like KAJ for damn sakes. Instead, I'd like to have posters tell us how these regular season absences affected the teams outcomes. Put something behind it other than just..oh he didn't want to play...or should have been IRON like Wilt, when the circumstances are so different. What I am learning is that it's just plain easier to 'dislike' Shaq. MJ retires in his prime missing how many games again.....there peaks are pretty close, and he also broke his foot in his second year. 15 games missed a season with right team built around Shaq still gives you 14 years of chip contention!!

Wait, 14 years of title contention? Where do you get that? 2008 Shaq does not ensure you title contention.


This would have been more useful in the Wilt discussions, but you can use it with Oscar too: the early 60's had a high degree of variation in stats, meaning the outliers look even more pronounced and it's an indication that the league wasn't yet as competitive as it is now:
http://statitudes.com/blog/2014/03/25/a ... the-1960s/

The talent gap in the 1960s was much wider than it is today, allowing for more extreme performances.

And here's the best argument for Wilt, one that I didn't see: he was on two of the best teams of all-time, two separate cities. That should be meaningful. (It should also be meaningful that he did indeed have Hall of Fame talent for many seasons and didn't win.)


I also want to ban the use of the triple double in talking about Oscar Robertson. It's marginalized the guy to an arbitrary stat. LeBron would have averaged a triple double back then. Heck, Jason Kidd too, and Grant Hill. Players missed more shots, and they played at an absurdly high pace. There were more opportunities to rebound and score. And before someone mentions the assists being handed out less liberally, I really think the differences in pace are far greater than in assist score-keeping. If you go by average league assist rate, the differences aren't huge.

edit: I'm not saying that to discredit Oscar. He's a great player and I will discuss him for a top ten slot, though I probably have him lower. I just don't like how all that's talked about is that triple double.

[TrueLAfan]

One thing you're missing is minutes though. LeBron gives you a high level of production with few missed games. It's one of the main advantages for Shaq. And since xRAPM does overrate big men (http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/ASPM.html -- Chandler and DeAndre Jordan are second and third, respectively, by the SPM-only version, and Robin Lopez is like 11th), as height is a positive variable, I'm not saying that's great evidence of Shaq over LeBron. I do think '08-'14 LeBron beats '96-'02 Shaq. I hope I'm not alone.

The weighting of xAPM toward big men is, I think clear. But that wouldn’t dissuade me from ranking ’96-’02 Shaq over ’08-’14 LeBron. There are enough other metrics to say that Shaq in his peak in that period was as valuable as anybody.

What would dissuade me from choosing ’96-’02 Shaq over ’08-’14 LeBron is that, in almost half the seasons, one player is going miss one third of all games. I am not sure of what the overall difference in value and impact between Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James is in those seasons. Nobody is. We are talking about using imperfect analysis for conjecture. And that’s cool. But it isn’t definitive.

What is definitive is that one player played in 92% of his team’s games, and the other played in 80%. That’s almost 10 games a year. That’s a lot. If I can’t be sure of the difference in quality and value between players—and I, personally, am not—I would go with the guy that played more. Like I said, this is leaving out the conditioning and distraction stuff. Even if we could somehow rate the on-court value difference … how would we offset the off-court time difference? What is that worth? Pro-Shaq arguments are attempting to say “Not Much,” which I find … wrong. 10 games a year over a 7 year period is a lot. And this is leaving out the ancillary stuff. I get it that Shaq supporters don’t see that as I problem. I do.

And with the respect to Shaq supporters essentially saying it’s okay that he was often out of shape, didn’t pay attention to conditioning, and distracted the team in a multitude of ways--I could not disagree more. Not winning titles when you are capable of doing so is the definition of “devastating” from a sports standpoint. You think a player that delays treatment and surgery until right before the beginning of the with the excuse "I got hurt on company time, so I’ll heal on company time” isn’t a problem? You think it’s “nit-picking” when the team started 11-19 after that and never really got untracked during the regular season? You don’t think that qualifies as “dragging the team down”?

