Peaks Project #14

[theonlyclutch]

And those teams had similar ORTGs. Still I don't agree that those casts are similar. IMO the 09 Mavs are still better.

2006 Heat: 108.7 ORTG
2009 Mavericks: 110.5 ORTG

There's a very clear difference in team ORTG in favor of the Mavs, the difference between the 06 Heat and the 10 Mavs is less (+0.5 in favor of Mavs), but doing the same thing to the 2010 Mavericks reveals an even worse offensive supporting cast

Josh Howard + Caron Butler (Both were barely hitting the ~100 ORTG/50% TS mark)
Jason Terry (6th Man)
J.J Barea (~20 MPG non-starter)
Shawn Marion (as a full-year starter one year after all the Wade supporters said he was washed up on the Heat..)

2006 Heat: +2.5 ORTG
2009 Mavericks: +2.2 ORTG
2010 Mavericks: +1.6 ORTG

Compared to league average the Heat were actually better and they ranked 7th on offense while the 2009 Mavs were 8th and the 2010 Mavs 10th. Also Marion wasn't the second option in Dallas and their offense wasn't much better than the 09 Heat with Marion and Beasley as the next best offensive players instead of reigning 6MOY Jason Terry.

You have got to be kidding me..
2009 Heat: 107.8 (-0.5)
2010 Mavs: 109.2 (+1.6)

That's a pretty significant difference to me....

Marion was also taking significantly more offensive usage in his time on the Mavs than in the Heat...

again, PLAYOFFS.

Wade had a 109 ORTG when on the floor in that postseason and a +21 offensive on/off. Dirk didn't have to lift his offense up to those levels because his supporting cast was better as I said in the next sentence. That comparison is not apples to apples.

This fascination with raw ORTG is funny.

Supporting casts are "equal" when they clearly were not.

RS on-court ORTGs are comparable but again it's about the PLAYOFFS when we would need more context to look at those specific series.

At their best both have reached high levels of ORTG but we can't give Wade credit for 2011 because he finally had two good offensive players around him.

2011 Wade on-court ORTG: 115.1 (+7.8)

Respectable, but what happens when Dirk had two good offensive players around him? (With the rather unrealistic implication that Mavs Nash + Finley=Lebron + Bosh on offense)

2001 Dirk on-court ORTG: 109.4 (+6.4)
2002 Dirk on-court ORTG: 114.6 (+10.1)
2003 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.7 (+10.1)
2004 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.9 (+11.0)

That's a pretty substantial difference right here...

[RebelWithACause]

Ballot:

1. Curry 2015
2. West 1966
3. Robertson 1964

I feel Curry is the ultimate top choice here. His never been seen before shooting, challenges defenses, like never before.
Incredible combination of shooting, playmaking and handles make him unstoppable.
One of my offensive GOATS.
Neutral defender which puts him slightly ahead of Nash among modern point guards. I have both of them ahead of Paul, who in my opinion quite clearly reached offensive heights like Curry or Nash.
In his peak year 08, he also wasn't a plus defender. Neutral probably.

With West and Robertson it comes down in-era domination.
The Wowy data really opened my eyes and made me curious about West.
I have West over Robertson because I believe West to be at least as good on offense as Robertson and a much better defender.
His portability is a lot better, because of his shooting and off-ball play and I would expect him to perform better in the modern era than the Big O.

Next up on my list after those will be Dirk and the wings of the modern era Kobe, Wade, McGrady and Durant. Nash, Cp3 and Penny will be the PG's in the mix.

[Dr Spaceman]

again, PLAYOFFS.

Wade had a 109 ORTG when on the floor in that postseason and a +21 offensive on/off. Dirk didn't have to lift his offense up to those levels because his supporting cast was better as I said in the next sentence. That comparison is not apples to apples.

This fascination with raw ORTG is funny.

Supporting casts are "equal" when they clearly were not.

RS on-court ORTGs are comparable but again it's about the PLAYOFFS when we would need more context to look at those specific series.

At their best both have reached high levels of ORTG but we can't give Wade credit for 2011 because he finally had two good offensive players around him.

1. You don't think that Wade's 2006 cast was equal to Dirk's 2009 cast?
2. I have explained why it's important to use playoff ORTG in Dirk's case, after 2007 he was 30 and the regular season didn't matter anymore. His playoff offenses always scaled up to where they were previously, which is evidence that this is happening.
3. I've explained to you that the reason Dirk's team offense is so spectacular is because they achieved those high ORTGs like clockwork against any defense they faced. Asking for context is just finding a reason to quibble.
4. Wade's team offenses always performed worse in the playoffs; including the LeBron years. The 2011 Heat were a worse offensive team than any Dirk played on from 03-07 despite having LeBron. So giving him credit involves acknowledging that his team was still worse than any of prime Dirk's teams.

[The-Power]

First off I want to say that your work has been fantastic and of professional quality. I just want to shed some light upon the context of Rick Barry and the ABA to NBA switching.

