An Unbiased Fan wrote:The fact Kobe was LA's primary scorer and playmaker is kind of the point. His offensive imapct was greater because he was dropping 30, while also setting everyone up. As an offensive anchor, isn't this the kind of thing we praised Lebron, and Bird for? Dirk definitely helped with spacing due to his presence, but so did Kobe, so that's a wash to me.
If Kobe had the offensive impact advantage, why didn't it translate into better team results?
Team Offensive rating from 01-14: Dirk: 112.4 O rating Kobe: 110.8 O rating
Both of their teams had a 103.5 O rating when they were off the court.
Playoffs: Dirk: 110.4 O rating Kobe: 109.1 O rating
Dirk's team played much better with him on the court
Right, but your focus on assists means you are missing how Dirk is creating shots. It goes far beyond him just providing spacing with his range. Dirk in the post draws tons of attention and while he is not a great technical passer, he is an extremely smart and quick decision maker. He can't be guarded by one guy and he kills teams who double.
I know you remember the 2011 playoffs against the Lakers where the Mavs were reigning 3s. That was possible primarily because of the attention Dirk drew and then the veteran Mavs had great ball movement. Even Kidd wasn't racking up big assist numbers but Dallas was 2nd in the league in assists that year and if you look at the shooting numbers for guys like JET, Peja, DeShawn, Kidd the vast majority of their 3's were assisted.
I don't think at all we should conclude Kobe is the superior offensive anchor. I don't think that's at all obvious. Both guys are elite offensive players. I'm not sure I see much of an edge for either guy tbh, but we can't look at assists to determine their value to their respective teams.
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Chuck Texas wrote:I don't think at all we should conclude Kobe is the superior offensive anchor. I don't think that's at all obvious. Both guys are elite offensive players. I'm not sure I see much of an edge for either guy tbh, but we can't look at assists to determine their value to their respective teams.
IMO they are pretty much a wash as offensive anchors (this is not to say I don't think Kobe is a better player overall) but Kobe's edge comes from defense against Dirk. Even if Kobe has an edge as an offensive anchor it's not a big one.
JordansBulls wrote:The Warriors are basically a good college team until they meet a team with bigs in the NBA.
I think that would be a much more useful comparison on a per100possession basis.
Doesn't per-100 and per-36 assume that basketball performance is perfectly linear with respect to pace and time?
In other words, the (shaky) assumption is that those playing fewer minutes at slower pace suffer no performance degradation when their pace and minutes increase.
(cf. Manu Ginóbili)
The thing about pace is that both teams in a game play the same pace. So it affects all participants equally. Moses might have played more tired in absolute terms terms than David Robinson, but he wasn't relatively more tired (because his opponent should be equally tired). Minutes advantages can be useful but they could be factored in after looking at per possession stats. And unless you believe that Karl Malone and David Robinson (two of the best athletes in the history of the game) were just a few more minutes/possessions away from a collapse in production (so bad it would undo the previous, say, 38 minutes work) then playing the Manu card would be somewhat disingenuous. All of which is why I already said the stats should look at teams pace, and should include ts% and compare with what the rest of the league was doing.
acrossthecourt wrote:Those are pretty small differences though. If you erase the short series where Phoenix lit them up in 1992, they're positive in the pre-Duncan years. Being able to remove one short series and change the sign like that indicates that the difference is effectively zero and the them being "worse" on defense has no significant evidence.
Robinson was injured for the playoffs in '92 and didn't play a single minute.
Owly wrote:I think some of those numbers might be skewed (superficially) in Barkley's favour weren't league average Ortgs and TS% generally higher during his career (obviously it changes year to year).
I haven't read thru to the end of thread, so maybe this has been covered, but anyway.....
League avg TS% was about 0.3% higher for Barkley during his 15 most relevant years ('85-'99) vs. Dirk's 15 most relevant ('00-'14).
League avg ORtg was aboout 1.5 pts higher for Barkley over same time periods.
So yes, league averages would presumably skew things slightly in Barkley's favor, but even with the above adjustments, Barkley still had a slim-to-negligible lead on Dirk in both TS% and ORtg.
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An Unbiased Fan wrote:The fact Kobe was LA's primary scorer and playmaker is kind of the point. His offensive imapct was greater because he was dropping 30, while also setting everyone up. As an offensive anchor, isn't this the kind of thing we praised Lebron, and Bird for? Dirk definitely helped with spacing due to his presence, but so did Kobe, so that's a wash to me.
If Kobe had the offensive impact advantage, why didn't it translate into better team results?