You think it’s okay that Shaq didn’t play (nearly) as much as he could or should have? You think to argue that Shaq should have “worked harder to maintain better shape when you seen what he did at that level is just silly” is right? Again, I totally disagree. Seven of the top 10 players in career minutes played in the NBA (Kareem, Karl Malone, Hayes, Moses Malone, Wilt, KG, Artis) are low post players. Did they not worry that couldn’t “push [their] body over the limit or it will break down”? Every one of those players had at least 15 seasons where they played 70 or more games. All except KG have double figure seasons of 79 plus games played—and KG has eight. How come they were “needlessly extorting his energy and risking any potential injuries”? Are we seriously going to give someone a pass for being out of shape and not playing hard? How come Russell and Kareem and Wilt and Hakeem and, well, pretty much every other player we’ve voted in or are considering didn’t use that as an excuse?

You don’t think Shaq’s non-basketball outbursts were distracting? It’s not like this wasn’t noticed either. Tex Winter noticed them. Phil Jackson noticed them. They commented on them and tried to take steps to correct them, as did teammates. This is not a player Shaq was feuding with and not listening to—this isn’t Penny or Kobe or Dwight Howard. This is his Hall of Fame coach and the Hall of Fame Assistant Coach. Did they think Shaq got a pass and that “no one cared if he played 70% in a regular season game against the Bucks or if he even missed a couple of them as long as the team was at the position they wanted to be.” Do you honestly think that?

Look, if Shaq had won more titles than anyone, arguments that support his cavalier attitude toward his condition and his teams would make a lot more sense. And he did win four titles. But, like I said, in seasons where he played less than 70 games, he won one. And since Shaq’s conditioning is the often the reason for him missing 12 or more regular season games—which (unsurprisingly) seems to correlate with a sharp reduction in team success—I can’t believe anyone is trying to argue that it’s not a big deal. As an individual player, maybe it isn’t. As a player on a team? That feuded with his co-starring player? That screamed “Pay Me!” to the team owner during a game? That refused to listen when his HOF coaches told him to play more defense and stay in shape? That sometimes focused on non-basketball efforts to the displeasure of his teammates and coaches? That Shaquille O’Neal won four titles is a testament to his greatness. But when you make excuses for times when he clearly could have done more—and he’s being compared to people that often *have* done more—then I think there’s a blind spot.

[colts18]

One thing you're missing is minutes though. LeBron gives you a high level of production with few missed games. It's one of the main advantages for Shaq. And since xRAPM does overrate big men (http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/ASPM.html -- Chandler and DeAndre Jordan are second and third, respectively, by the SPM-only version, and Robin Lopez is like 11th), as height is a positive variable, I'm not saying that's great evidence of Shaq over LeBron. I do think '08-'14 LeBron beats '96-'02 Shaq. I hope I'm not alone.

Let's say that 08-14 LeBron beats out 96-02 Shaq. If he does its a small margin. Let's compare the rest of their careers.

04: Shaq by a gigantic margin
05: Shaq with a slight margin
06: LeBron wins because of games played
07: LeBron by a decent margin

Over those 4 years, I would take Shaq. That's all of LeBron's career. Shaq has more of his career left. This doesn't include his 93-95 seasons (xRAPM might overrate big men but Shaq finished ahead of Hakeem in 2 of those 3 years). It doesn't include his 2003 where he was the 2nd best player in the league. It doesn't include Shaq's 08-11 seasons where he was a positive in xRAPM all 4 years and had 1 3rd team All-NBA. Shaq's rest of career makes up for whatever small margin that Peak LeBron has.

Wait, 14 years of title contention? Where do you get that? 2008 Shaq does not ensure you title contention.

93-06 Shaq equals 14 years

[Clyde Frazier]

By the way, Win Shares are being cited a lot here, but they're pretty awful when it comes to defense

Don't know why WS and PER are quoted so often when there are great SPM box score metrics available that predict much better out of sample and look more reasonable. I understand that PER and WS are the common metrics that everyone knows about, but most posters here are fairly advanced (rapm is cited constantly), so why not use spm metrics more often?

I essentially stopped paying attention to PER years ago. I think it might be the most flawed advanced stat commonly referenced. I think WS/48 min is interesting to look at when comparing players who had similar success in their careers and played around the same min. It's just something else to look at, not necessarily a defining stat.

