RealGM Top 100 List #11

[ardee]

From a career value standpoint, I actually do wonder why KG should be ahead of Karl.

KG's peak was probably better but Karl had some really dominant years. In 1998 he had multiple dominant Finals games that KG could only dream of.

He was still a 24-26/10 player well into his late 30s and actually never missed games, unlike KG, who was basically a role player after the '09 injury, with the exception of stretches of the 2012 Playoffs.

I'm going to do a year by year rating of their careers in the vein of ElGee's championship odds. It wouldn't surprise me if Karl came out on top.

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[ardee]

2010 Kobe:

+1.3 DRAPM
Lakers on-court defensive rating with Bryant on: 103.0
Lakers on-court defensive rating with Bryant off: 106.4

-3.4

You heard it hear first. Kobe actually peaked as a defender at age 31 in the last year of his prime.

RAPM says so.

Don't expect a coherent response. When someone critiques RAPM, there's always an excuse for why the strange result doesn't count and their point does. It's becoming such a drag on this project.

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[Owly]

Just wondering, is it reasonable to start arguing for Baylor now or soon? From what I've read, he was held in a similarly high regard to Oscar at the time (when I get home, I'll upload some articles from the time about the two). He also seems like a guy who would definitely benefit from improved spacing (giving him room to work on the floor) and modern offensive schemes in general.

There was talk prior to the project of how his stock seems to be dropping.
Found it: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1123731&start=980
the main post (though you might wish to click through see responses from tsherkin and mysticbb)

RE: an '03 list wayback doesn't go back that far but it does contain (parts of) the 2006 list thread in which you allude part of a prior list

That was from a few years ago.
And even then, #14 isn't that low.

#9 Shaquille O'Neal
#10 Julius Erving
#11 Moses Malone
#12 Elgin Baylor
#13 Karl Malone

Personally I think Hakeem is top 10.
But you could make a plausible case for any of those 5 being greater.

but there's only bits of that thread

Good thinking. I've added the numbers you listed here. I also added:

#1 Michael Jordan
#2 Wilt Chamberlain

#17 John Stockton

As those were my recollections.

Link to my Google Doc:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... _web#gid=0

Funny watching Baylor drop with each list:

2003 - 12
2006 - 17
2008 - 21
2011 - 26

Wouldn't shock me at all if that trend continues.

Just by the numbers I would suggest maybe he peaked at a similar level to Oscar (years 1-5, particularly 2-5), but is perhaps disadvantaged slightly by the fact he started slightly earlier so two of those peak years are against a "whiter" (ie more agressively quota-ed) "less superstars have arrived" league but particularly because his efficiency versus league averages fell off a cliff after that spell, and the decreased mobility likely cost him substantially on D too.

[An Unbiased Fan]

1) Why doesn't KG's impact translate to team success? "Impact" IS team success, or rather impact is your ability to add to your team's success. The end. I know you're not convinced of the connection between RAPM and impact, and that's your right, but nothing changes the fact that if you have teammates who aren't doing well without you, that's going to make it harder to win championships.

Re: +6 dividing line. I actually chose the line specifically so Kobe's '05-06 year would qualify. So yeah, it's totally arbitrary but certainly not designed to help KG:

A 5+ cutoff would give Garnett a 14 to 6 advantage.
A 6+ cutoff gave Garnett a 12 to 5 advantage.
A 7+ cutoff would give Garnett a 10 to 4 advantage.

It's all telling about the same story.

You ask about '98 & '99, listing Garnett and asking how that could possibly match the impact of peak Kobe. In all honesty I've never tried to make that particular comparison before, but just for perspective here, if we compare Offensive RAPM of Garnett in those years to Kobe's peak two year run in Offensive RAPM it looks like this:

Garnett '98 & '99: +3.94 & +3.06
Kobe '06 & '07: +7.92 & +7.76

It's no contest. You're listing stats that are predominantly offensive and asking: How can that beat Kobe? They don't. Peak Kobe is a far more impactful offensive player. There's more to the game than that though.

Of course I know that you believe Kobe was an impactful defender, so that's not going to convince you, so it leaves us at an impasse I think. I'll acknowledge as you pointed out that a player can be paired disproportionately with offensive or defensive oriented lineups, and that could make Kobe look weaker by RAPM on defense...but only by making his offense look stronger than it is.

Your missing my point though, that a metric which rates 98/99 KG over 06/07 is severely wrong.

98-99 Garnett: 19.3 ppg, 4.3 apg, 9.9 rpg on 51.3% TS
06-07 Kobe: 33.5 ppg, 4.9 apg, 5.5 rpg on 56.8% TS
^
So I'm supposed to believe that 98-99 is superior??? Sorry, but this doesn't quite fly. LA had crappy support, and still posted #7 & #8 offenses. If KG's defense is supposed to offest Kobe's crazy offense, why was Minny #23 & #11 in DRtg.

Kobe is CLEARLY a superstar these seasons, while KG isn't. yet RAPM has KG higher. What's so special about KG's defense from 98/99 to make him better? He was a tweener back then shifting from SF to PF alot, and not even a rim protector yet.

"'11 KG better than all versions of Kobe". Well there are certainly caveats here:

-'11 KG played in limited minutes. I'd imagine that if you made a total impact function using RAPM and minutes played it's tough for older KG to beat peak Kobe.
-PI RAPM allows one year to bleed into the other, so it's not a great judge of absolute peak, and it's not a great measure for a player who didn't sustain his prime well. That undoubtedly underrates Kobe in '06, so maybe if it hadn't Kobe's peak RAPM would beat '11 KG.
-As has been said, folks like me will use words like "impact", "lift", or "value" as a way of describing what RAPM is, but actual goodness is something tougher.
-Exactly how big of an edge you need to say one player is confidently rated higher than the other in a given study is pretty debatable. I feel much more confidence when I see a slew of unrelated studies say the same thing.

All that said, your argument here seems to be to try to use how definitive the results are supporting KG as a reason to disregard the stat, and to me that's just the wrong way of doing things. You make a judgment of how much confidence you have in a stat based on thinking about what it means and seeing data in general. If the data in general doesn't match at all what you think you know you're going to be skeptical of it I understand, but that's really not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a comparison between two guys who both won an MVP and who have vastly different styles.

Put another way, there's a kind of implicit challenge to a statement like you made along the lines of: "Are you seriously telling me that I/we watched basketball constantly for all these years and we saw everything that wrong? That we just missed how much better KG is than Kobe?"

To which I'd say: Unless when you watched them play you had the though "Wow, KG's teams really die whenever he leaves the court in a way Kobe's just don't", you clearly did miss that aspect of things. I'll emphasize the "Wow" here. It's obviously a pretty large gap. It sure surprises me, and if people are honest, I think it surprises them. Unless you went "Wow" when you watched, you missed it, like most of us.

RAPM is based on lineup data, not individual data. I don't' want to go into another RAPM debate, but this mythology about it somehow finding "goodness" doesn't fly with its architecture. It doesn't pick up on anything other than rotational trends, which is why we get such head scratching results.

11 Garnett: 14.9 ppg, 2.4 apg, 8.9 rpg on 58% TS
11 Kobe: 25.3 ppg, 4.7 apg, 5.1 rpg on 55% TS (#4 MVP/All-NBA 1st)

I'm sure Boston'd DRtg will come up, since its a far cry from the 98/99 seasons, but LA is still great on offense too. Clearly no one else saw enough "goodness" from KG to put him above Al Horford for All-NBA 3rd. KG's whole argument again,relies on RAPM.

4) So you're making different arguments in here.

1st one: Kobe's offensive impact > KG's defensive impact. True.

2nd one: RAPM doesn't negate 5 extra years of All-NBA. Well, sure it does, or it least it certainly can. All-NBA is just people's opinion. I think they were sometimes wrong. The end. Not saying you have to believe that, but the appeal to authority here goes nowhere.

And of course there's the matter of: "How dare you think you know better than All-NBA voters?".
Pretty simple. If I'm in a room with them discussing RAPM, data analysis, epistemology, or any other thing relating to be a scientist/engineer figuring things out, you think they are explaining things to me or the other way around? They may or may not be interested in what I'm saying, but no, they aren't likely to be even thinking that they know these things better than me, and they know full well at this point that almost all NBA teams are using these tools.

I don't want to be all Dave Berri or Wayne Winston here. I don't believe that you can look at a single stat and know everything you need to know. I love learning from the people who have lived and breathed basketball from the trenches for a career. But there are some things that human beings bias if they don't use the right tools, and we have a lot more "right tools" now than we used to...and most mainstream folks don't really know how to use them. Until that really changes, which may very well be never, there are pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that they are likely to mislay that nerds can help them with.

3rd: KG was only Top 10 from 22 to 31. You are entitled to your opinion. I would just hope that it's at least interesting to you that KG"s +/- numbers don't see any kind of massive falloff when you go outside that range either on the early side or the late side.

