Chuck Texas wrote:But it doesnt stop at those 4 years. Kidd goes on and on and on and on. Assuming in your GM scenario that the player loves our organization and will stick around like Stockton, I'm getting 28K more minutes. And almost all of them Im getting a top 20-25 player. Thats pretty freaking valuable.
But 7 years of Mike only meant one title. So there are no guarantees and Paul, good as he is, is no Mike. Again I get you think Paul is several tiers above Kidd as a player and thus you would take him. But I don't think the gap is as big as you do and drza posted a bunch of stats that I know you put a lot of stock into that suggest Kidd's impact is greater than his box score suggests. And I know everywhere he went the team starting winning a lot more and everywhere he left they won a lot less.
I think the idea that a PG has to be an offensive savant really hurts Kidd. I think its simply impossible for people to leave that Kidd could be having the impact he had based on his ineffectiveness as a scorer.
Let's be generous and say that Kidd in his sub-all-star years was the equivalent of a prime Andre Miller.
How many Andre Miller seasons do we have to add to Kidd's Top 7 to pass Paul?
Now, How many to pass Dirk Nowitzki? To Duncan? To Jordan? To Kareem?
How many does he need to be GOAT?
I know I'm taking your thinking to absurd heights. I know full well that it's plausible to use that Kidd longevity to make an argument over Paul but not have it extend indefinitely up the GOAT, but the argument you present makes it seem so sexy this seemingly endless years of Kidd being essentially a nice role player...but what team management drools down the chin over this stuff, and why should they? What can you seriously expect to gain as a franchise from those years that you would give up on a guy much more likely to actually lead you to contention in his prime?
Chuck Texas wrote:Paul isn't 77 Walton and Kidd is way better than Magloire was in his all-star year.
But you know that.
I'm not saying that Kidd=Magloire. I want to know how you value all star years in comparison to really great seasons, because your argumentation is based on that additional above average years have enough value to overcame peak (or prime) greatness.
Focusing on this line, aren't there many circumstances where Paul's level of ball-dominance would lead to diminishing returns? For instance, if instead of playing on a team with all finishers (like in NO) or where his second star is a big man (like in LAC), what if his second star was a scoring wing? What if he was playing next to LeBron, or Wade, or Kobe?
Or even a ball-dominant scorer that isn't as good like Iverson or Steve Francis?
Or what if he were playing in an offense where he wasn't the clear-cut best option...what if he were playing in an offense with Dirk, and the team wanted to focus more around Dirk than around Paul? Couldn't one argue that's exactly what happened with Nash and part of why his impact changed so drastically from Dallas to Phoenix?
What about two talented scoring point guards playing together (like we saw in Phoenix last year)...would Paul compliment Goran Dragic on offense and defense?
What about in a team-share offense like the Spurs? Is Paul's approach going to be maximized there?
Might Kidd's impact, in fact, be more likely than Paul's to allow maximization in ANY of these scenarios? And are these scenarios really that unusual? Just the opposite, in fact, I'd argue that point guards that control their offense to the level than Nash (in Phoenix) or Paul or Stockton do/did is not in fact the norm.
There are a LOT of scenarios in basketball. I think it's a mistake to think that pretty much any ball-dominant player at any position should have carte blanche to definitely play in that style across all situations. And Kidd's size/defensive versatility also opens up the possibility of him playing next to smaller players and maximizing both of their impacts, in ways that Paul doesn't.
Paul's an excellent player, but I don't think his portability is necessarily a conclusive strength against Kidd.
You've got a point, but I think you've got to ask what that portability amounts to.
We're not talking about Kidd being able to be a superstar in the scenarios you describe, we're talking about him losing less offensive impact...because he has less to lose in the first place. Yes, Kidd offers atypical dimensions on other front which benefits him with the combos you talk about...but of course you're specifically picking guys who has strengths that intersect with the areas that Paul is so much better than Kidd in. That's a lopsided way to look at portability.
I'm not sure I agree. To me, portability is about how many different scenarios could I plug a player into and have them maintain the most impact to the team's successes. When I compare Kidd and Paul, I would say that Paul has more offensive talent but that Kidd is able to do more things at a high level on the court. Paul can maximize his impact (as demonstrated by his career thus far), to me, only on teams built such that it makes sense for him to be the full-time maestro on offense. And there are a lot of such teams, but there are also a lot of teams built like some of the different scenarios that I laid out in which concentrating the power in Paul's hands to the level that it has been in has career would mean diminishing returns.