1972 Barry ABA - 31.5 PPG | 45.2 MPG |
1973 Barry NBA - 22.3 PPG | 37.5 MPG |
1974 Barry NBA - 25.1 PPG | 36.5 MPG |
1975 Barry NBA - 30.6 PPG | 40.4 MPG |

1972 Barry ABA Per 36 Mins - 25.1 points
1973 Barry NBA Per 36 Mins - 21.4 points
1974 Barry NBA Per 36 Mins - 24.8 points
1975 Barry NBA Per 36 Mins - 27.3 points


At a first glance we see a sharp drop in points from Barry's switch back to the Warriors and the NBA in 73. If we look at the per 36 min stats we can see that while he had a drop in scoring it was exacerbated by his drop in minutes as well. The next year in 1974 Rick is scoring at the exact same rate he was in the ABA. The very next year in 1975 he is scoring at a higher rate than his last ABA season. I believe the 1973 season can be explained by Barry having growing pains while adjusting to the new team.

1. Thanks for the kind words, appreciate them.
2. I was mainly referring to his drop-off in efficiency during his NBA years compared to his ABA years - which can't be explained by the availability of the 3pt-shot. The difference in inidividual scoring efficiency is significant and by significant I mean absolutely huge. It doesn't look that drastic if we're comparing the rTS% but my main point was that there are players - with Barry being the most prominent one to me - who looked absolutely incredible in terms of production in the ABA and quite different during their tenure in the NBA. I mentioned it mainly to point out that we have to take such things into account when we're trying to use ABA-years for players. Of course we have to allow for dissimilar contexts for every other player as well.

Aware of the rebounds, fair point on the relative TS%. I don't get too worried about turnovers unless they're glaring or hindering a player's overall play. Even still, my general point was that he did in fact approach that 76 production again a few years later, something The-Power doesn't seem to realize.

Fair enough, his RS came close to what he did in the NBA in a couple of his years in the NBA. It wasn't at the same level statistically but indeed relatively close. But we're looking at the whole picture and the way I see it his playoff-performance in '76 was a central argument to push him by folks around here. And he never even came close to another this dominant playoff-run. And strictly looking at the RS it doesn't strike me as dominant enough to wipe away all doubts about his impact (which is not only fueled by my eyes but also backed up by on/off data IIRC). To me, the case for Erving therefore has to start with an analysis regarding why the box score still underrates his impact - and I can't see such an argument yet.

Anyway, my current ballots:

1st: 2015 Curry
2nd: 2008 Paul
3rd: 2011 Nowitzki

I made my case for Curry and at least somewhat for Paul over the past two threads. Actually, I'm still not in love with the choice of Paul - mainly because I have still my doubts about his '08 year and I don't see another year I could use for him, even though I believe he became better as a player and arguably also in terms of impact. So I'm in some kind of in a quandery with him because his statistically best season by a decent margin and his peak as far as skills and arguably impact are concerned probably differ from each other - combined he would be a much easier choice at this point, at least in my mind. So one part of mind tells me he belongs right up there with Curry, the other part raises his voice because of the dilemma stated above. I could write an essay about Nowitzki as well but Dr Spacemen does a good job at pointing out what went through my mind as well. To me his offensive peak is slightly inferior to Curry's and his defense doesn't move the needle to his favor but his ability to be the absolute vocal point of an elite offense - and this can't be a fluke because he has proven it several times - without being a liability on defense (even though I wouldn't refer to his defense as some kind of advantage compared to other players we're currently discussion) makes it difficult for me to rank him much lower.

Curry will be my choice until he got voted in because I don't believe there is any other player as impactful on offense as he was left on the board. Maybe Nash, he's pretty close although slightly behind Curry in my book, but even then his defense wouldn't justify ranking him above Curry in my mind. Nowitzki is likely to stay in my next ballots as long as he's not being voted in, I can even see him surpassing Paul - depending on what I decide to do with him. Paul is currently 2nd and I don't feel like there are players clearly ahead of him but he could drop a couple of spots eventually.

Next up would be Wade, Robertson, Nash in some order. At some point I have to figure out where exactly I want to rank Barkley but I currently have him lower than these guys. The same is true for Erving, who is likely to go higher than I have him regardless so it probably doesn't really matter. Kobe and West are other guys I will be looking at a few spots later, Moses would be another one - and I probably missed someone in their range. With West, however, a convincing analysis about why he happend to be superior to Robertson could sway my opinion in this regard and push him upwards in my ranking.

I will be extremely busy the next 2-3 weeks most likely but if I have time I'll cast my ballots. Simply don't count them if you can't accept them without reasoning @trex, I wouldn't have an issue with that.

[Lost92Bricks]

Curry had a 107.8 on-court ORtg in the playoffs, the Warriors actually performed better offensively with him on the bench (not a big sample size though so I take it with a grain of salt).