Team Offensive rating from 01-14: Dirk: 112.4 O rating Kobe: 110.8 O rating
Both of their teams had a 103.5 O rating when they were off the court.
Playoffs: Dirk: 110.4 O rating Kobe: 109.1 O rating
Dirk's team played much better with him on the court
Dirk +7.5 per 100 possessions Kobe +5.2 per 100
So you're comparing offensively built teams in Dallas, to a more balanced LA? It's always strange how team success is thrown out, but team metrics are constantly used in comparisons...
Chuck Texas wrote:Right, but your focus on assists means you are missing how Dirk is creating shots. It goes far beyond him just providing spacing with his range. Dirk in the post draws tons of attention and while he is not a great technical passer, he is an extremely smart and quick decision maker. He can't be guarded by one guy and he kills teams who double.
I know you remember the 2011 playoffs against the Lakers where the Mavs were reigning 3s. That was possible primarily because of the attention Dirk drew and then the veteran Mavs had great ball movement. Even Kidd wasn't racking up big assist numbers but Dallas was 2nd in the league in assists that year and if you look at the shooting numbers for guys like JET, Peja, DeShawn, Kidd the vast majority of their 3's were assisted.
I don't think at all we should conclude Kobe is the superior offensive anchor. I don't think that's at all obvious. Both guys are elite offensive players. I'm not sure I see much of an edge for either guy tbh, but we can't look at assists to determine their value to their respective teams.
No doubt Dirk drew a lot of attention, but again, so did Kobe. Dirk couldn't be guarded 1 on 1, but neither could Kobe. So in terms of on court presence, both were exceptional. That's why I brought up playmaking, because Kobe was also responsible for getting everyone going, and did it for 5 title runs. His ability to hold down duel roles at a high level is only matched by MJ/Lebron/Bird/West/Oscar.
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I think that would be a much more useful comparison on a per100possession basis.
Doesn't per-100 and per-36 assume that basketball performance is perfectly linear with respect to pace and time?
In other words, the (shaky) assumption is that those playing fewer minutes at slower pace suffer no performance degradation when their pace and minutes increase.
(cf. Manu Ginóbili)
No, per-36 minutes adjusts for players who play a discordant amount of minutes (ala Manu as you cite). per100Possession also adjusts for pace, and is a big reason why people are no longer so starstruck at Wilt and Oscar's amazing statistical feats of the 60s when the league average was more 120 possessions per game.
You can see that Moses's per-game stats were a little inflated compared to the other bigs, and his blocks certainly don't make him look like a defensive anchor. He does look like an elite rebounder however (since I think that defensive rebounds have a positional component and offensive rebounds are more of a function of rebounding skill, although even that is compounded by teams like the Spurs that eschew offensive rebounds in favour of transition defense).
Melodabeast wrote:People are doubting Bryant's defense. They seem to believe all those all-defensive team that are voted on by the coaches came from nowhere, which seems pretty silly. There's a reason he got that defensive rep in the first place.
I think you're misunderstanding a position you don't hold. Kobe was great at defense during the first 3-peat. His defensive rep and awards during that time are well earned. However, once Shaq was run out of town and Kobe didn't have to share the ball any more, he coasted on defense so he had more energy for offense.
I would argue that his defensive awards since that time are largely based on rep and not merited by reality.
1. Bryant was very good defensively during the first 3-peat. You're right. However, 2004 is also a good season defensively, and in 2006 he was solid. From 08-10 there was a definite renewal in his energy/activity level and he was good defensively again after a average 2007 season. Notice how his good defensive seasons (00,01,02,03,04,06,08,09,2010) almost always came on good teams where he didn't have to carry the entire load.
2. Shaq was not run out of town. He was offered a 20+ million dollar per year extension and turned it down.
3. Yes, he did do more coasting in years like 2005-2007 where he was playing with terrible support and had to carry the offense (though 2006 is definitely a step up compared to 2005 and 2007). As soon as he got a good team again (08-10) he was back to being a consistently good defender. Even the precious gospel DRAPM has him as a positive those seasons. Not that I believe that he was better from 08-10 than he was from 00-04 or peaked defensively in 2010 (yes, thats what DRAPM says) but he was definitely at least a good defender during the 08-10 reg seasons, and was better in the post-season.