Also, Kidd's size, rebounding and defensive versatility are part and parcel of his game. Their unique, but they allow him to fit into more scenarios than Paul's size allows him to. To me, that's part of portability.
Also, I do think you're under-valuing "mere" All Star years here (Edit: and now the last few posts in this thread are talking about his extra years as role player years). Using your spreadsheet from 1998 - 2012, you built it to focus on 5-year peaks. But if you go outside of the top-5 years, in his next 7 best years Kidd's normalized RAPM averaged to +4.7 with a min of +4.0 and a max of +5.2, so not much variance (note: this analysis misses 1995 - 97 and 2001, which include one 1st team All NBA season, another All Star season and a rookie of the year). There are only 16 players (outside of Kidd) that have at least 5 seasons that score better than +4.7 from 1998 - 2012. Kobe in 2002 and 2003 averaged +5.2, and in the Phil/Shaq years (2000 - 2004, sans 2001) averaged +3.3. Pierce from 2002 - 2007 averaged +3.6. Ray Allen never had a single season with an RAPM as high as +4.7 from '98 - 2008 (with 2001 unknown). Vince Carter only had 1 such season in that time range. (Or for the Andre' Miller example, he's still waiting for the first +4.7 season of his career).
The point is, in the "non-superstar years", Kidd was still impacting the game in a very big way. Way more than the connotation you get by minimizing them as "just" All Star or role player seasons. If you go whole career, we're talking about pretty close to a decade with impact on that level in addition to his 5-year superstar peak.
Meanwhile, when Nash was in a less ball-dominant role in Dallas (with the caveat that his primacy isn't the ONLY thing that changed, but still) his RAPM dropped into the +1 range despite his still being an All-Star. At the moment, I can't think of a better comparison for Paul if he were in a less primacy situation than Nash in Dallas. Paul's impact in such an instance would likely be larger than Nash's because his defense is stronger, but I don't see his total impact in such a scenario matching what Kidd demonstrated he could do in a variety of scenarios. And to me, portability factors all of this in.
Thought about initially voting for Drexler, but didn't have enough time to really compare him to Havlicek/ other top 30 candidates and cast a vote with much confidence.
For the run-off I feel pretty confident voting for Havlicek. Paul clearly peaked higher and will most likely end up in the top 25 in a few years. However, I think Hondo's sizeable longevity/ durability edge, above average scoring efficiency, passing/playmaking ability and excellent defense gives him the overall edge over Paul.
Run-off vote: John Havlicek
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Chuck Texas wrote:Paul isn't 77 Walton and Kidd is way better than Magloire was in his all-star year.
But you know that.
I'm not saying that Kidd=Magloire. I want to know how you value all star years in comparison to really great seasons, because your argumentation is based on that additional above average years have enough value to overcame peak (or prime) greatness.
You could just ask?
Anyway Im dropping the longevity argument. Its clear the Paul guys aren't seeing much value in the non-peak/prime years and while that honestly surprises me. I can accept it as a valid perspective.
I just see a smaller gap between Paul at his best and Kidd at his is all.
ThunderBolt wrote:I’m going to let some of you in on a little secret I learned on realgm. If you don’t like a thread, not only do you not have to comment but you don’t even have to open it and read it. You’re welcome.
Chuck Texas wrote:Paul isn't 77 Walton and Kidd is way better than Magloire was in his all-star year.
But you know that.
I'm not saying that Kidd=Magloire. I want to know how you value all star years in comparison to really great seasons, because your argumentation is based on that additional above average years have enough value to overcame peak (or prime) greatness.
Your point would be more valid if you picked an all star caliber player as an example instead of magloire. I'm sure you realize even though he made an all star team, he didn't have an all star caliber year. I don't see your comparison paralleling paul / kidd otherwise.
btw, I thought drza's last response to me was great. The point of essentially: Those lesser Kidd years were still basically what we expect from the peak of some Hall of Famers is very compelling.
I don't think it makes my point go away: There's always an issue when you're judging a comparison based on years that are pretty far below the peak of the players in question, but it's quite understandable why one would still value those extra years with Kidd, and really it's because one can argue quite well that he was underrated in those years.