Doc, KG's whole case revolves around RAPM. No one thought he was elite back in the 90's, nor did his teams perform anything close to that even when paired with Starbury. You are placing unreasonable value in RAPM, hence the comparisons earlier of 98/99 KG to 06/07 Kobe. That's why I said pages ago that I shy away from discussing RAPm because it's like arguing religion on a Christian forum. You've placed "faith" in a metric despite obvious problems. Problems that do arise you call "noise".

Even in scenarios where's there's MASSIVE differences, in both production & the overwhelming consensus of peer review, we're supposed to think 2011 KG was more impactful than ANY version of Kobe, simply because of lineup trends reported by RAPM? Will you be arguing for Manu Ginobli after KG.....since RAPM pretty much says he's next up.

[Owly]

From a career value standpoint, I actually do wonder why KG should be ahead of Karl.

KG's peak was probably better but Karl had some really dominant years. In 1998 he had multiple dominant Finals games that KG could only dream of.

He was still a 24-26/10 player well into his late 30s and actually never missed games, unlike KG, who was basically a role player after the '09 injury, with the exception of stretches of the 2012 Playoffs.

I'm going to do a year by year rating of their careers in the vein of ElGee's championship odds. It wouldn't surprise me if Karl came out on top.

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It would surprise me. Everyone else aside (and even assuming a career value added approach where Kareem's clearly superior peak isn't thought any more likely to lead to a title than Malone more value at 40 and assuming we're just looking regular season), you wouldn't be surprised if Malone was ahead of Kareem (played about the same amount of time, Malone lasted a bit better towards the end, but really it wouldn't surprise you, you don't expect that Kareem moved the needle more)?

There's a case for Malone going very high on these lists based on career value added (particularly/specifically where super-high peaks aren't thought to be particularly valuable) but I think you're overstating it.

I'd like to repeat a shot case for Bill Walton. I know that he only had 6 seasons when he played more than 50 games, but he is still one of the greatest centers ever.

MVP, Finals MVP, 6th Man of the Year, 2x Champion.
Although guys usually get docked for playing in the watered down era when the league was split, unlike Dr. J, Walton earned his accolades after the merger.

Lead the league in rebounds and blocks per game in 77, a feat few have managed, since contesting shots usually takes you out of position to get a rebound.

Lead the league in DRB% 4 times, and was second once.
5 top 5 finishes in TRB%, including 2 first-place finishes.
4 top 10 finishes in blocks per game, including 3 top 10 finishes.
5 top 10 finishes in DRTg, including 2 first-place finishes and one 2nd place finish.

Nice post game and bank shot, one of the best passing centers of all time, unselfish, extremely high motor. Walton was one of the most complete basketball players ever, and might have the highest peak of guys remaining here. He's like KG but more vertical in his defense than horizontal, and actually had team success.

Unless you're voting for him now (which is unclear), I don't see why you'd bring him into the discussion when his career as a whole isn't on par with the others. Also, aside from a finals MVP, i'm not sure if you have the years mixed up or something, because Dr. J won an MVP in 81 and championship in 83, which is after the merger. He also made 7 all NBA teams (5 of which were 1st team) and finished top 5 in MVP voting 4 other times.

I did not put in a vote because I haven't decided. I personally am going by peak player here, so I feel that he's worthy of discussion, but I am sure that I am alone in this.

Dr.J's ABA accomplishments are ignored by some due to it being considered a weaker league. So that's 3 ABA MVPs, 4 1st-team All-ABA and one 2nd-Team All-ABA, some other awards and honors, plus those wicked stats that he put up. I personally don't ignore them, I was speaking more towards the perception that guys who played in the 70's (Kareem, Barry, A-Train, etc.) dominated more because the league was split into two and expansion watered down the teams. Since Walton's best years were after the merger, he should get no such criticism.

Well if you're just rating on peaks. Otherwise you might criticise him for not being dominant in a weaker league.

[ceiling raiser]

Just wondering, is it reasonable to start arguing for Baylor now or soon? From what I've read, he was held in a similarly high regard to Oscar at the time (when I get home, I'll upload some articles from the time about the two). He also seems like a guy who would definitely benefit from improved spacing (giving him room to work on the floor) and modern offensive schemes in general.

You know I've always thought of him as an ancestor of Melo and Golden Era 80s SFs, but his on-ball playmaking seems so much better than any of those guys. Even better than 2014 Durant. I certainly wouldn't put him with LeBron, but he was extremely creative. I've also always believed him to be one of the greatest athletes I've ever seen.

Game 7 against the Lakers, with 1/8th of his kneecap removed, he pulled off a move only Michael Jordan and maybe Dr. J would attempt. 20 feet out, he jumped, palming the ball in one hand, pulled it back, and then shot with one hand while still hanging in midair. Score the bucket. I remember watching that game a few years ago and replaying that part because I didn't believe what I had seen.

Just wondering, is it reasonable to start arguing for Baylor now or soon? From what I've read, he was held in a similarly high regard to Oscar at the time (when I get home, I'll upload some articles from the time about the two). He also seems like a guy who would definitely benefit from improved spacing (giving him room to work on the floor) and modern offensive schemes in general.

There was talk prior to the project of how his stock seems to be dropping.
Found it: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1123731&start=980
the main post (though you might wish to click through see responses from tsherkin and mysticbb)

RE: an '03 list wayback doesn't go back that far but it does contain (parts of) the 2006 list thread in which you allude part of a prior list
but there's only bits of that thread

Good thinking. I've added the numbers you listed here. I also added:

#1 Michael Jordan
#2 Wilt Chamberlain

#17 John Stockton

As those were my recollections.

Link to my Google Doc:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... _web#gid=0

Funny watching Baylor drop with each list:

2003 - 12
2006 - 17
2008 - 21
2011 - 26

Wouldn't shock me at all if that trend continues.

Just by the numbers I would suggest maybe he peaked at a similar level to Oscar (years 1-5, particularly 2-5), but is perhaps disadvantaged slightly by the fact he started slightly earlier so two of those peak years are against a "whiter" (ie more agressively quota-ed) "less superstars have arrived" league but particularly because his efficiency versus league averages fell off a cliff after that spell, and the decreased mobility likely cost him substantially on D too.

Thanks for the responses guys. Just stopped in at home before heading out to play golf, here are the Baylor/Oscar articles I was referencing:

http://www2.zippyshare.com/v/66992370/file.html

Some aren't really related at all (just did a search for both guys on ProQuest a year or two ago), but a few are pretty good.

[ceiling raiser]

RAPM is based on lineup data, not individual data. I don't' want to go into another RAPM debate, but this mythology about it somehow finding "goodness" doesn't fly with its architecture. It doesn't pick up on anything other than rotational trends, which is why we get such head scratching results.

Again, ridge regression (a peer-reviewed, mathematically proven method) is a means for isolating exactly what you're saying it doesn't. Given an overdetermined or underdetermined system of equations, it solves for variables in the L2 sense (just as OLS does). There's really no mystery to it...lineups are the equations, and the individual player impacts are the variables here.

Is your issue with ridge regression itself? If not, and you have no problem with it being applied in other topics, I'd like to ask you the same thing Doc did a few threads ago...

What are some specific, acceptable uses for ridge regression in your opinion? Or not even ridge regression specifically, what are some specific, acceptable uses for OLS or regression in general, in your opinion?

[ThunderDan9]

Yes, Karl Malone is so many times overlooked... I wonder how different things would turn out if he had managed to win a ring or two...
He has extreme longevity, compares very well to anyone not named KAJ in this regard. He won MVP's at age 34 and 36. I liked The Unbiased Fan's post about his All-NBA First Team awards, Top 5 MVP finishes... these are pretty accurate indicators of sustained excellence. The most common criticism against the Mailman is that his production tended to drop somewhat in the playoffs... but still... a 25/10 player for like 10 straight seasons? This is pretty unique. And he's by far not a defensive liability like Magic... a very good man-to-man post defender.

I think he is in pole position against anyone but Kobe at this point.

[ceiling raiser]

Don't expect a coherent response. When someone critiques RAPM, there's always an excuse for why the strange result doesn't count and their point does. It's becoming such a drag on this project.

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Just a note, GotBuckets' RAPM paints a different picture of Kobe defensively in 2010:

http://www.gotbuckets.com/statistics/rapm/2010-rapm/

J.E. has since removed the quoted result from his site, I believe. In general, I believe there was some concern/confusion about the priors he uses in computing his RAPM, so I really can't give them much weight. GotBuckets.com (using RAPM from the guys at talking practice) from 08-14 and acrossthecourt from 97-00 are more transparent with their methods, and seem to be more consistent (J.E. also used a dataset in computing his RAPM that was missing large chunks of multiple seasons.