Wade had a 109.2 on-court ORtg in the '06 playoffs, 110.1 in the '05 playoffs...both higher than Curry last season.

If we're talking about playoff offense, how does Curry get the advantage over Wade when his team's offense actually performed worse than Wade's and he himself didn't perform better than Wade individually (talking about '06)?

That's not even factoring in that Wade is a significantly better defender than Curry.

Honestly I wasn't that impressed with Curry's playoff run and I think he's being ranked too early. People talk about the attention he drew and the way he caused defenses to guard him but forget that he was a turnover machine in the playoffs and was very inconsistent in his Grizzlies and Cavs series. People act like he led some all time great offense when the Warriors weren't even the best offense in the league last season and they performed very mediocre in the playoffs on that end.

[The-Power]

Curry had a 107.8 on-court ORtg in the playoffs, the Warriors actually performed better offensively with him on the bench (not a big sample size though so I take it with a grain of salt).

This shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt, it should be completely disregarded given the unreliability of such a small sample (especially the off-sample). We have much more reliable data available, i.e. the regular season. But if you want to go that route and use limited playoff-data...

If we're talking about playoff offense, how does Curry get the advantage over Wade when his team's offense actually performed worse than Wade's and he himself didn't perform better than Wade individually (talking about '06)?

That's not even factoring in that Wade is a significantly better defender than Curry.

... be at least consistent in applying this extremely flawed approach of using unreliable and therefore completely noisy data.

Curry's on-court DRTG was at 98.4 (off-court it was at 107.0). Wade never came close to that level or on/off impact. Ergo Curry is the much better playoff-defender, isn't he? I mean, I just did for their respective defense what you did for their respective offense. Either we disregard both, which would be the smarter way to deal with it, or you have to take the DRTG into account and be consequent by saying: Curry is the much better defender than Wade during the playoffs. You can't nitpick unreliable data for one side of the ball and draw your conclusion based on it and meanwhile disregard the exact same sample for the other side of the ball because it doesn't match with your opinion. That's extremely dishonest and actually manipulative.

and he himself didn't perform better than Wade individually (talking about '06)?

And how do you measure individual performance? Looking at the boxscore? Your statement is far away from being a fact but you still make it look like it is a fact and not your subjective opinion.

[E-Balla]

2006 Heat: 108.7 ORTG
2009 Mavericks: 110.5 ORTG

There's a very clear difference in team ORTG in favor of the Mavs, the difference between the 06 Heat and the 10 Mavs is less (+0.5 in favor of Mavs), but doing the same thing to the 2010 Mavericks reveals an even worse offensive supporting cast

Josh Howard + Caron Butler (Both were barely hitting the ~100 ORTG/50% TS mark)
Jason Terry (6th Man)
J.J Barea (~20 MPG non-starter)
Shawn Marion (as a full-year starter one year after all the Wade supporters said he was washed up on the Heat..)

2006 Heat: +2.5 ORTG
2009 Mavericks: +2.2 ORTG
2010 Mavericks: +1.6 ORTG

Compared to league average the Heat were actually better and they ranked 7th on offense while the 2009 Mavs were 8th and the 2010 Mavs 10th. Also Marion wasn't the second option in Dallas and their offense wasn't much better than the 09 Heat with Marion and Beasley as the next best offensive players instead of reigning 6MOY Jason Terry.

You have got to be kidding me..
2009 Heat: 107.8 (-0.5)
2010 Mavs: 109.2 (+1.6)

That's a pretty significant difference to me....

Marion was also taking significantly more offensive usage in his time on the Mavs than in the Heat...

Semantics. To me with that difference in their supporting cast Dallas wasn't that much better.

Wade had a 109 ORTG when on the floor in that postseason and a +21 offensive on/off. Dirk didn't have to lift his offense up to those levels because his supporting cast was better as I said in the next sentence. That comparison is not apples to apples.

This fascination with raw ORTG is funny.

Supporting casts are "equal" when they clearly were not.

RS on-court ORTGs are comparable but again it's about the PLAYOFFS when we would need more context to look at those specific series.

At their best both have reached high levels of ORTG but we can't give Wade credit for 2011 because he finally had two good offensive players around him.

2011 Wade on-court ORTG: 115.1 (+7.8)

Respectable, but what happens when Dirk had two good offensive players around him?

2001 Dirk on-court ORTG: 109.4 (+6.4)
2002 Dirk on-court ORTG: 114.6 (+10.1)
2003 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.7 (+10.1)
2004 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.9 (+11.0)

That's a pretty substantial difference right here...

Yeah but that goes back to when we were saying the Mavs were only that great on offense because they played small ball and completely ignored defense.

1. You don't think that Wade's 2006 cast was equal to Dirk's 2009 cast?

Not in the postseason where Miami was pretty bad outside of Shaq because outside of Posey and Jason no one could hit an open look.

2. I have explained why it's important to use playoff ORTG in Dirk's case, after 2007 he was 30 and the regular season didn't matter anymore. His playoff offenses always scaled up to where they were previously, which is evidence that this is happening.