[DQuinn1575]

Vote: Earvin Magic Johnson

The trouble I have with Magic that until 1986, when his usage increased, he really is a great point guard, but not a

Spoiler:

Top 10 all-time player.
Compare 84 and 85 to Stockton's 4 best years:


TS%/TRB%/AST%/USG%/DfRtg/WS per season
84-85 Magic 63.3/10.3/42.5/20.0/106 /11.5
88-91 Stockton 61.9/4.4/56.0/19.5/103/14.6




stockton is shooting almost as well, with similar usage, much higher assist, and better defense.

This is a Top 30 player of all-time; not a Top 10.

Magic has 80-85 - 6 years where he is at this level, and then 6 years where he shows as Top 10.



TS%/TRB%/AST%/USG%/DfRtg/WS per season

88-91 Stockton 61.9/4.4/56.0/19.5/103/14.6
80-85 Magic 60.8/11.9/34.6/103/12.1


He wasn't 1st team all-NBA by either the writers (official) or players (Sporting News) until 1983.

From 1983-85 he was solid Top 5 player in the league, but in the 3 years combined he got 8 first place votes for MVP-

Besides Bird definitely being better, guys like Moses, Doctor J, and Bernard King would have a case - so Magic is 2-5 in this top period.

Win shares for this time shows him 4th, behind Bird, sidney Moncrief, and Moses

http://bkref.com/tiny/9CJjD

for his first 6 years, he is 5th, trailing Bird,Moses,Kareem, and Doc, barely beating out Moncrief.
He is way behind Bird for his first 6 years in the league. Relatively same for 3, then has 3 seasons better.


http://bkref.com/tiny/WyVZL

So with Magic I get 6 years of Stockton/Moncrief, and 6 years of superstar.

It makes me put him behind Bird, LeBron, and Shaq.

Well Magic wasn't the starting point back then. They had Nixon who was a good PG having 8-9apg seasons. Of course Magic looked worse when he didn't have the ball as the lead point.

I'm not clear what your point is.
Since he wasnt point guard a few year those numbers are Top 10?

[lorak]

Just wondering, what's the relevance of xRAPM numbers for the bolded seasons if play-by-play data doesn't exist before 96-97?

They are't as precise as xRAPM with play by play data but the 90's data comes from estimated play by play.

How do you estimate pbp data?!
Isn't 90s xRAPM just another version of SPM?

[colts18]

How do you estimate pbp data?!
Isn't 90s xRAPM just another version of SPM?

It was estimated pbp based on quarter by quarter score, MP, and starter/bench.

[acrossthecourt]

One thing you're missing is minutes though. LeBron gives you a high level of production with few missed games. It's one of the main advantages for Shaq. And since xRAPM does overrate big men (http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/ASPM.html -- Chandler and DeAndre Jordan are second and third, respectively, by the SPM-only version, and Robin Lopez is like 11th), as height is a positive variable, I'm not saying that's great evidence of Shaq over LeBron. I do think '08-'14 LeBron beats '96-'02 Shaq. I hope I'm not alone.

Let's say that 08-14 LeBron beats out 96-02 Shaq. If he does its a small margin. Let's compare the rest of their careers.

04: Shaq by a gigantic margin
05: Shaq with a slight margin
06: LeBron wins because of games played
07: LeBron by a decent margin

Over those 4 years, I would take Shaq. That's all of LeBron's career. Shaq has more of his career left. This doesn't include his 93-95 seasons (xRAPM might overrate big men but Shaq finished ahead of Hakeem in 2 of those 3 years). It doesn't include his 2003 where he was the 2nd best player in the league. It doesn't include Shaq's 08-11 seasons where he was a positive in xRAPM all 4 years and had 1 3rd team All-NBA. Shaq's rest of career makes up for whatever small margin that Peak LeBron has.

Wait, 14 years of title contention? Where do you get that? 2008 Shaq does not ensure you title contention.

93-06 Shaq equals 14 years

'93 Shaq doesn't give you title contention all on his own either. And many of those seasons in between are flawed. Making his binary analysis -- title contention or not -- clouds the issues in favor of Shaq. You could use the same argument for Garnett and 14 years. Come on, that's rookie Shaq. And '06 Shaq is overrated. That was Wade's team.