With regards to the bolded, I agree entirely when results are just posted without any context (similarly, I become disengaged whenever box score based stats or accolades are listed, without much context). However there have been some great posts (by drza in this in past threads, threalbig3 had some good stuff earlier as well, in addition to contributions from others) that mix quantitative than qualitative.

[FJS]

I think I still can't vote, so, I'm not going to do it.

I'm going to talk then about Karl Malone, and how I think he should be selected in the next spot/s.

1) Amazing longevity. He played the whole season 10 times (82 games) and missed one or two games in another 8 season. Not only he played 19 seasons, he played almost all his seasons, and he was consistent, and playing 37.2 min per game in those 18 Utah Jazz years. And his production on the court was really great since year 2 to year 18.

2) Amazing offense. He scored more than 20 ppg in 17 years. He scored more than 25 ppg 12 times.

3) 2 MVP. He won vs Jordan one of them. You can tell 97 Jordan deserved it, but I think Malone deserved more the 98 MVP than Jordan. The 99 one was very disputed. Still he got the nod over Duncan, Mourning or O'Neal.

4) Malone was 11 times in a row 1st NBA team. He was with Barkley, Mullin, Pippen, Hill or Duncan, but never both of them were better than him in those years.

5) 14 allstar in a row (no allstar in 99) and he was without interest in it since 2000. In 2003 he was better than a lot of recent allstar.

6) About his production in playoffs. He didn't drop numbers.
With the jazz he was a 26.3 ppg, 10.9 rpg in playoffs. (24.7 ppg 9.8 rpg in RS). His problem it's he was less efficient. But, in a team like Jazz, with no other great scorers, it's understandable.

7) The way to work and change his game. When Karl Malone entered the game, he hadn't a reliable jump shot, and was a terrible ft shooter. He worked a lot and he he was finishing around a 75% and in his mvp days he was known to be a great 18ft shooter. After him PF in the last 90, early 00 changed his way to play. Webber, Sheed, KG began shooting for 18 FT... and right now every PF has to have some range.
He worked a lot in his passing. When he began he was a finisher. A dunker. He finally was passing the ball every year better (being with a notable difference the best scorer in his team)

8) About his failures in Playoffs (as a team)
First of all, he went to the playoffs 19 times in 19 seasons. This speak how good he was. 6 WCF, 3 Finals. Ok. No rings. As the alpha man, 5 WCF and 2 Finals.
He lost with HCA:
- 1987 vs GSW: No big deal. 4th seed vs 5th seed 2-3. 44-38 team vs 42-40 team. 2nd year of Karl Malone. You can't blame him.
- 1989 vs GSW: They lost 0-3. This is their biggest lost. Still, you can't blame Stockton (27.3 ppg, 13.7 apg with 50.8 FG%) or Malone (30.7 ppg, 16.3 rpg with 50FG%)
- 1990 vs Suns. No big deal too. 3-2 4th seed vs 5 seed. Suns upsept Lakers (4-1) too and went to the WCF.
- 1995 vs Rockets 2-3. No big deal either. Altough Jazz were a 60 team win, Rockets were a better team than his record, and they won the ring this year.
- 1998 vs Bulls. Well, you know. Jordan. Still, they were a close series and Malone finished really strong this series.
- 1999 vs Blazers. 2nd team vs 3rd. A difference of 2 games in rs. A team rising, vs and old team.
- 2001 vs Mavericks. 2-3. Tied record.

In resume, only 2 playoffs lost being a much better seed than the other team. One of them vs the champs.

Still, they won some series without (and clearly):
- 1988 vs Blazers (3-1)
- 1991 vs Suns (3-1)
- 1994 vs Spurs (3-1)
- 1996 vs Spurs (4-2)

I'm not going to talk about advanced stats, because some poster there have talked about that, and better I would do, and I don't want to repeat.

[Jim Naismith]

The most common criticism against the Mailman is that his production tended to drop somewhat in the playoffs... but still... a 25/10 player for like 10 straight seasons? This is pretty unique.

Moses averaged 25.1 ppg / 14.2 rpg in the ten-year stretch from 1977 to 1987.

[An Unbiased Fan]

RAPM is based on lineup data, not individual data. I don't' want to go into another RAPM debate, but this mythology about it somehow finding "goodness" doesn't fly with its architecture. It doesn't pick up on anything other than rotational trends, which is why we get such head scratching results.

Again, ridge regression (a peer-reviewed, mathematically proven method) is a means for isolating exactly what you're saying it doesn't. Given an overdetermined or underdetermined system of equations, it solves for variables in the L2 sense (just as OLS does). There's really no mystery to it...lineups ate the equations, and the individual player impacts are the variables here.

Is your issue with ridge regression itself? If not, and you have no problem with it being applied in other topics, I'd like to ask you the same thing Doc did a few threads ago...

What are some specific, acceptable uses for ridge regression in your opinion? Or not even ridge regression specifically, what are some specific, acceptable uses for OLS or regression in general, in your opinion?

I never said I had a problem with RR. The issue is that using it on linueup data doesn't yield individual metrics, at all. Regularization can't accomplish this. You would need to use Synergy type data as a base instead. RAPM is fine for coaches analyzing rotations/lineups, but has no value in individual comparisons.

I also, don't want to go off on a side tangent about it again, because it shouldn't be the focus here.

[Clyde Frazier]

I think I still can't vote, so, I'm not going to do it.

No, you should vote. As long as you vote for a few threads with explanation, you'll get added to the voter list. You need to start voting first, though.

[ceiling raiser]

RAPM is based on lineup data, not individual data. I don't' want to go into another RAPM debate, but this mythology about it somehow finding "goodness" doesn't fly with its architecture. It doesn't pick up on anything other than rotational trends, which is why we get such head scratching results.

Again, ridge regression (a peer-reviewed, mathematically proven method) is a means for isolating exactly what you're saying it doesn't. Given an overdetermined or underdetermined system of equations, it solves for variables in the L2 sense (just as OLS does). There's really no mystery to it...lineups ate the equations, and the individual player impacts are the variables here.

Is your issue with ridge regression itself? If not, and you have no problem with it being applied in other topics, I'd like to ask you the same thing Doc did a few threads ago...

What are some specific, acceptable uses for ridge regression in your opinion? Or not even ridge regression specifically, what are some specific, acceptable uses for OLS or regression in general, in your opinion?

I never said I had a problem with RR. The issue is that using it on linueup data doesn't yield individual metrics, at all. Regularization can't accomplish this. You would need to use Synergy type data as a base instead. RAPM is fine for coaches analyzing rotations/lineups, but has no value in individual comparisons.

I also, don't want to go off on a side tangent about it again, because it shouldn't be the focus here.

What you're suggesting it doesn't do, is exactly what it does.

I don't want to go on another side discussion either, but I couldn't leave your claim without a response.

[trex_8063]

Some Rambling Thoughts on Trying to Eliminate Luck from the Equation.....

In one of the prior threads there were concerns voiced about a potential double-standard regarding how for some players (in some seasons) anything short of title is labeled a failure, meanwhile other players (KG was the specific example given, iirc) are given a pass on 1st round exits or even missing the playoffs because their supporting casts were sub-par. Basically the concern was that only result:expectation ratio is being scrutinized, while the expectation itself is ignored (potentially giving the the team/player with the lower expectation an advantage, simply because the bar has been set so low for them).

And in the last thread Chuck Texas put the question out there as to whether it would really be so bad to use the simple W/L column as part of an argument (since we frequently use team ORtg or DRtg as part of it).

It's had me thinking about our tendencies (most of us) to try to eliminate career "luck" as an influence into how we rank players. And I do worry that it's a bit of a slippery slope.

Yes, players like Kobe and Russell and Magic, etc, have all benefited from "fortunate circumstances" (Magic/Russell never played for a NON-stacked team.......if Kobe hadn't had those years with Shaq he'd probably only have 2 rings.....etc). Meanwhile other players like Garnett and Olajuwon were much less fortunate (Olajuwon's back-court in the late 80's was decimated by drug/personal problems, and his coach mis-used his abilities at times.........Garnett rarely had a decent supporting cast prior to Boston....etc).

And so we speculate that if guys like Garnett or Olajuwon had found themselves in "more fortunate circumstances", they too would have had similar (or better) team success than some of the greats they're being compared to.

However, even though this kind of speculation is not without considerable merit, it is still just that: speculation.

Put them into what appear to be more favorable or fortunate circumstances, there are still things that could foul up the expected outcome.

Maybe there are chemistry issues that limit performance (Dwight in LA comes to mind).
Maybe external factors affect the player's motivation/dedication/work ethic (Spencer Haywood when he went to NY).
Maybe surrounded by other star-level players, the player in question simply falls off in production and/or impact; in which case while his career team success may be drastically improved, all other parameters for evaluating his career take a dip (Bosh in Miami comes to mind).
Maybe coaching misuses his talents, thus undermining his expected impact or value.
Heck, maybe a freak SERIOUS injury occurs early in this alternate reality (which, if so, would obviously dramatically lower their all-time standing).