But what is there to compared with Wade? You are acting like 2011 isn't a good sample so honestly the best example of Wade not having a terrible team in the playoffs is a no go according to you.

3. I've explained to you that the reason Dirk's team offense is so spectacular is because they achieved those high ORTGs like clockwork against any defense they faced. Asking for context is just finding a reason to quibble.

But context shows his team was waaaay better than anything Wade had to work with outside of 05-06 and 11.

4. Wade's team offenses always performed worse in the playoffs; including the LeBron years. The 2011 Heat were a worse offensive team than any Dirk played on from 03-07 despite having LeBron. So giving him credit involves acknowledging that his team was still worse than any of prime Dirk's teams.

The Heat actually played defense unlike the 03-07 Mavs in the playoffs.

[Lost92Bricks]

Curry had a 107.8 on-court ORtg in the playoffs, the Warriors actually performed better offensively with him on the bench (not a big sample size though so I take it with a grain of salt).

This shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt, it should be completely disregarded given the unreliability of such a small sample (especially the off-sample). We have much more reliable data available, i.e. the regular season. But if you want to go that route and use limited playoff-data...

If we're talking about playoff offense, how does Curry get the advantage over Wade when his team's offense actually performed worse than Wade's and he himself didn't perform better than Wade individually (talking about '06)?

That's not even factoring in that Wade is a significantly better defender than Curry.

... be at least consistent in applying this extremely flawed approach of using unreliable and therefore completely noisy data.

Curry's on-court DRTG was at 98.4 (off-court it was at 107.0). Wade never came close to that level or on/off impact. Ergo Curry is the much better playoff-defender, isn't he? I mean, I just did for their respective defense what you did for their respective offense. Either we disregard both, which would be the smarter way to deal with it, or you have to take the DRTG into account and be consequent by saying: Curry is the much better defender than Wade during the playoffs. You can't nitpick unreliable data for one side of the ball and draw your conclusion based on it and meanwhile disregard the exact same sample for the other side of the ball because it doesn't match with your opinion. That's extremely dishonest and actually manipulative.

and he himself didn't perform better than Wade individually (talking about '06)?

And how do you measure individual performance? Looking at the boxscore? Your statement is far away from being a fact but you still make it look like it is a fact and not your subjective opinion.

My post was just a response to all the discussion about Wade and his team's offensive results, mostly in the playoffs. If we're talking about team offensive performance in the postseason, I don't understand how Curry gets the advantage when he didn't lead his team to better offensive results than Wade in the playoffs, I'm not saying Curry is worse offensively strictly because of this, just pointing it out.

And in terms of their respective individual performances, wouldn't you agree that Wade was more consistent in the '06 playoffs (didn't struggle like Curry did against Memphis and Cleveland) than Curry was in the '15 playoffs while also peaking higher (finals series against Dallas)?

[GSP]

Curry had a 107.8 on-court ORtg in the playoffs, the Warriors actually performed better offensively with him on the bench (not a big sample size though so I take it with a grain of salt).

Wade had a 109.2 on-court ORtg in the '06 playoffs, 110.1 in the '05 playoffs...both higher than Curry last season.

If we're talking about playoff offense, how does Curry get the advantage over Wade when his team's offense actually performed worse than Wade's and he himself didn't perform better than Wade individually (talking about '06)?

That's not even factoring in that Wade is a significantly better defender than Curry.

Honestly I wasn't that impressed with Curry's playoff run and I think he's being ranked to early. People talk about the attention he drew and the way he caused defenses to guard him but forget that he was a turnover machine in the playoffs and was very inconsistent in his Grizzlies and Cavs series. People act like he led some all time great offense when the Warriors weren't even the best offense in the league last season and they performed very mediocre in the playoffs on that end.

I agree. Steph was good in the playoffs but alot of holes in his game were shown. Alot when Warriors couldnt exploit the 4on3s they love and Stephs somewhat limited playmaking skillset (compared to the Nashs, Cp3s of the world and hell id say peak Wade was a more dynamic playmaker than Steph is, way better at breaking down defenses with his dribble). He was outplayed by Kyrie on both ends, Delladova outplayed him in 2 games. And he faced some of the weakest competition ive ever seen maybe the weakest for the best player on a championship team. Injured Jrue and Tyreke, Jason Terry with Bev injured, injured Conley missing game and lighting Curry up when he came back with a mask before Golden State put Klay on him for rest of the series and made sure Livingston was in more, then of course ANOTHER injury to Kyrie. Steph had good boxscore numbers but they overrated the impact he had.

[GSP]

Don't think I feel comfortable enough filling out a ballot here (hopefully I will soon ), though Dirk makes the most sense to me as a number 1 pick.