I'll go ahead and cast my runoff vote for Chris Paul. I came into the project favoring peak over longevity by quite some margin. I've softened somewhat on that stance, but I decided to explore the impact of longevity in this case. A very rough metric that I have devised (weighted prime win shares per game) by default takes into account a player's best 8 regular seasons and postseasons (further weighted by team success), with the best seasons having the highest weights. This metric gives something of a short stick to players with meaningful longevity that extends beyond 8 years, and Havlicek certainly seems like a candidate for being underappreciated here.
With that in mind, I had a look at tweaking my metric, by both playing with the peak weighting (getting rid of it altogether or making it steeper) and by extending the number of seasons that count.
Here are the results for 8, 10, 12, and 15 seasons with no peak weighting, moderate peak weighting, and heavy peak weighting:
Player No Pk Rank Mod Pk Rank Heavy Pk Rank Paul 0.038 106 0.052 94 0.063 85 Havlicek 0.081 22 0.098 21 0.110 21
A few things jump out here. Havlicek's longevity is clearly a factor in regular season rankings, climbing from the low 60s, high 70s if we count only 8 seasons to the mid 40s to mid 50s if we count 15 seasons. He's also incredibly consistent - he doesn't get much of a jump from weighing peak more heavily, so he tends to drop in the rankings by increasing the weight assigned to better seasons. In the playoffs, he's always between 21-25, regardless of how we factor in the number of seasons and peak. Chris Paul obviously does best in the shorter samples, actually ranking in the top 10 (!) if we count 8 seasons of regular season play. Paul steeply climbs the rankings whenever better seasons are more favored by weights. His playoff resume is not nearly as hot, due to this system weighing longer postseason runs more.
I think it's rather remarkable that even counting 15 seasons, Chris Paul comes out ahead in the regular season regardless of how heavily we factor in peak play. That's six seasons of zeros across the board for Paul factored in, and he still has an edge. Havlicek's edge comes in the postseason, and he again gets the extra benefit of winning bias with this metric, as win shares count more for longer postseason runs.
The question then becomes how to combine regular season and postseason play to come up with an aggregate ranking. The longest possible postseason is 28 games, which is a little over a third of the regular season, so at most it is just over 25% of an entire season. Let's say we weigh both the regular season and postseason equally to be particularly Hondo-friendly. Havlicek has an edge in the following scenarios:
*10 seasons, no peak weighting (edge of 0.006) *12 seasons, no peak weighting (0.015) *12 seasons, moderate peak weighting (0.005) *15 seasons, no peak weighting (0.019) *15 seasons, moderate peak weighting (0.012) *15 seasons, heavy peak weighting (0.005)
If we weigh the regular season twice as much as the postseason, Havlicek has an edge in the following scenarios:
*12 seasons, no peak weighting (0.002) *15 seasons, no peak weighting (0.011)
I know a lot of people don't like win shares, and perhaps Paul's values are inflated somewhat (although non-box score metrics like RAPM also really like him, too), but even with Havlicek's incredible longevity and a metric that rewards team success in the postseason, it's hard to find much of an edge for him by this measure. This doesn't dismiss him as a candidate by any means (I'll be voting for him very soon), but I have to go with Chris Paul here.
got to give you chills listening to that standing O.
ThunderBolt wrote:I’m going to let some of you in on a little secret I learned on realgm. If you don’t like a thread, not only do you not have to comment but you don’t even have to open it and read it. You’re welcome.
got to give you chills listening to that standing O.
Great find. Damn, for a 38 year old, that's a terrific game. Such a smart and fundamentally sound player. Really a class act, he and West are two guys who I have an utmost respect for, because of the way they played and carried themselves on and off the court (at least based on what I know).
Would've been even nicer if this game was played one day earlier, on his birthday.
I'm voting for Hondo in the run-off. I think that CP3 is a better player player than him (and it says a lot about how great he is, because Hondo was IMO a top 5 player in the early 70s), but Havlicek is likely the better defender, and his longevity is so much better that there's no way I'd even consider putting Paul over him, at this point. 1442 games (53341 minutes), counting both the regular season and playoffs for Havlicek, just 670 games (24504 minutes) for Paul, so Hondo played more than twice as many minutes as Paul...There's no way whatsoever that it should be ignored (it's certainly not like CP3 is twice the player that Hondo was). IMO he should've gotten in before Barry, but at least it seems like they will be ranked as almost even, Rick at 29 and John at 30. Will Baylor get in at 31? It would be nice, and I think he may be deserving of that.
Chuck Texas wrote:Paul isn't 77 Walton and Kidd is way better than Magloire was in his all-star year.
But you know that.