[ElGee]

What would dissuade me from choosing ’96-’02 Shaq over ’08-’14 LeBron is that, in almost half the seasons, one player is going miss one third of all games. I am not sure of what the overall difference in value and impact between Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James is in those seasons. Nobody is. We are talking about using imperfect analysis for conjecture. And that’s cool. But it isn’t definitive.

What is definitive is that one player played in 92% of his team’s games, and the other played in 80%. That’s almost 10 games a year. That’s a lot. If I can’t be sure of the difference in quality and value between players—and I, personally, am not—I would go with the guy that played more. Like I said, this is leaving out the conditioning and distraction stuff. Even if we could somehow rate the on-court value difference … how would we offset the off-court time difference? What is that worth? Pro-Shaq arguments are attempting to say “Not Much,” which I find … wrong. 10 games a year over a 7 year period is a lot.

It's not a lot though. You're talking about the difference between the top blue line and the red line underneath it. Any separation of quality -- even half a point, is more relevant than a mere 10 games. The evidence says 10 games is essentially nothing.

And with the respect to Shaq supporters essentially saying it’s okay that he was often out of shape, didn’t pay attention to conditioning, and distracted the team in a multitude of ways--I could not disagree more. Not winning titles when you are capable of doing so is the definition of “devastating” from a sports standpoint.

I don't think I qualify as a Shaq supporter, but your post does sound unfair to me. Very heavy-handed criticism. I agree (and hope we all do) that yelling "pay me" or "company time" is not conducive to a great atmosphere. That said, with regards to the missed time/conditioning I think you're doing something that is very common for the brain when it balances lots of information -- you are penalizing Shaq twice for the same thing. Unless you count his 98-04 seasons as all of roughly equal value, you're saying that 98 or 03 Shaq isn't as good as 2000 Shaq because he wasn't in shape. That's already part of your perception of him as I player I'm assuming (only you know). Then, on top of that evaluation, you are penalizing him for being out shape. But the out of shape-ness is already the reason he wasn't quite as good, is it not?

You think a player that delays treatment and surgery until right before the beginning of the with the excuse "I got hurt on company time, so I’ll heal on company time” isn’t a problem? You think it’s “nit-picking” when the team started 11-19 after that and never really got untracked during the regular season? You don’t think that qualifies as “dragging the team down”?

Again, I would say this is unfair because it excludes the circumstances of management and how weak that team was. They lacked depth, which gets exposed during injury. It's a bad move but I don't think it's relevant to 11-19. Furthermore, with Shaq that's a +4.0 SRS team -- he would have needed to have been in top conditioning for them to win a title that year. And they may very well have been -- but the weak result is just a function of being on a not-so-good team.

But, like I said, in seasons where he played less than 70 games, he won one. And since Shaq’s conditioning is the often the reason for him missing 12 or more regular season games—which (unsurprisingly) seems to correlate with a sharp reduction in team success—I can’t believe anyone is trying to argue that it’s not a big deal.

I feel awkward correcting you but he won 2 titles in seasons where he played fewer than 70 games (and a 3rd playing 74 games). Furthermore, that's a pretty small sample to make that conclusion, no?

In 96 Shaq missed 28 games -- in the games Horace Grant played, Shaq's Magic were a 10 SRS team and lost to the GOAT-level Bulls in the PS.
In 98, missed 22 games and LA was +7.7 in the games Robert Horry played with Shaq. They lost to the Jazz in the CF.
In 02 he missed 15 games -- +8.3 with him in the lineup including Fisher and won the NBA title.
Even the 06 Heat, controlling for Wade, were 5.2 points better at +5.6 SRS with Shaq and they won the NBA title.

I don't think there's a correlation there at all...Actually, I think Shaq has a history of ass-kicking in the games he plays during seasons where he misses bunch of time.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Just wondering, what's the relevance of xRAPM numbers for the bolded seasons if play-by-play data doesn't exist before 96-97?

They are't as precise as xRAPM with play by play data but the 90's data comes from estimated play by play.

How do you estimate pbp data?!
Isn't 90s xRAPM just another version of SPM?

Exactly. Isn't the whole point of RAPM to use pbp data and not raw box scores.

I won't go on a long RAPM rant like in the last thread, but this project is quickly turning into the Top 100 RAPM Players.