I think most are familiar with them, but here are the numbers on Dirk's post-up offense shutupandjam provided awhile back:

Spoiler:

2005:
Dirk:
Post-up Derived offense: 0.887 PPP on 222 poss
Single covered post-ups: 0.915 PPP on 177 poss
Pass outs: 1.00 PPP on 33 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0.167 PPP on 12 poss

2006:
Dirk:
Post-up Derived offense: 1.012 PPP on 328 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.048 PPP on 272 poss
Pass outs: 1.000 PPP on 47 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0 PPP on 9 poss

2007:
Dirk:
Post-up Derived offense: 1.033 PPP on 300 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.036 PPP on 224 poss
Pass outs: 1.219 PPP on 64 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0 PPP on 4 poss

2008:
Dirk:
Post-up Derived offense: 1.021 PPP on 389 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.045 PPP on 308 poss
Pass outs: 1.071 PPP on 70 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0 PPP on 11 poss

2009:
Dirk:
Post-up Derived offense: 0.998 PPP on 549 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.000 PPP on 454 poss
Pass outs: 1.173 PPP on 75 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0.300 PPP on 20 poss

2010:
Dirk
Post-up Derived offense: 1.061 PPP on 603 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.081 PPP on 471 poss
Pass outs: 1.139 PPP on 108 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0.333 PPP on 24 poss

2011:
Dirk
Post-up Derived offense: 1.154 PPP on 494 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.170 PPP on 389 poss
Pass outs: 1.178 PPP on 90 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0.600 PPP on 15 poss

2012:
Dirk
Post-up Derived offense: 0.991 PPP on 446 poss
Single covered post-ups: 0.953 PPP on 340 poss
Pass outs: 1.282 PPP on 78 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0.643 PPP on 28 poss

2013:
Dirk
Post-up Derived offense: 1.069 PPP on 304 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.051 PPP on 215 poss
Pass outs: 1.221 PPP on 77 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0.417 PPP on 12 poss

2014:
Dirk
Post-up Derived offense: 1.079 PPP on 682 poss
Single covered post-ups: 1.116 PPP on 490 poss
Pass outs: 1.135 PPP on 148 poss
Doubled, no pass out: 0.477 PPP on 44 poss

Absolutely insane.

Those 2011 numbers are comical. Holy crap was that good.

[The-Power]

My post was just a response to all the discussion about Wade and his team's offensive results, mostly in the playoffs. If we're talking about team offensive performance in the postseason, I don't understand how Curry gets the advantage when he didn't lead his team to better offensive results than Wade in the playoffs, I'm not saying Curry is worse offensively strictly because of this, just pointing it out.

I haven't seen anyone citing the ORTG of the Warriors in the playoffs and making an argument strictly based on this number. Where does this come from? Arguments for Curry have been made in spades. If you're referring to what Dr Spacemen did in the case of Dirk: his point wasn't based on a single-year playoff on-court ORTG but rather that Nowitzki constantly led great offenses during the playoffs. That's a multi-year sample and even though context still needs to be applied, one can see a tendency.

Unless you can find a tendency of Curry-led offenses to underperform come playoff-time, your citation of his on-court playoff ORTG and also the conclusion you draw based on that is unfounded and something other posters never made with regard to Wade or Nowitzki. And to save you some time: despite the lack of playoff-appearances in Curry's case, which would make a conclusion - which absolutely contradicts with what the way more reliable RS tells us - still rather weak, you won't discover such a tendency. His on-court ORTG during the playoffs in 2013 and 2014 exceeded the expectations based on the RS both times.

And in terms of their respective individual performances, wouldn't you agree that Wade was more consistent in the '06 playoffs (didn't struggle like Curry did against Memphis and Cleveland) than Curry was in the '15 playoffs while also peaking higher (finals series against Dallas)?

Again, Curry's impact beyond the boxscore is more difficult to quantify and probably hard to fathom for some people. I get that. I don't want to rank certain series or even the playoffs as a whole at this point, but I want to remind everyone that we have to keep one thing in mind: Curry has been guarded differently from any other player in history these playoffs, the attention he received was off the charts several times and arguably as a whole. This probably strikes us as individual struggles but in the meantime we have unprecedented impact on a whole lot of possessions which end without any remark in his individual boxscore.

In general, one aspect that makes Curry special is his high floor and high ceiling in terms of impact. At a poor day he still has an impact beyond the boxscore due to the gravity he always possesses and at a great day there isn't much you can do to stop him and therefore his team from beating you down. Therefore, you can rely on Curry to be an impactful player night in and night out. It's amazingly valuable.

[theonlyclutch]

This fascination with raw ORTG is funny.

Supporting casts are "equal" when they clearly were not.

RS on-court ORTGs are comparable but again it's about the PLAYOFFS when we would need more context to look at those specific series.

At their best both have reached high levels of ORTG but we can't give Wade credit for 2011 because he finally had two good offensive players around him.

2011 Wade on-court ORTG: 115.1 (+7.8)

Respectable, but what happens when Dirk had two good offensive players around him?