Interestingly just like with KG, Dirk only faced Mailman and Kobe once in his career. With Malone this was obviously due to Karl being 15 years older, but its an oddity that he and Kobe only met once considering both teams were always in the playoffs
2001 1st round. 4 v5 matchup with Utah having homecourt, but very close matchup and old man Mailman and Dirk in his 1st series ever play nearly to a draw imo. Malone more pts/rebounds. Dirk considerably more efficient and turned the ball over less than half as often. Both guys played big minutes 43 for Dirk, 40 for Karl(at age 37!) and both did a great job of getting to FT line. Mavs win 3-2 with Mailman having a shot at the end of game 5 that he missed.
2011 2nd round #2 seed LA vs #3 seed Dallas. Lakers 2x time defending champs, Dallas record worse due to Dirk missing 9 games. Again on paper a really even matchup except for the fact that the Lakers have owned Dallas since the Mavericks were a franchise and certainly in Kobe and Dirk's era. Lakers prohibitive favorites going in. After massive come back in game 1, Dallas was clearly the better team the rest of the way and Mavs sweep.
Dirk 25/9 on 67%TS Kobe 23/3/3 on 52% TS
Note: Lakers fans insist Kobe was badly hurt in 2011 and maybe he was, but he played all 82 games and played 37 mpg in that series so I'm hesitant to excuse him too much.
Again this is not meant to be a pro-Dirk argument considering the meaningless sample sizes, but just to note how these guys matched up in their one series.
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An Unbiased Fan wrote:So you're comparing offensively built teams in Dallas, to a more balanced LA? It's always strange how team success is thrown out, but team metrics are constantly used in comparisons...
You do realize that from 05 through 2012 Dallas field defensive-first rosters around Dirk? The Nash Nellie years were all offense and obviously Monta and Jose made Dallas a very offensive-minded roster last year, but Dallas was built around the idea of having good defenders around Dirk. It's part of what makes him so impressive as an offensive anchor.
An Unbiased Fan wrote:No doubt Dirk drew a lot of attention, but again, so did Kobe. Dirk couldn't be guarded 1 on 1, but neither could Kobe. So in terms of on court presence, both were exceptional. That's why I brought up playmaking, because Kobe was also responsible for getting everyone going, and did it for 5 title runs. His ability to hold down duel roles at a high level is only matched by MJ/Lebron/Bird/West/Oscar.
Sure Kobe requires doubles at times, but he spent a lot more time out on the perimeter where he is going to be guarded by one guy--and a non big at that. Dirk is either in the post requiring multiple defenders or he's on the perimeter drawing a big out with him. That's why I'm not sure that Kobe's playmaking is an advantage over the pressure Dirk is constantly putting on defenses. Kobe is a spectacular scorer to be sure, but teams typically just put their best wing defender on him and provide help when he drives. Fairly standard defensive stuff. Dirk is just a whole different animal who requires a unique gameplan to deal with in ways Kobe simply doesnt.
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I think that would be a much more useful comparison on a per100possession basis.
Doesn't per-100 and per-36 assume that basketball performance is perfectly linear with respect to pace and time?
In other words, the (shaky) assumption is that those playing fewer minutes at slower pace suffer no performance degradation when their pace and minutes increase.
(cf. Manu Ginóbili)
No, you're operating on the shaky assumption that performance declines with more playing time, which is unsubstantiated.
This is the type of thinking that warned against Harden and Asik in bigger roles.
I know someone else is doing something with minutes and performance. Playing short minutes actually harms your performance, and I think this is intuitive if you think about it: you have no rhythm coming in cold.
Why do you keep repeating this nonsense. Kobe was put on Rondo to disrupt Boston's offense. Do you think LA would put Fisher on a tougher defensive assignment?
Out of Ray Allen and Pierce and Rondo, which one is the easiest defensive assignment? This is second year Rondo.
shutupandjam wrote:
acrossthecourt wrote:Those are pretty small differences though. If you erase the short series where Phoenix lit them up in 1992, they're positive in the pre-Duncan years. Being able to remove one short series and change the sign like that indicates that the difference is effectively zero and the them being "worse" on defense has no significant evidence.
Robinson was injured for the playoffs in '92 and didn't play a single minute.
I was going off memory and thought that was 1991. Whoops. I switched things and edited it.
magicmerl wrote:I think that would be a much more useful comparison on a per100possession basis.
Doesn't per-100 and per-36 assume that basketball performance is perfectly linear with respect to pace and time?
In other words, the (shaky) assumption is that those playing fewer minutes at slower pace suffer no performance degradation when their pace and minutes increase.