The other pondering I have wrt to trying to eliminate luck from the picture is: where do we draw the line? Hypothetically, if we extended this line of thinking far enough, could we begin to give Maurice Stokes top 50 consideration? He certainly seemed well on his way to being an all-time great, and without a doubt that was some freaky unfortunate stuff that happened.

And while Magic is to some degree responsible (thru his behavior) for his disease, he's far from the only NBA player to behave that way. He was just unfortunate in having contracted the illness, particularly in a time when there was a lot of fear around HIV and it was perceived as a death sentence (which resulted in him being forced into early retirement). I suspect if he'd been allowed to play his career out, he'd be in nearly everyone's top 5 (maybe top 3).

So again: where do we draw the line? Ultimately, it's pretty arbitrary.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we shouldn't be asking some of these questions. You might be asking yourself, then what exactly are you saying? Well, I guess I'm saying that at some point, at least in some small way, I do think we should be considering the career a player actually had, as apposed to the career he might have had in different circumstances.

Because while it may put some at an unfair advantage, it is nonetheless what actually happened (and I just can't bring myself to say what actually happened is irrelevant). And while we may have reason to believe a player could have had a greater (or lesser) career in other circumstances, the fact remains that we don't know that for sure. So I guess I am suggesting that we should all be exercising a little caution with how much speculation-based ranking we do.

And I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, btw; I'm guilty of this as well. I singled out the players I singled out because they're the most prominent examples that have come up in conversation so far in this project.

[An Unbiased Fan]

What you're suggesting it doesn't do, is exactly what it does.

I don't want to go on another side discussion either, but I couldn't leave your claim without a response.

Sorry, but it doesn't. You can't use RR on lineup data and think it will magically output the data on an individual basis. It will give you trends on the lineup data, nothing more.

This is why I broke this stuff down earlier using Vlade Divac as an example, and how his role on defensive rotations on a team like the Kings who lacked size, produced gaudy DRAPM numbers.

Is Manu better than Dirk in 2007? How about Manu over CP3 in 2008?

[DQuinn1575]

D r


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[Texas Chuck]

When I saw the mini-exchange between you and Ushvinder, I had a vague memory that once I had put a bit of time into breaking down the head-to-head matchups between KG and Dirk through the years. It niggled me, so I looked and I have a spreadsheet called "KG vs Dirk". Apparently I had a LOT of free time at some point (the file was last saved in early 2012), because there's a crap-ton of data in the spreadsheet. Not to jump in on the conclusions of your exchange, but I'll post some things here and, like Owly said, people can make of it what they will.

Spoiler:

The overall head-to-head numbers from basketball-reference include every time their teams have faced off, but circumstances have changed a lot through time. For instance, in 98-99 Dirk wasn't even a full-time starter yet while KG was early prime so those numbers skew in KG's favor. Meanwhile, in later years Garnett has had a clearly different role so I think it's good to separate them into epochs. Plus, as pointed out, we aren't sure exactly how often they were covering each other in Minnesota. But in Boston I can attest that, especially in this time period, they were the primary covers for each other. Plus, I had access to more detailed play-by-play data for the Boston years so I was able to see how they played on the court against each other vs how they played when the other was on the bench.

Alright, let's do it.

KG vs Dirk 2000 - 2007, when KG was in Minnesota and both were starting

25 games. Mavs lead the win/loss 15 - 10

Dirk: 38.5 mpg, 23.1 ppg (8/17.2 FG, 5.4/6.2 FT, 58.0% TS), 8.4 rpg, 2.2 apg, 1.3 TO
KG: 38.5 mpg, 24.3 ppg (9.5/17.8 FG, 5/6.6 FT, 58.6% TS), 12.6 rpg, 4.9 apg, 2.9 TO

Again, we don't know who was guarding who in these games. However, I did think it was interesting that KG actually outscored him on the same scoring efficiency while posting the clear rebounding and assist edges that you would expect.

KG vs Dirk 2002 playoffs

3 games, Mavs win 3 - 0

Dirk: 43.3 mpg, 33.3 ppg (10/19 FG, 10.7/12 FT, 68.6% TS), 15.7 rpg, 0.7 apg, 2.0 TO
KG: 43.3 mpg, 24 ppg (8/18.7 FG, 7.7/10.7 FT, 51.4% TS), 18.7 rpg, 5.0 apg, 4.0 TO

As has been pretty clearly established, they didn't spend a whole lot of time guarding each other. Chuck, I'd quibble slightly with you saying that KG was primarily on Finley because that doesn't match my memory (I remember Wally mainly on Finley, and KG spending time as primary cover for Najera, Dirk and LaFrentz at different times but with a lot of helping off). But that really isn't the biggest deal.

Incidentally, at the time I made the spreadsheet it wasn't as universally accepted that KG wasn't on Dirk much that series, so I had gone through and found some Youtube clips that showed highlights from games 2 and 3 of that series. I did basic scoring on both clips and broke down when Dirk was scoring on KG, when KG was trying to help onto Dirk, when KG was helping someone else off of Dirk, or just not on KG at all.

In game 2, the clip showed 20 of Dirk's 31 points.
4 of his 20 points were scored on KG 1-on-1
3 of the 20 points were scored when KG was trying to help onto Dirk (I think it was a 3-pointer)
3 of the 20 points were scored when KG was helping someone else off of Dirk
10 of the points were just not scored on KG

In game 3, the clip showed 35 of Dirk's 39 points
2 of his 35 points were scored on KG 1-on-1
4 of his 35 points were scored when KG was trying to help onto Dirk
5 of his 35 points were scored when KG was helping someone else off of Dirk
24 of his 35 points were just not scored on KG

All told, across the two Youtube clips, 55 of Dirk's points were shown. 6 of those were scored on KG 1-on-1, 7 were scored when KG was guarding someone else and helping onto Dirk, 8 were scored when KG was guarding Dirk and helping onto someone else, and 34 were scored when KG just wasn't the one guarding him (including fast breaks).

KG vs Dirk, the Boston years (up through Feb. 20, 2012)

10 games total, teams were 5 - 5. But, KG missed 3 of the games. Celtics led series 4 - 3 in games KG played, Mavs led 2 - 1 in games KG sat.

Here, I went through play-by-play data and calculated both KG's and Dirk's stats when both were on the court, Dirk's stats when KG was out of the game (but playing in the game), and Dirk's stats when KG sat out the game completely. And as I mentioned above, during this phase of their careers Dirk and KG were spending a lot of time as each other's primary defenders.

Overall, Dirk played about 200 minutes with KG on the court. He played about 68 minutes with KG off the court (but actually playing in those games), and he had 116 minutes on-court in games KG didn't play in at all. KG had about 31 minutes on-court without Dirk.

Broken down in per-36 minute style:

Dirk (KG on): 21.0 pp36, 57.3% TS, 7.6 reb, 1.6 ast, 3.4 TO
Dirk (KG off): 31.2 pp36, 59.4% TS, 7.9 reb, 1.6 ast, 1.6 TO
Dirk (KG out): 31.3 pp36, 59.6% TS, 11.3 reb, 3.3 ast, 2.0 TO

KG (Dirk on): 18.4 pp36, 50.3% TS, 8.8 reb, 1.8 ast, 1.4 TO
KG (Dirk off): 16.3 pp36, 44.4% TS, 11.6 reb, 5.8 ast, 0 TO

Some fun notes. Clearly they were at much different parts of their careers than the Minnesota numbers. DIrk's role was similar but in Boston (especially post 2008) KG had more defensive than offensive priorities in general. However, when playing Dirk it was clear that defending him was his main priority even beyond his own offense (that conclusion is my opinion from watching the game, not the numbers. But I think the numbers supports it).

It's interesting to see that Dirk absolutely exploded against Boston any time KG wasn't on the court, be it in games that KG was playing but on the bench or games he sat out completely. In both instances Dirk was scoring over 31 pp36 on about 59.5% TS without KG. With KG on court, though, his scoring dropped dramatically (by 10 pp36 and a couple TS%) and his turnovers doubled as well with no bump in assists. On KG's end, his scoring efficiency was poor (though interestingly better when Dirk was on the court), but across the board he came pretty close to equalling Dirk when both were on the court.

Both KG and Dirk seemed to have better non-scoring contributions when they didn't have to worry about the other. Dirk's rebounding/assist bumps happened more in the games KG didn't play in at all, while KG's bumps in those areas came in games with Dirk playing but while Dirk was on the bench.

Bottom line

Again, I put the numbers out there and people can make of it what they will. When taken to this level of detail, it seems clear to me that KG was generally outplaying Dirk to a solid degree in his Minnesota days (though we don't know what proportion of the time they were guarding each other). In Boston Dirk was still near peak as KG went post-prime and changed roles, but we know they were spending more time on each other (especially KG on Dirk). While their on-court numbers were comparable against each other, I'd argue that KG being able to reduce Dirk's scoring output to such a significant degree represented a win because this really hurt the Mavs' approach.