2001 Dirk on-court ORTG: 109.4 (+6.4)
2002 Dirk on-court ORTG: 114.6 (+10.1)
2003 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.7 (+10.1)
2004 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.9 (+11.0)

That's a pretty substantial difference right here...

Yeah but that goes back to when we were saying the Mavs were only that great on offense because they played small ball and completely ignored defense.

That's clearly BS, they were ranked 13th, 25th, 9th, & 26th in D respectively from 01-04, there's not indication that this style of play necessitates small ball and/or an initiative to ignore defense, the fact that Shawn Bradley got significant playing time on those teams should stop that notion entirely...

3. I've explained to you that the reason Dirk's team offense is so spectacular is because they achieved those high ORTGs like clockwork against any defense they faced. Asking for context is just finding a reason to quibble.

But context shows his team was waaaay better than anything Wade had to work with outside of 05-06 and 11.

You still haven't explained in detail why these Dirk's casts in 09-10 is better than what Wade had in 05-06 as well as 11, especially on offense..

4. Wade's team offenses always performed worse in the playoffs; including the LeBron years. The 2011 Heat were a worse offensive team than any Dirk played on from 03-07 despite having LeBron. So giving him credit involves acknowledging that his team was still worse than any of prime Dirk's teams.

The Heat actually played defense unlike the 03-07 Mavs in the playoffs.

It's alot easier to look like one is playing good D when they aren't facing powerhouses such as the Webber Kings, SSOL Suns, and the mid-00s Spurs...which apart from 07, was a constant fixture for the Mavs since '01..

[The-Power]

I agree. Steph was good in the playoffs but alot of holes in his game were shown.

Which holes were shown? That you can't stop Curry from scoring even if you try everything to stop him? That a player who faces defenses trying everything to force the ball out of his hands gets credited with less asssists and produces more turnovers isn't exactly a discovery.

Alot when Warriors couldnt exploit the 4on3s they love

And this is Curry's fault, who generated these situations in the first place?

and Stephs somewhat limited playmaking skillset (compared to the Nashs, Cp3s of the world and hell id say peak Wade was a more dynamic playmaker than Steph is, way better at breaking down defenses with his dribble).

Re: playmaking. If he was the playmaker - in the purest sense of the word - Nash and Paul were/are then we would be talking about the greatest offensive player ever by a very big margin. So what's the point you're trying to make? Curry still was able to lead an elite offense, because the scoring-threat he poses for defenses allows him to constantly make plays for himself and the team. He simply get it done differently than say Nash or Paul.
Re: Wade's drives. Sure, and Curry breaks defenses from the perimeter with his shot way better than Wade and frankly any other player in history. So again, what's the point?

He was outplayed by Kyrie on both ends, Delladova outplayed him in 2 games.

And he faced some of the weakest competition ive ever seen maybe the weakest for the best player on a championship team. Injured Jrue and Tyreke, Jason Terry with Bev injured,

injured Conley missing game and lighting Curry up when he came back with a mask before Golden State put Klay on him for rest of the series and made sure Livingston was in more, then of course ANOTHER injury to Kyrie.

I know this looked familiar to me so I searched an older post of mine and surprise: it was you who brought up some similar statements in another thread to which I responded - and you were proven wrong. You didn't reply to that and you're still coming up with some of those unfounded statements? Really?

For anyone who wants to read what I'm referring to: http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=44607678#p44607678

Some other notes:
1. It isn't true that he was outplayed by Kyrie once and by Dellavedova twice. But even if you think so it's absolutely ridiculous to refer to one game and two games, respectively, to make your point. In combination of the other posts made by you on that topic it only shows your strange view/bias/hate - whatever you want to call it - regarding Curry once again.
2. First of all, Curry can't influence injuries of his opponents. Secondly, he still faced all four members of the All-NBA first team, the franchise player wasn't injured in any series. Third, the injuries of the Pelicans doesn't change anything regarding the result, Beverly couldn't stop Curry during the RS at all and Conley - as I adressed in the linked post - had one good game, unbelievable.
3. The most important thing: nothing you wrote does diminish Curry's individual performance in the slightest which is why it's pretty misplaced in this thread regarding his peak.

Steph had good boxscore numbers but they overrated the impact he had.

Because you say so? Because I see no indication for it myself and you certainly didn't provide any. By the way, I wrote an essay about it being exactly the other way round, feel free to counter my arguments. But I'm sure you won't and can't come up with a convincing reply, again.

[mischievous]

Ballot 1: 76 DR J. Quick raw numbers: 29.3/11/5 56.9 ts% 27.7 PER. Upped his game absurdly in the playoffs en route to a title, 34.7/12.6/4.9 61 ts% 32 PER!!. The footage on the Doctor is a little limited, but his scoring was very elite as the numbers indicate. Very good rebounder for a small forward, i can't really get a good feel for his ball handing and passing skills by the footage there is, but i would guess it is probably roughly around the level of someone like a KD or Prime Pierce which isn't on the level of say a Lebron or something like that but still pretty good. Clearly the best choice left for me.