(cf. Manu Ginóbili)
The thing about pace is that both teams in a game play the same pace. So it affects all participants equally. Moses might have played more tired in absolute terms terms than David Robinson, but he wasn't relatively more tired (because his opponent should be equally tired). Minutes advantages can be useful but they could be factored in after looking at per possession stats. And unless you believe that Karl Malone and David Robinson (two of the best athletes in the history of the game) were just a few more minutes/possessions away from a collapse in production (so bad it would undo the previous, say, 38 minutes work) then playing the Manu card would be somewhat disingenuous. All of which is why I already said the stats should look at teams pace, and should include ts% and compare with what the rest of the league was doing.
Moses averaged 42 minutes (pace 97.2) in 1982 while Karl average 38 minutes (pace 96.1) in 1990.
My guess is that if Karl had to play 4 extra minutes, his stats would not increase by over 10%.
At the margin, the linear adjustments penalize players who shoulder a heavier load in terms of pace and minutes.
This is the type of thinking that warned against Harden and Asik in bigger roles.
I know someone else is doing something with minutes and performance. Playing short minutes actually harms your performance, and I think this is intuitive if you think about it: you have no rhythm coming in cold.
Cmon now---there are obviously guys who can handle huge minutes and guys who can't and if you ask them to their performance suffers. Look at the 2001 Mavericks which after the Juwan deal were effectively a 4-man team so in the playoffs Nellie played Finley, Dirk, and Juwan almost every single minute, but Nash couldn't handle the load and so he played less even tho his backup Howard Eisley had a terrible year and couldnt handle playing against his former team the Jazz to the point where Dallas actually turned to Vernon Maxwell for minutes behind Nash.
Now for guys who are used to playing heavy minutes and playing long stetches, sure their performance can suffer from lack of rhythym, but its fair to question whether or not a guy playing effectively in 25-30 minutes could maintain so playing 38-40.
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Chuck Texas wrote:Interestingly just like with KG, Dirk only faced Mailman and Kobe once in his career. With Malone this was obviously due to Karl being 15 years older, but its an oddity that he and Kobe only met once considering both teams were always in the playoffs
2001 1st round. 4 v5 matchup with Utah having homecourt, but very close matchup and old man Mailman and Dirk in his 1st series ever play nearly to a draw imo. Malone more pts/rebounds. Dirk considerably more efficient and turned the ball over less than half as often. Both guys played big minutes 43 for Dirk, 40 for Karl(at age 37!) and both did a great job of getting to FT line. Mavs win 3-2 with Mailman having a shot at the end of game 5 that he missed.
2011 2nd round #2 seed LA vs #3 seed Dallas. Lakers 2x time defending champs, Dallas record worse due to Dirk missing 9 games. Again on paper a really even matchup except for the fact that the Lakers have owned Dallas since the Mavericks were a franchise and certainly in Kobe and Dirk's era. Lakers prohibitive favorites going in. After massive come back in game 1, Dallas was clearly the better team the rest of the way and Mavs sweep.
Dirk 25/9 on 67%TS Kobe 23/3/3 on 52% TS
Note: Lakers fans insist Kobe was badly hurt in 2011 and maybe he was, but he played all 82 games and played 37 mpg in that series so I'm hesitant to excuse him too much.
Again this is not meant to be a pro-Dirk argument considering the meaningless sample sizes, but just to note how these guys matched up in their one series.
That's crazy that LAL and DAL never met until 2011. I think that matchup in 2002 or 2003 would have been insane. LA always had trouble with PFs like Sheed, Webber, Duncan, and KG. Dallas could have really exploited LA with Dirk's shooting. Then again, Shaq and Kobe would have annihilated the Maverick D. I still don't know who would win that. Probably edge to LA if everybody is healthy, but damn that's a nice series.
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ronnymac2 wrote: That's crazy that LAL and DAL never met until 2011. I think that matchup in 2002 or 2003 would have been insane. LA always had trouble with PFs like Sheed, Webber, Duncan, and KG. Dallas could have really exploited LA with Dirk's shooting. Then again, Shaq and Kobe would have annihilated the Maverick D. I still don't know who would win that. Probably edge to LA if everybody is healthy, but damn that's a nice series.
Considering how the RS seasons went during this stretch it seems to me like the Lakers would probably have destroyed Dallas. We literally had no answers for Shaq(Bradley, Rafe, Dirk=gross) and none for Kobe really either. Dirk would have put up big numbers probably and Dallas would lose in 4 or 5 by double digit margins.