Again, Chuck, not meant to be combatitive (you've already conceded the point to a degree, which is fair). I'm just further amplifying the detail on the comparison, so that we can all make more informed decisions.

I appreciate you coming in and going into some more detail on the subject.

[Doctor MJ]

Spoiler:

Also re: Oscar.

I respect his game a lot, and don't think it's weird to mention him here - obviously I did - but I'm noting people aren't really talking about West on their short list. I'm guessing what that means is that people are putting Oscar & West in the same "bin", rating Oscar ahead, and thus not seeing much need to consider West until Oscar is in.

If this is the case for you I'd urge to reconsider because Oscar vs West is a very good debate, and I'll just be brief here regarding Oscar:

-Didn't Cincy's weak records make you question Oscar's impact?
-If so, what assuaged your fears?
-If it was in any way shaped by the WOWY numbers that seem to "match" Oscar's box score in being superstar-like, consider that the most complete data we have on that front (ElGee's numbers) make West look even better than Oscar.
-All while West played on a contender and had to sacrifice primacy for much of his career to an inferior players with a lot of redundancy.

As an Oscar advocate

Cincinatti's weak record hasn't really made me question Oscar impact or at least it hasn't led me to change it. Firstly to acknowledge my biases I'm more familiar with boxscore metrics and so use them more. In general I've seen that in seasons close to their stats apex, my top 3 (Jordan, Jabbar, Wilt) had losing seasons (and others have had great individual seasons with teams around that level; McGrady '03, Wade '09, M Malone, Garnett etc).

Insofar as the weak record caused a concern my position/opinion has always been that the Royals were a cheap, poorly run franchise.

- The WoWY numbers aren't a big factor. They help to confirm or make you take a second look. But the little bit that I did and what I've seen from Elgee(so far as I'm comprehending it, and trusting it's accuracy) Robertson's impact looks huge from rookie to '68 (assuming, given his boxscore similarity his impact was around the weighted average of his impacts during that time. I'd suggest that meant he built a sizable lead in value added over his first three (perhaps even four, given West's injury in '64 and slightly smaller WoWY impact). But maybe I'm not great at interpreting this stuff and am looking for pro-Robertson stuff.

- Was Baylor a redundancy or was someone who freed up West for easier shots? And was West ready for prime-time right away (i.e. isn't their a reason, a valid one for the first 3 seasons, why West was the 2nd banana)? Was West getting any less shots than Robertson? And weren't West's continued absences (a) somewhat artificially inflating Baylor's usage and (b) forcing LA to retain Baylor as insurance against such injuries.

I'm not absolutely confident to the answer to all these questions. But my interpretations tend towards a sympathy towards Robertson.

And then too there's the fact that Oscar played those extra minutes, which too me, are valuable.

A final addition would be that every critical ranking until Bill Simmons' called Robertson better (well except the Thompson one noted below, it was a bizzare numbers including accolades based affair with Heinsohn at 16.5, Mel Daniels at 26.5, McGinnis at 37, I basically tend to write that list off) . Robertson was always listed as better, occasionally first and has an average ranking that had him at the bottom end of the Jordan, Wilt, Russell, Magic, Kareem, Bird tier (newer players excluded because you don't know when to start counting their votes). Then came Shaq (if you exclude an outlier ranking 38th all-time in 1996) and next but a clear distance behind, comes West. And from the bits I've seen around the time it's always been Robertson, West sometimes mentioned as the minority choice. I don't think critics get it right all the time. But for all of them to have got it wrong, and boxscores to have done so too (career metrics are close, despite Oscar's role change and with Oscar playing more minutes and Oscar peaking higher) I'd need something compelling. Maybe I haven't looked closely enough (e.g. at ElGee's stuff) but I haven't seen it yet.

I don't think it's crazy to choose West. He's got arguments for him (playoffs, defense - which is hard to gauge but certainly some very strong reviews, maybe WoWY). But I'd lean Oscar.

Maybe I'm just an Oscar fan whose stuck in a long held perception of Oscar's superiority. But there are my reasons.

Here's what I'd written for Oscar earlier, WoWY stuff takes the lead because that seemed to be a big part of the discussion at the time so I'd looked at Robertson's largest (prime) absence.

Though open to persuasion, my vote at this time goes to Oscar Robertson

I'll start with my case earlier, though now, this isn't so much for him to be in the argument as it is, "he's my choice right now".

Just because he hasn't got any traction so far, some of the arguments for Oscar Robertson.

With without in ’68 (chosen because it’s his largest absence, I haven’t done this with other years) is pretty huge. Obviously preface this with:
(a) With without is noisy, it is measuring things that aren’t what you’re trying to measure (quality of backup, coaching adjustments, schedule etc).
(b) It’s a small sample
Over the year Cincinnati were -69 (82 games), with Robertson they were +118 (65 games, +1.815385 per game). That means without him they were -187 without him (17 games, -11 per game). That suggests a value of roughly 13 points (in that particular context, with all the caveats above) over his reserve (Guy Rodgers).

And with regard to the numbers it’s not the triple double average across his first six years. And obviously his rebounding prowess is overstated by pace, more misses back then and high minutes. But you can go too far denigrating his rebounding, I’ve seen it noted that he was 7th on his team in rebounding percentage in his largest boxscore rebounding year (’62 12.5 rpg), but that needs placing in context, firstly they rebounded by committee and there are a bunch of players grouped together, and then amongst actual rotation players Robertson is 4th behind the center, backup center and power forward. And it wasn’t like this was a team on which it was easy to grab rebounds, Wayne Embry who on a weaker team had competed with Chamberlain and Russell in rebound rate. The Royals rebound total is slightly below the average but this is misleading because they took less than the average amount of fgas, made the highest percentage of them and given opponents ppg presumably allowed a high fg% so I don’t think there were a lot easy rebounds available. Then too consider his burden amongst guys with a playmaking responsibility, you have Wilt as a better rebounder in that era, and one year of Gola (a role player) then it’s Robertson for the first half of the http://bkref.com/tiny/kVq7w and that’s per minute.

His assist numbers aren’t inflated given the slightly lower fg% and in particular the much tighter/meaner scorekeeping on assists which pretty much counteracts the increased pace. And because composite boxscore metrics are based on the modern era assumptions/estimations of the value of an assist Robertson is somewhat cheated here. And here too note the margin of superiority over the next best guard. Guy Rodgers had a couple of seasons where he snatched the assists crown, and another year with 10.7, but then the rest of his career he couldn’t get over 9 a game. From 60-61 to 68-69 Robertson averaged 10.5 per game, Rodgers is closest over that span (and it nicely matches his career) with 8.3 (now Rodgers does have a per minute edge, but played on some very fast and some gimmicky teams, and the reason he wasn’t on court as much as Robertson is he was so far off at everything else, plus Robertson had to call his own number more often) http://bkref.com/tiny/WLTix . It’s notable how far Robertson and Rodgers are ahead of the rest of the pack in assist% (for the years we have it, the later half of the 60s, and Robertson racked up more of his assists in the first half of the decade, whilst Rodgers did better in the latter half than he had earlier).

He was also the eras most efficient scorer ( cf: http://bkref.com/tiny/5loDk http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... op_10.html ) and iirc consistently led his teams to the best offensive ratings.

Put off by the lack of team success? Look at what the management did with talent around him.
Jerry Lucas and Larry Siegfried lost to ABL, with Siegfried somehow lost to Boston when the ABL folded; Mel Daniels to ABA; Bob Boozer traded for nothing of value; Bob Love exposed to expansion; Freddie Lewis exposed to expansion; Louie Dampier went to ABA; draft picks either wasted or never given minutes, not developed and/or given away for nothing or simply traded for less than equal value (for those who weren’t worthless Flynn Robinson, Wayne Embry, Happy Hairston and Jim Fox).
Cincinnati were cheap and poorly managed. Of course the ABA guys wouldn’t have been in the 60s NBA as they were in the 60s ABA. But they could play, and be assets.

The icing on the cake would be the accolades and critics rankings (First Team All-NBA, called the best player by Koppett, consistently top 10 in all published rankings including two first place rankings, plus being voted player of the century by the NABC). Actually one ranking had him outside the top 10. Keith Thompson’s Heroes of the Hardcourt. It had him 19th. Behind Heinsohn. So all published, non-insane rankings.

I understand if this is too much advocacy for some peoples taste and welcome reactions against Robertson being in the discussion at this point. Just that for me he's at least worthy of being in the discussion here, so I pulled together the main cases for him.