Kidd's value post-prine is closer to Magloire than Walton, but you knew that. And lorak's point sill stands; I'm personally not fond of using roleplayer season longevity as a salient argument in debates about focal star value. It's good pub, sure, but more value added to the legacy of the star they support than themselves, IMO. Roleplayers and aged stars are more easily found than peak/prime stars.
The thrust of the point is a question of how much stock you put into seasons without impact in accordance with franchise player-level impact.
This isn't (necessarily) a debate about focal star value. This is a debate about all-time greatness, which for many of us (myself, Chuck Texas, etc) is about total career value. And there are many different kinds of seasons which have bearing on total career value (including---although obviously to a lesser degree---role player years). With the above statement you're imposing your own criteria on others.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
penbeast0 wrote:That's not the question for me when I came down for Paul (in another tough decision). It's not whether Paul is twice the player but whether the difference between Paul and a regular NBA player playing his role on a championship team over Paul's 7 years is greater than between Havlicek and a regular NBA player playing his role on championship teams over Hondo's 14 years. I tend to think that the difference between Paul and other players who would be playing his role (Derek Fisher/Mario Chalmers/Tony Parker/etc.) is enough more than the difference between John Havlicek and others playing his role (Chet Walker/Jim McMillan/Cliff Hagan/etc.) to make up for the lesser amount of years.
Well, I was obviously exeggerating, but I can see your point. Peak vs peak, or prime vs prime, Paul is better, so if you put heavy emphasis on that, CP3 should definitely be ahead. However, I find the gap in terms of longevity as too huge to give Paul the nod. Not yet. Like Trex mentioned on one of the previous pages, Havlicek's overall career value is higher than Paul's, because he was a meaningful contributor for 16 years. As a franchise cornerstone, leader of your team, Paul is a superior option, but I can't ignore Hondo's body of work as one of the key players on his team (even in his first few seasons, before 1967, when he was still an awful, inefficient scorer, he brought defense and hustle, so he was a factor for the Celtics).
Mentioning role players like Fisher or Chalmers in the same sentence as Parker doesn't make sense, and I'm sure you realize that you're not being honest here. Parker is really the only one of these players who's even remotely comparable to Paul (top 100 player, at least, and a star, unlike Fisher or Chalmers), and guys like Hagan, Walker or even Jim McMillian were All-Stars (Jimmy Mac never made it, but he had three straight seasons with 18-19 PPG, so you could argue that he was deserving), so it's obvious they could replace Havlicek with far greater success. To make it fair, I'd replace Fisher and Chalmers with Billups and Rondo, along with Parker - that would be a much better analogy to Hagan/Walker/McMillian.
This is mostly a testament to Paul's great peak. Hondo, while an incredible player who both spearheaded championship teams and won alongside other greats, just doesn't seem like the impact player that Paul is to me. I'm not really all that big on his scoring ability, and that's kind of his thing, so that's a problem for me. CP3 is one of the most complete players in the history of the game, and his only weakness (3pt shooting) isn't even all that weak. He's lost to great teams, but he officially made a name for a team that was the perennial doormat of both the NBA and professional American sports in general. Despite the longevity edge for Hondo, he doesn't eclipse Paul's overwhelming impact night in and night out.
I sometimes think we are not appreciating fully the kind of player that he was. He strikes me as a player that if I had the privilege to see his career in front of my eyes, I could easily vote him in the top 20. He was a great all-around player, a leader and a winner, a player who could score, rebound, defend, create for others; a player who didn't miss any games and played well till his retirement. He bridged the Celtics' greatest team (in terms of accomplishments) with their next dynasty. He could play different roles and he didn't mind coming off the bench. He may not have been the first true "Sixth Man" but he was the first great player who happened to be a "Sixth Man".
Chris Paul is a player whose statistical dominance is impressive, and who is a stat guru dream. I may not be quite convincing while saying this but his biggest weakness to me is dominating the ball too much, dominating possessions and his team's overall offense too much. I've read complete posts about Adrian Dantley's iso scoring and how he posted those numbers on great effectiveness but pretty much hurt his team, I kinda feel like Paul does a little bit of the same, only with handling the ball too much and becoming the single focus that the defense can turn to. He sometimes goes for heroic fourth quarters and I question myself whether his teammates could have done more instead of having him shoulder the entire burden. But I hardly remember a situation in which he has taken the backseat and shifted the focus of the defense. Apart from that, his peak season was fantastic but I don't consider him at the level that he could lead you to the title. He is just not that player to me (I will admit to a little PG bias and I am somewhat of a "PGs cannot lead their teams to the title" proponent). Hondo is, so that's the reasoning for my vote.