Sadly the Lakers just own the Mavericks. Somewhere in this stretch Dallas was leading by 30 to start the 4th and lost--Im sure one of the Kobe guys probably knows the exact year.
edit: Actually was curious and went back and looked at the matchups in that time. Dallas actually won twice in 02 against LA, none in 03, but the scores look closer than my memory(maybe Dallas did well in garbage time? or maybe my memory is faulty) But in 139 RS games the Lakers have won 104 and even after the sweep in 2011 they still hold a 12-10 advantage in the PS.
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This is the type of thinking that warned against Harden and Asik in bigger roles.
I know someone else is doing something with minutes and performance. Playing short minutes actually harms your performance, and I think this is intuitive if you think about it: you have no rhythm coming in cold.
Cmon now---there are obviously guys who can handle huge minutes and guys who can't and if you ask them to their performance suffers. Look at the 2001 Mavericks which after the Juwan deal were effectively a 4-man team so in the playoffs Nellie played Finley, Dirk, and Juwan almost every single minute, but Nash couldn't handle the load and so he played less even tho his backup Howard Eisley had a terrible year and couldnt handle playing against his former team the Jazz to the point where Dallas actually turned to Vernon Maxwell for minutes behind Nash.
Now for guys who are used to playing heavy minutes and playing long stetches, sure their performance can suffer from lack of rhythym, but its fair to question whether or not a guy playing effectively in 25-30 minutes could maintain so playing 38-40.
Irrelevant -- guys who play less minutes "pad" their per minute stats because it's easier -- but the real issue is why we even use pace stats to begin with.
No one's saying Ginobili could play 48 minutes and he'd be fine. But people bring up what I specifically addressed all the time and it's wrong.
edit: I'm not ignoring minutes, but we do have to translate the stats to a per possession set first before applying the minutes share. I know that sounds weird to some people, but it's an important step, and yes, I value the ability to play larger minutes shares. Of course I do. But at this point in the top 100 list, all the guys can play heavy minutes.
The real issue:
Spoiler:
For example, Joe Johnson averaged 21.7 points per game in 2008, beating over Ginobili’s 16.5 in 2007; and Joe averaged more assists while equaling him in rebounds. If Johnson averaged more points by a significant amount, then how did Manu have more Win Shares? The answer, basically, is that Ginobili was so much better on a per possession minute basis that it gives his team more value. He got more points out of his shot attempts, and on a per minute basis he was outscoring Johnson.
A critic would counter that Johnson is adding more value because he was actually on the court and averaged more points per game, but if Johnson doesn’t play that doesn’t mean his 21.7 points disappear completely; his possessions are divvied up among other else, and it’s the difference between what Johnson produces and what a Johnson-less team would produce that we’re interested in. That is the crucial point in understanding value stats. Replacing Manu’s production, meanwhile, would be more difficult because of how efficient he is with his shots and how well-rounded he is as a player. Ginobili is even more valuable to a championship contending team because of he good he plays on a per minute basis. Good teams likely have a few players to carry the scoring load; if you want to make a difference you have to provide at a higher level.
...
While it’s fairly easy to see how Manu is better than Joe Johnson, it’s not exactly tough competition. A better match-up would be Ginobili and Vince Carter in 2007, arguably his best season post-Toronto. Carter cracked 25 points per game; Ginobili never made it past 20. Yet despite Carter playing 50% more total minutes, they’re nearly even in Win Shares. How does this happen? Again, don’t think of Carter adding 25 points to his team; he’s using up opportunities that can be (partially) replaced by teammates. Manu’s stats were less replaceable because he was ridiculously efficient and filled up the stat-sheet in numerous ways.
To simplify this, we use per possession or minute stats to figure out what kind of production the player has.
If you average 48 minutes and 20 points per game, you're not actually a great scorer. You're just playing a lot of minutes. If we assume that player is neutral everywhere else, that scoring is replaceable. A player averaging 20 a game in 25 minutes gives you more value and helps you win more, all other things being equal.
And with era comparisons, we want to figure out the *share* of the contributions. Scoring 35 is impressive, but less so when your entire team scores 130 a game. A better way to compare Baylor's scoring to Kobe's is to look at the percentage of their team's points they were scoring at their best.
Jim Naismith wrote: Doesn't per-100 and per-36 assume that basketball performance is perfectly linear with respect to pace and time?
In other words, the (shaky) assumption is that those playing fewer minutes at slower pace suffer no performance degradation when their pace and minutes increase.
(cf. Manu Ginóbili)
No, you're operating on the shaky assumption that performance declines with more playing time, which is unsubstantiated.
What this article established is that the inflection point (point of diminishing returns) for performance with respect to playing time is greater than ~30 minutes (for Millsap).
But the inflection point might be around the 40-minute mark.