My reasons for him over Bird. Longevity - prime wise: (higher mpg; better in terms of boxscore off the bat, though team level impact would seem to favour Bird; but particularly because he didn't suffer a major injury so early), and then in his post prime, Oscar found a very nice niche and helped a team be incredible, whilst Bird struggled somewhat, both in terms of clear boxscore diminuation, but also in finding a role, plus his D after the injury, from what I've heard, kept getting worse (iirc McHale and an annoymous teammate, supposedly Jim Paxson, felt or said at times Bird was taking too many shots).

My reasons for him over Olajuwon. Well it's doubts about Olajuwon's O. Others have noted some problems with his With/Without numbers in that area, and his his TS% was closer to average than great, despite his fabled post moves. Plus whilst he could make a lightning quick move upon recieving the ball, I get the sense that he held on to the ball a little too much (may be too influenced by Simmons saying he did so).

Iirc someone said something about not being convinced about him being better than West, but I can't find the quote so won't address it fully unless it comes up again here. But I think his D might be underrated and his combination of offensive efficiency at individual and team level whilst carry many large burdens (shot creation, playmaking-passing, very large rebounding responsibility for a guard) really resonates with me (also West got injured a lot). I'm not fully convinced Magic (generally, and here, considered his superior) was better tbh.

I also like how Oscar did in all-star games back when the games were competitive both in terms of accolades and team record (including victories over teams with Chamberlain and Russell, 3x MVP, plus once perhaps assisting in Adrian Smith winning it, cf Tall Tales p199). It suggests to me, albeit on very limited evidence that he could perhaps have had even more impact with good teammates (and at least reassures me this wasn't just numbers on a bad team, though tbh once efficiency is factored in, there's limits to how much being on a bad team helps your stat line).

Admittedly I'm not super systematic with this and the "reasons" (for Robertson over players x and y) are more rationalizations (I don't get my order by explicitly comparing each candidate at each spot (the sheer number of comparisons would be daunting, I just do my ad hoc "who's better" calculations. Not entirely happy with by process and internal consistency but would have to dedicate more time than I have- and even then not all source material is available the same for all eras. Anyway I put the "reasons"/reasoning in as I think Elgee kinda wanted some, probably rightly so).

Good stuff.

Re: Baylor, free up West? Well I think in general when you've got a situation where a guy scores more using less shots, it's hard to fathom that the guy doing less damage with more waste deserves a lot of credit for it. Then there's the matter that West's the guard, and West really never showed a major falloff without Baylor in his prime.

I want to be clear: I would never argue "West made the Lakers better than Oscar's Royals despite that dead weight Baylor". Baylor certainly helped the team. However given that Baylor is known first and foremost for his scoring ability, and so is West, you would simply expect redundancy issues to occur which would make on/off numbers smaller than they'd be on other teams that have no one known for their volume scoring ability on the order of Baylor or West. For West to have such huge on/off numbers given this is shocking to me.

Re: First 3 seasons. Fine to use that against West. To me it's clearly a combo of West being not quite as ready out of college and him not being handed a team to run like Oscar was. It's a factor for me as well, but it's hard for me to see it as a deciding factor.

Re: Effect of West's injuries on Baylor's usage. That's a good thing to bring up. It's hard for me to really swallow though given that if you knew nothing of West and just look at Baylor's numbers, you'd just assume he was continuing to do his normal thing. If you had some sources that talked about Baylor being forced to change how he played because of West's injury that would be helpful.

Re: Oscar's minutes. A good thing to bring up. From my perspective there are a couple things that make me not that concerned about the minutes, though I'll acknowledge it's still a pro-Oscar thing:

1) How did the injuries affect West's role in the playoffs?

In the '60s, West missed time enough to drop his games played to less than 70 in the regular season 4 times.
3 of those 4 times he was fit for the playoffs, and dominant all through deep playoff runs, and in each of those years West was clearly having big impact for the bulk of the season in which he played and his team was north of the 30s-ish win total you typically needed to make the playoffs.

2) When considering longevity, one of the things I tend to do is include playoff minutes. Now, it's not Oscar's fault that he played less in the playoffs, but if you're going to use wear & tear as a factor in a comparison, which is what longevity means really in a comparison between two guys who aged well, clearly all minutes played contributed toward that.

Total minutes played:
Oscar ~ 47.5k minutes
West - 42.9k minutes

It's a factor sure, and if you're someone who has been really caring about longevity a lot in this project, by all means continue. Nothing wrong with that. For anyone though who has brushed longevity aside in places though, I'd submit this is a place where it's hard to use longevity as much beyond a tiebreaker.

Re: Oscar typically seen as better. In terms of GOAT rankings I agree, but consider the year-by-year details on the matter.

The last time Oscar was in the Top 2 of MVP voting was 1965. Jerry West by contrast finished 2nd in the MVP voting from 1966 on basically as a given until 1972. Injuries got in the way of that streak, and I'm not saying those are not relevant to the discussion, but that reliably 2nd place finish, does that sound like someone to you that people were seeing as clearly worse than Oscar?

So I would submit that when you see Oscar as the overall better choice, people were already looking at the factors you mentioned above, along with Oscar's extremely gaudy early '60s stats when things were inflated like crazy and the fact that he came in as the best college player basically ever. Oscar began this comparison with a huge lead, and it was just really tough for people to shake that even as they were regularly rating West over Oscar on a year to year basis once the Lakers gave West enough primacy.

But as I say, I respect someone's choice of Oscar over West. I think Oscar was amazing. The reason why I'm focusing on West here is that I just think it's a little too easy for people to just default to Oscar.

[acrossthecourt]

Re: David Robinson

I sorted out the best method for playoffs/efficiency changes. Robinson looks pretty bad in his prime. One of his problems is that his efficiency plummets against better defenses more than you'd think, and I believe his usage also slightly decreases (for stars, their usage often goes up a slim margin) but I'd have to check that. I looked at a couple of his best post-seasons for some context: an awful defensive team led by Don Nelson, a Denver team with solid guys everywhere but center, and a Portland team missing its starting center Duckworth with an injury. But it is worth nothing they were destroyed in the playoffs without him in 1992 (outscored by like 7.2 points more per game than you'd expect given each team's SRS and HCA, suggesting his high value) and he just does not look like a great shot creator and wasn't great at playing within a team framework on offense sometimes (hot potato with the ball, bail-out passes.) He would have looked better with a high scoring, playmaking guard. I would have loved to see him with a pick and roll point guard. He was so athletic.





Kevin Garnett

(This will be long, but please read it before voting.)

(This will NOT use RAPM because I know it drives his critics crazy for some reason. We only have like 18 years of this available for Garnett, and it's been tested extensively and accepted by some high-level basketball analysts. What possible use could it be? So I'll end the RAPM section here: Garnett was the highest rated player in a 14 year sample, including the playoffs.)

In a league that values loyalty, and with a man who's fiercely loyal, it was cruel when Garnett was drafted by Minnesota. Magic got to play with Kareem. Bird had his Celtics. Kobe had the Lakers, who brought in Shaq. Duncan had Robinson. Garnett, unfortunately, had a franchise that, with the exception of the Clippers led by a now disgraced owner, was the worst run team in the late 90's and early 00's. Their mismanagement deprived us of a special player who showed his value to a well-run team a decade later while battling injuries.

He was drafted by Minnesota in 1995. They were an expansion team in 1990 and had not improved in that half-decade. They were regularly at 20 wins with an average SRS of -6.1, and for reference there are only 3.4 teams that bad on average since 1990. In 1995, they had an SRS of -8.8, which is getting into the territory of truly terrific.

Kevin was only a 19 year old kid, but once they replaced their coach in his rookie season with Flip Saunders and started him, Minnesota improved and finished the season with a 39 win pace. They finished the season with a -5.1 SRS. It was their best in five years.

In 1997, Garnett improved tremendously, as teenagers often do, and they brought in Gugliotta as their scorer at PF. Garnett in his early days played a lot of SF, as strange as that sounds now. He didn't want to be labeled a center and insisted on being listed as 6' 11" and with his long arms he had the reach of even great defensive centers. DraftExpress listed him as 6' 11" without shoes, and given the normal height inflation of one inch (look at Rasheed at 6' 10") he is indeed a seven-footer by conventional methods. Some reports, like from an October 7th, 1996 St. Paul Pioneer Press article, cite him at 6' 11.75". Another article from SI refers to him as 7':

The Timberwolves' Kevin Garnett, though widely thought to be 7-foot, is listed at 6-11 at his insistence. Why? He doesn't want any coach to get the notion to stick him at center.

North Carolina had a parade of not-quite-7-footers, including Brad Daugherty (6-11 3/4 in the press guide) and Warren Martin (officially 6-11 1/2), until Matt Wenstrom matriculated at Chapel Hill in 1993 at 7-1. Why didn't Dean Smith round up for all those years? According to one pale-blue source, the Tar Heels coach long feared that a listing at 7-foot carried with it the pressure of outsized expectations. With Wenstrom he apparently had a change of heart, and Smith went on to list Kevin Salvadori, Eric Montross and Serge Zwikker as 7-footers.

https://web.archive.org/web/20020210042 ... hoop_life/

I can't find official reports, but I believe his standing reach and wingspan are large enough for a center and probably above average. Why's this matter? Early in his career, he was playing a lot on the perimeter, even on defense. As a seven-footer with a large wingspan and incredibly athleticism for his size, he was a terror and had few, if any, precedents. He had passing skills, outside shooting, was developing a post-game, and made the all-star game in his sophomore year. This had all the makings of a legend. But what happened?