Ballot 2: 2009 Dwayne Wade. Regular season stats: 30.2/5/7.5/ 2.2 spg/1.3 blk 57.4 ts%, 30.4 PER. The only players with a higher PER in nba history are MJ, Lebron, Shaq, Wilt, AD, and David Robinson. Still respectable in his playoff series, although back spasms limited him to some degree, still did roughly 29/5/5 on 56.5 ts% 26.3 PER. Wade was a great defender in 09, made 2nd team defense, 3rd in DPOY, elite help defender, very good man defender, excellent shot blocking for a guard. Team success often hurts Wade when it comes to this season but i think sometimes people fail to realize how bad his team was. Wade's best teammate was a Rookie Beasley who averaged 13.9 ppg, after that he had 27 games from a washed up Jermaine Oneal, then half a season from a banged up past prime Shawn Marion.

Wade had a ridiculous 13 game stretch that year where he averaged 37.2 ppg 5.9 rpg 10.4 apg 2.9 spg 1.4 bpg 55.3 fg%. This is certainly one of the greatest stretches of basketball played by anyone.

Ballot 3: 64 Oscar. Tmac is a very honorable mention here, but i just can't go against the Big O. I like his playmaking abilities better, and the fact that he can do basically everything from the point guard position. Control the flow, score at high volume, rebound, get assists etc.

I'm fairly confident with Tmac after these 3 guys are in. But after that we get into Dirk, West, Kobe, Cp3, Barkley, Walton, Malone, KD etc and it will get very hazy.

[E-Balla]

2011 Wade on-court ORTG: 115.1 (+7.8)

Respectable, but what happens when Dirk had two good offensive players around him?

2001 Dirk on-court ORTG: 109.4 (+6.4)
2002 Dirk on-court ORTG: 114.6 (+10.1)
2003 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.7 (+10.1)
2004 Dirk on-court ORTG: 113.9 (+11.0)

That's a pretty substantial difference right here...

Yeah but that goes back to when we were saying the Mavs were only that great on offense because they played small ball and completely ignored defense.

That's clearly BS, they were ranked 13th, 25th, 9th, & 26th in D respectively from 01-04, there's not indication that this style of play necessitates small ball and/or an initiative to ignore defense, the fact that Shawn Bradley got significant playing time on those teams should stop that notion entirely...

Umm they started Dirk at C in 02 and 04 (when they were 25th and 26 defensively but +7.7 and +9.2 offensively). That's small ball.

3. I've explained to you that the reason Dirk's team offense is so spectacular is because they achieved those high ORTGs like clockwork against any defense they faced. Asking for context is just finding a reason to quibble.

But context shows his team was waaaay better than anything Wade had to work with outside of 05-06 and 11.

You still haven't explained in detail why these Dirk's casts in 09-10 is better than what Wade had in 05-06 as well as 11, especially on offense..

No one ever said the 2011 or 2005 Heat were a worst cast than the 09-10 Mavs. That's asinine. The Heat had a higher ORTG than the Mavs both of those years too. And what's there to explain about 06? Offensively the Heat was a 2 player team and the Mavs at least had some shooters, Jason Kidd, etc.

4. Wade's team offenses always performed worse in the playoffs; including the LeBron years. The 2011 Heat were a worse offensive team than any Dirk played on from 03-07 despite having LeBron. So giving him credit involves acknowledging that his team was still worse than any of prime Dirk's teams.

The Heat actually played defense unlike the 03-07 Mavs in the playoffs.

It's alot easier to look like one is playing good D when they aren't facing powerhouses such as the Webber Kings, SSOL Suns, and the mid-00s Spurs...which apart from 07, was a constant fixture for the Mavs since '01..

Good point but the Mavs were horrid. People were scoring at will against them and they were doing the same. Its like all of their series turned into SSOL type play.

[Narigo]

Since Oscar is getting heavily considered for this spot. I want to show you a glimspe of his game. In this video, you will see some of his passing and scoring skills. He starts showing his stuff at 9:45 to the end of the video.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09xvhy9paR0[/youtube]

[Quotatious]

Wow, great discussion here. I was so busy I couldn't even check this thread before. I'll just get my votes in.

#1 - Julius Erving '76
#2 - Dwyane Wade '09
#3 - Chris Paul '08


Still haven't been persuaded enough by the anti-Doc points to leave him off my #1 ballot. Worst-case scenario for Erving is that he had '03 T-Mac-like peak, where he was considerably better in '76 compared to any other year of his career, but it seems very unlikely to me. Erving was definitely more consistent, and far more durable, on a superstar level, than McGrady was, although it's still clear that '76 was his best season.