penbeast0 wrote:That's not the question for me when I came down for Paul (in another tough decision). It's not whether Paul is twice the player but whether the difference between Paul and a regular NBA player playing his role on a championship team over Paul's 7 years is greater than between Havlicek and a regular NBA player playing his role on championship teams over Hondo's 14 years. I tend to think that the difference between Paul and other players who would be playing his role (Derek Fisher/Mario Chalmers/Tony Parker/etc.) is enough more than the difference between John Havlicek and others playing his role (Chet Walker/Jim McMillan/Cliff Hagan/etc.) to make up for the lesser amount of years.
Well, I was obviously exeggerating, but I can see your point. Peak vs peak, or prime vs prime, Paul is better, so if you put heavy emphasis on that, CP3 should definitely be ahead. However, I find the gap in terms of longevity as too huge to give Paul the nod. Not yet. Like Trex mentioned on one of the previous pages, Havlicek's overall career value is higher than Paul's, because he was a meaningful contributor for 16 years. As a franchise cornerstone, leader of your team, Paul is a superior option, but I can't ignore Hondo's body of work as one of the key players on his team (even in his first few seasons, before 1967, when he was still an awful, inefficient scorer, he brought defense and hustle, so he was a factor for the Celtics).
Mentioning role players like Fisher or Chalmers in the same sentence as Parker doesn't make sense, and I'm sure you realize that you're not being honest here. Parker is really the only one of these players who's even remotely comparable to Paul (top 100 player, at least, and a star, unlike Fisher or Chalmers), and guys like Hagan, Walker or even Jim McMillian were All-Stars (Jimmy Mac never made it, but he had three straight seasons with 18-19 PPG, so you could argue that he was deserving), so it's obvious they could replace Havlicek with far greater success. To make it fair, I'd replace Fisher and Chalmers with Billups and Rondo, along with Parker - that would be a much better analogy to Hagan/Walker/McMillian.
I was mentioning the last 3 PGs for championship teams and the 3 SFs for the 3 championship teams during the Russell era as an equivalent just to give an idea of the types of players that I was comparing their peaks to. I erased that post because I thought Moonbeam had done a much superior job saying the same thing but you caught it first.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
colts18 wrote:What happened to Havlicek in 70 and 71? He put up his peak box score numbers but the Celtics went nowhere those years. Why?
For me, it's not surprising at all, considering that Boston had to rebuild after Russell's (and Sam Jones's) retirement. They basically didn't even have a starting center that year (hard to consider Hank Finkel a starting caliber center). Then in 1971 they clearly improved after they got Cowens (won 44 games on +2.30 SRS, just barely missing the playoffs, actually would've made it if not for the stupid rule that the two best teams from each division made the playoffs - Celtics were actually the third best team in the East, in the 70-71 RS), compared to just 34 wins on -1.60 SRS in 1970.
It's certainly tough if you have to rebuild the most successful team in NBA history, and the era they played in wasn't exactly easy, playing against the Bucks, Lakers, Knicks, even the Bulls or Hawks, all very talented squads, so often.
They were able to rebuild pretty quickly though, had just one losing season, and then went on to win 44, 56, 68, 56, 60, 54 games in the next 6 seasons, plus obviously two championships, with Havlicek as their co-leader alongside Cowens (IMO the situation was almost identical to the Knicks of the same era, with Reed and Frazier).
Besides, it's not exactly the only time when a team with one great player had a losing record (for example the '85 and '87 Bulls come to mind...and Jordan was certainly better than Havlicek, also the '63 Warriors with prime Wilt, who went just 31-49).
trex_8063 wrote:This isn't (necessarily) a debate about focal star value. This is a debate about all-time greatness, which for many of us (myself, Chuck Texas, etc) is about total career value. And there are many different kinds of seasons which have bearing on total career value (including---although obviously to a lesser degree---role player years). With the above statement you're imposing your own criteria on others.
I understand,and respect, the posiion you are discussing. I simply disagree, that's all
That's the fun of these discussions, IMO. I enjoy reading Chuck's impassioned longevity pleas bc they at least force me to elucidate my own stance more firmly, for example. I don't personally (subjectively) care about roleplayer seasons from star players as career value, but you guys do. It's cool, I just won't generall be swayed by such arguments is all.