Team Cancer: Stephon Marbury

Minnesota decided to pair Garnett with Starbury. Why is that a problem? Because Marbury is a parasite of successful teams and has the magic ability to make a team better by being leaving them. In 1998, the Nets had a 1.9 SRS, 43 wins, and the next season after having received Marbury partway through the season (he played 31/50 games) dipped to -3.2. 2000 saw another season with a negative point differential and only 31 wins. 2001 was the worst one: 26 wins and a -5.3 SRS. He was traded for Kidd and they improved to 52 wins and a 3.7 SRS, making the finals two years in a row. It was one of the largest turnarounds ever. Phoenix went from 51 wins to 36, dropping 3 SRS. Note: at the time Marbury was seen as a star point guard and averaged well over 20 points a game with 8 assists. This detail can be lost with time, but the numbers were deceiving. He was not a good player, and certainly not a star guard who could help Garnett. Marbury was traded to New York during the 2004 season. Phoenix went from 29 wins and a -2.9 SRS in 2004 to 62 wins and a 7 SRS, essentially trading Marbury and parts for Nash and other parts. New York went from a -1.6 SRS in 2003 before Marbury to -2.0 in 2004 picking him up midseason and -2.7 with a full season in 2005. New York in the mid-00's was a disaster and destroyed the franchise's credibility. Marbury was at the epicenter. So this is a player involved in two of the biggest turnarounds ever by leaving the teams, and was a part of the first Olympic team to lose with professionals, and he was Garnett's leading support during his early years.

2000 saw the Minnesota's first 50 win season, after their 0.500 win season the previous year. What changed? They traded Marbury in 1999. As a strange cosmic coincidence, Minnesota traded the draft rights of Ray Allen for Marbury. Ray Allen would have been the perfect complement to Garnett as a high scoring shooter who could use his screens and passes. But it wouldn't happen for another decade.

Brandon was a good point guard, probably underrated, and he excelled with Garnett. He was the consummate point guard, averaged 8 assists with Garnett, but he was 5' 11" and wasn't the same caliber player as other dynamic duo partners like a Kobe or Pippen or even most third cogs. Nonetheless, he was one of Garnett's few above average teammates and they established the team, still bereft of talent, as a perennial 50 win team in a tough conference. But how did it fail? Brandon had only two full seasons with Minnesota, having a partial season in that weird 1999 lockout year and succumbing to injuries in 2002. He retired and never played again.

It was a dark period for Minnesota. The Wolves were caught in a tampering scandal with Joe Smith, promising him a lucrative contract if he signed now below market value. Minnesota lost three first round draft picks (it was 5 at the time but two were rescinded.) The awfulness of the franchise's decision here is that they acted illegally just for Joe Smith, a wholly unremarkable player. Over an eight year span, the team drafted guys like William Avery, Rashad McCants, and Ndudi Ebi. The best player drafted was Wally Szczerbiak. They had drafted Brandon Roy but traded him for Randy Foye. But those were minor events compared to Malik Sealy being killed by a drunk driver in 2000. He was killed on the way home from Garnett's birthday party. Sealy and Garnett were close friends. The tragedy is still with him today.

The high point of the franchise (to date, even) was 2004 when they brought in Sam Cassell. They finally had a teammate worthy of Garnett's talent. Although he wasn't a superstar, Cassell was a smart player, a great shooter, and crafty on offense. They won 58 games and reached the conference finals. Unfortunately, they still didn't have much of a supporting cast. The third "star" was an over-the-hill Sprewell, a slasher who had lost his explosiveness, shot well below the league average, and was a year from retirement. Hassell was a pretty good defensive wing, but he was a terrible and limited offensive player who somehow only scored 5 points per game in 28 minutes. Fred Hoiberg was an undersized and unathletic guard who was only in the league for his shooting, and he didn't last long in the league. Mark Madsen sadly was sixth on the team in minutes played. He should have never risen above end-of-the-bench duty or occasional spark plug. Gary Trent was a better player in his prime, but this was his last year before retirement and and it showed. The last two relevant players were awful: Ervin Johnson and Olowokandi. Szczerbiak became an above average player later, but he played 673 minutes in 2004.

Garnett had his best season in 2004 and one of the best ever. He was a near unanimous MVP, with three errant votes going to Peja and Jermaine. He did everything for the team save for answering phones. He led the team in every big statistical category in 2003, which has only been done by Pippen, Cowens, LeBron, and Dr. J in the ABA. There have been only 12 seasons in NBA history with 22 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 assists. Most came decades ago when more points and rebounds were available. Wilt has four, Kareem was one, Oscar has one, Baylor has one, Cunningham has one, and Barkley has one. Garnett has two such seasons. Adjusted for pace or available rebounds, and it's even rarer. And Barkley was never the defensive player Garnett was. Garnett had a PER of 29.4, one of the best ever, and was by all conventional means one of the greatest modern seasons ever.

Outside of Garnett and Cassell, it was an awful team, one that you'd see win a lottery. Unfortunately, Cassell encountered injury problems, and it surfaced at the wrong time: the 2004 conference finals versus a Shaq/Kobe team with Phil Jackson and old stars Malone and Payton. Cassell missed two games and played 1 and 6 minutes respectively in two others. Minnesota somehow lasted six games, and then bowed out. After Hoiberg, who wasn't a natural PG, the point guard situation was terrible. Darrick Martin started three games versus the Lakers. Cassell's injury problems next season and they missed the playoffs with 44 wins as one of the best lottery teams ever. With a bigger league, it was harder to make the playoffs. For perspective, Moses Malone made the finals once with 41 wins. Jordan never missed the playoffs with Chicago when healthy, but he was lucky: he made the playoffs once with 38 wins. Garnett had won the 2004 MVP with a dazzling season that's still highly regarded. He wasn't much worse in 2005 (only by a slim margin in my eyes) but missing the playoffs killed his candidacy and Nash, one of the most surprising winners ever, took the award in the vacuum.

Although Sam's injury problems were a concern, he was the only high value player they had besides Garnett. As reward, they traded him along with a first round pick (that was later used as an asset to bring in Chris Paul) for Marko Jaric. They won 33 games. The Clippers, meanwhile, had their best season in ages. Minnesota became a test bed for the value of a superstar along with a minimal cast. The best analysts who study the NBA estimate top players with a value of 20 wins compared to a replacement level player. There are still some arguments on the topic, but a replacement level team will win 10 to 12 games. There is no way a reasonable person could argue any player could drag such an awful team to 50 wins or close. It's not possible. Besides Szczerbiak, who was one of the worst all-star selections ever, it was a dreadful team and to top it all off, there were many low character/chemistry guys.

It was a team that relied on Ricky Davis, Rashad McCants, Eddie Griffin, Marcus Banks, and Mark Blount. Hassell was second on the team in minutes. Szczerbiak was their only other above average guy, and he only played half the season. Anyone comparing his supporting cast to Duncan's has to take a step back and look at the players involved. Ricky Davis is the antithesis of Popovich's Spurs. He was a stat-padder who took as many shots as Garnett with awful efficiency and decision making. His competition for team cancer is probably only Stephon Marbury in the modern era.

They won 32 games the next season. They didn't even have Szczerbiak anymore. Mark Blount was third on the team in minutes played. Despite the supporting talent, they weren't even that bad: a -3 SRS will keep you out of the deep lottery.

Even though NBA history being littered with examples of superstars in their primes missing the playoffs, from Kareem to Barkley to Olajuwon, this was held against him as if he had anything to do with some of the worst management in modern sports history. The arguments were hypothetical, but they became a reality soon: Garnett would be traded for a load of parts to Boston and would soon join Ray Allen and Pierce with a couple of young starters and a shallow bench. Some argued Boston was giving up a lot for Garnett at the time. It was the largest trade ever at the time, seven players and two picks for one guy, and while the young players didn't all pan out Minnesota still had Al Jefferson to replace some of Garnett's scoring and rebounding. Jefferson's often criticized, but no one would describe him as significantly below average or replacement level. So what happened? Minnesota dropped 10 wins and 3 SRS. Even with Jefferson and a couple of useful players, they showed just how bad the team was. They reached a low point a couple years later with 15 wins and a -9 SRS. They truly were that bad.

Boston wasn't expected to be great. They weren't even a lock for their own division. They were third in an ESPN prediction pool for eastern conference champion. Even Hollinger didn't pick them. No ESPN writer picked them for champion and they received little support in a GM survey. Noted NBA prediction experts Hollinger and Neil Paine tagged them for 51 and 48 wins, respectively. They were old, they didn't have depth, and Garnett had lost his luster: how is this guy a true superstar with almost no playoff success? How valuable was he?

Yet Boston had one of the greatest seasons in modern league history with 66 wins, a +9 SRS, a defense that was arguably the best since Bill Russell, and outscored teams by 5.2 points per game on the way to a title versus a strong Laker team that would win two titles in a row. Unfortunately, this was Garnett's last truly great season, as the miles caught up to him. He had been playing 3000 minute seasons for a decade and totaled 33,000 before he hit Boston. Injuries were starting to come up. At one point early in the season when he was healthiest, they were 29-3, a 74 win pace. They nearly won again in 2010, losing in seven games to LAL where their starting center Perkins missed a game due to injury against the great Laker frontline.

During his Boston years, Garnett's defense was finally put to good use, and his length, intensity, and quickness were perfect for an aggressive scheme stopping pick and rolls and penetration before it even happened. Boston was usually only a great defense when Garnett was on the court, with or without Thibodeau on the sidelines. He was an unselfish player who played well next to everyone. He was a great passer, set some of the best screens, rebounded at a high level, could space the floor at about 20 feet, and made few mistakes.

The biggest embarrassment came in Brooklyn with a disastrous season, but he was one of their few bright spots. With Brook Lopez down, one of the most talented centers in the game according to most conventional analysts, they were toast. But Garnett, who had lost a bit of quickness, was great for them at center, and they rebounded from an awful start. As a coda, Pierce and Livingston have left him in Brooklyn, and he's going to fight against the darkness again among awful management and a disappointing team. It's fitting. Poetic.


Myth 1: You can't be a top 15 or 10 player if you miss the playoffs in your prime

Kareem's the second highest player on this list, and he missed the playoffs twice. This was in a smaller league where a lot of the talent was taken by the ABA. Others who missed were Barkley, Olajuwon, Kobe Bryant, and Moses Malone. NBA stars aren't worth 45 to 50 wins. You cannot win alone. (Some may argue Jordan can take any team to 50 wins, but we're not selecting the best player ever here.)

Myth 2: He can't score in the playoffs/his efficiency drops too much

NBA players are typically less efficient in the playoffs because of the increase in competition and Garnett's decline in efficiency is pretty normal. (That should end the discussion, but people are obsessed with this.)

I took every game from 1999 to 2011, used the opposing team's relative defensive efficiency, and used his own relative efficiency (comparing his single game offensive rating to his RS average.) This was to ensure a fair comparison when looking at playoff games.

While his efficiency does drop in the playoffs adjusting for strength of schedule, it is not statistically significant, and there's a complicating factor: his usage increases. Somehow he's known for shrinking from the spotlight, but he's taking more shots in the playoffs. The test with pts per possession? It's even less significant (p-value of ~40% or 29%, depending on how you deal with adjusting for schedule.)

Are we really going to penalize a player extra for a less than 1 point decrease in points per 100 possessions when the random error is large enough that it's not even statistically significant?

PS: Jordan's TS% drops in 77% of his seasons too.

Myth 3: He can't score against tough defenses just like David Robinson

Another find from the work I did in myth 2 is analyzing the coefficient for opposing defense against efficiency/usage/points. Most players have a coefficient for efficiency around 1. Robinson's an exception with a coefficient around 1.3 to 1.4, depending the seasons chosen. Robinson's a lot less efficient versus elite defenses, and his usage even declines a tiny amount.

Garnett? It's been consistently under 1, and his usage increases more than most players. So yes, this means Garnett's scoring GETS BETTER than you'd expect as the defenses get better. This is true even excluding his Boston seasons.

Myth 4: Garnett's TS% of 44 in 2000 means he can't be a star in the playoffs

It was only four games. In fact, they were swarming him, and he showed his usefulness by averaging an incredible 8.8 assists a game. He went up against a huge Portland frontline without much help. PER takes efficiency into account, and he still registered a 20 PER.

Shooting percentages are volatile and can't be used in such small game sets to prove anything. Kevin Pelton found this out when looking at summer league games: rebounding percentages carry over, but shooting percentages do not. In fact, let's look at a histogram of 4 game consecutive samples from his 2000 regular season to see if a 44 TS% would be a freak occurrence:
http://imgur.com/bUC1xsz

Out of 78 four game sets, 7 have a TS% between 40 and 45 or 9%. Since he was facing a tough defense and 44% is close to the 45 to 50% range, which was much more frequent, there is no way you can prove this wasn't part of a natural trend in shooting percentages that every player has. Percentages are volatile.

Myth 5: he is not a "portable" player who can fit next to anyone because he "can't" score

Let's look at the top ten players (per Hollinger) of the 2000's to see if he'd have any problems.

Pierce: no way and in fact they played well together.
Wade: Garnett would be fine deferring for Wade, setting screens, and as a stretch 4/5 he'd be a great complement.
Billups: Billups and Garnett would have their own version of the mid-00's Pistons defense. Billups is a bit like Cassell, who was great next to him.
Nash: he would be the playmaker Garnett would love on offense, taking off some of the burden. Nash's defense would be covered by Garnett without sacrificing spacing or offense.
LeBron: Miami could have used one of the greatest rebounders ever with a reliable long-range shot and passing skills. This wouldn't have been fair.
Shaq: Garnett would take over the defense, which Shaq was too inconsistent with, and would be fine with Shaq taking over the low post.
Kobe: again, no problem here. Garnett can be his Pau on offense while transforming their defense.
Duncan: they're both big enough to cover center and both can play PF. It would be a deadly inside-out duo, while Garnett would lockdown outside the paint and Duncan within. Duncan did do well with Robinson.

If you're going to construct a high level team, you're likely going to have another high scorer. As an intense, loyal, unselfish teammate, Garnett is a perfect fit for almost ever team. He can't be a part of an all-time team? He was in 2008, and as great as Pierce/Allen are, they are not top 15 guys. Garnett deserves a lot of credit.

And we know this happened in reality. Garnett/Pierce/Allen were a beautiful fit.

Myth 6: Duncan/Kobe/et al could have made the playoffs with those Minnesota teams

Kobe missed the playoffs once at the same time, and Duncan has stayed with the best organization in modern league history.

Let's estimate how good they were without Garnett in, say, 2006. I'm estimating how many wins his cast is worth by taking their Win Shares per 48 mins from the most adjacent non-Garnett controlled season in case there's an interaction. The WS/48 values are typically close to what they had in 2006, so it's not a terrible assumption. The cast without Garnett is worth 20 wins. For reference, there are only 17 seasons in NBA history where a single player had 20 Win Shares or more. Every played with a season like that, save for Mikan and Oscar, has been voted in, and it wasn't Garnett's best season. 2003 was, and that was an 18 Win Share season. Given that the 8th seed had 44 wins, it's unlikely that even the best season ever would take that sorry cast to the playoffs.

For reference, using this method the Spurs in 2004 were still a near 0.500 ballclub without Duncan, and it's a similar case in 2003: 38 wins without Duncan during his best season ever. Garnett with the same cast in 2006 would have made the playoffs too by this method. (Win Shares sees Garnett and Duncan's peaks as similar, so 2004 Garnett would have an approximate value of 2003 Duncan.) And this is with a very low estimate for Malik Rose's WS/48, as he fell off sharply after San Antonio due to age.

(Note that Win Shares are perfect, but I needed some method to illustrate how bad his teammates were.)

Myth 7: Garnett's teammates in 2006 or 2005 were comparable to Duncan in the early 00's

See myth 6 or ...

Tony Parker
Bruce Bowen
Stephen Jackson
Malik Rose
David Robinson
Manu Ginobili
Steve Smith
Steve Kerr

versus...

Trenton Hassell
Marko Jaric
Wally Szczerbiak
Ricky Davis
Rashad McCants
Eddie Griffin
Marcus Banks
Mark Blount

Is this really a discussion point? People have a hard time estimating supporting casts and strength of the C to D level guys. Portland traded out Hickson for Lopez and had one of the best turnaounds in years. But it's not obvious on paper Robin Lopez was so much better for them.

Garnett's best Minnesota teammates were 1.5 seasons of Cassell (limited by injuries), two full seasons of Brandon (injuries again), Billups before he became a great player, and Wally Szczerbiak, a good shooter but a limited player known infamously as one of the worst all-star selections.

(Sorry, back to one RAPM point.)
Myth 8: Garnett's RAPM is artificially inflated by prior seasons

The simplest way to bust this myth is with a huge sample set spanning multiple seasons. Single season RAPM is too wonky. But a 14 year set has known of the problems of trailing priors or single season noise. How well does Garnett do? He's first with a value of +8.8, almost a point above LeBron. And please note, the possessions included the playoffs.