Now, I want to say something about Wade - team ORtg is the absolute worst way to evaluate a player. That's exactly the same thing as evaluating players based on team success, and that's something I detest. I'd much rather look at it this way - Wade was the only reason the Heat didn't have a historically horrible offense, and weren't ranked dead-last on offense in '09. You really can't expect him to lead a top half (top 15) offense with the supporting cast he had (extremely poor) and a rookie coach (not to mention that coach was really more defense-oriented). Heat offensive gameplan was extremely simplistic and primitive those two years ('09 and '10) - give Wade the ball, and let him make things happen. When Michael Beasley isolation is your #2 option on offense, you really can't hope to have great success offensively as a team, to put it nicely...

When we actually use player evaluation stats (team ORtg is NOT a player evaluation stat, that's a team evaluation stat), you can see that Wade's offense looks absolutely fantastic. '09 Wade has the 14th highest OBPM since we can calculate this stat (since 1973-74), slightly higher than Magic Johnson's offensive peak, clearly higher than Larry Bird's offensive peak...How about that?

Also, he had +11.2 on/off court offensive rating, which is great (we've seen some players, like Bryant, Curry, Nowitzki, with higher ratings, but Wade makes up for that on defense, where he's clearly better than them - in fact, '09 and '10 Wade was one of just a few wings who played consistent defense on a weak team - Jordan and LeBron are the only other all-time great wings like that, who did that as well as Wade did, and MJ/LBJ are IMO easily the two best wings of all-time), +3.0 offensive split in single year RAPM, and +5.4 or +5.7 (depends whether you look at sites.google.com or gotbuckets.com) in prior informed RAPM. All of that at 36.2% USG (5th highest since we can calculate this stat, since 1977-78, plus the ABA from '68 to '76).

He averaged over 30 ppg on +2.9% league average TS, and he had an incredible AST/TOV% ratio. He was a playmaker on the level of the best point guards in the NBA, and an absolutely elite scorer to boot.

Besides, Wade's offensive impact should be obvious to anyone with eyes. Wade pick & roll was probably the most feared play in basketball at that time. I've already mentioned how great his defense was (legitimate All-Defensive team level), which is pretty incredible - he had an insane motor and stamina, to be able to play so hard on both ends of the court, carry his team on both ends, really.

Bastillon said that Wade was "lackluster" in the '09 playoffs - what? 29/5/5 on 56.5% TS and 26.3 PER against an above average defensive team is now lackluster? Those are some insanely high standards. Sure, it was below his RS standards, but it was still a great series, especially considering that he had to deal with back spasms. He had to expend so much energy throughout the entire '09 season just to lead the Heat to the playoffs, that I'm inclined to be pretty forgiving. He forced game 7 against a superior team, too. He had 41/5/2/2 blk. on 67% TS with zero turnovers in elimination game (game 6), to lead the Heat to a blowout win. 31/3/4/1/2 in game 7 (53.5% TS, 4 turnovers) isn't really a bad game, either.

[trex_8063]

Quite the flurry of activity, though most of it has been Wade's camp and Dirk's camp going back and forth about who has nurtured the better team offensive results. When we're scrutinizing [offensive] superstars, it's only natural to want to look at team offense. Still we must remember there's a s***-ton of context there to make any sense of it, and it's only natural that there's going to be a WIDE variation in interpretation of all that context.

I'd wanted to give my feel of it, but unfortunately I'm just too damned tired today. I don't have the mental energy to organize my thoughts on that. I'll just leave it to you guys to hash out among yourselves for now.

wrt impact data or impact indicators in general (talking about RAPM, on/off splits, etc)......
While impact is a very important factor (the most important??), we cannot, however, take the data or indicators at face value. Just a quick reminder that impact does not directly measure player "goodness". As someone (SideshowBob??) had previously stated: "impact" = "goodness + fit". And "fit", refers not only to how the player in question fits into a given system or philosophy, but also how the other pieces (teammates) fit around him as a centerpiece, and how their attributes compliment (or do not compliment, as the case may be) our superstar's skill-set.
I'd also add in third factor (which somewhat ties into "fit"): "utilization". How is the player being utilized, and is it playing to his strengths. I'll give a super-exaggerated hypothetical to make the point: suppose a team has Ben Wallace at center, and they decide to use him on offense the way Kareem was used in the front half of his career--->dumping it to Big Ben in isolation basically every time down court, giving him >30% usage and forcing him to create (and regardless of result, they keep doing this all season). How might this effect Ben's ORAPM? I'm guessing we'd see a historic unheard of all-time worst, like -8 or -10 ORAPM or something near there. Anyway, you get the idea.

So I'd boil impact down to "impact = goodness + fit + utilization". So just bear that in mind when comparing RAPM, and bear in mind we need to add in things like line-up noise and replacement player value, etc, muddying the waters when looking at on/off splits.

[theonlyclutch]

Wow, great discussion here. I was so busy I could even check this thread before. I'll just get my votes in.

#1 - Julius Erving '76
#2 - Dwyane Wade '09
#3 - Chris Paul '08


Still haven't been persuaded enough by the anti-Doc points to leave him off my #1 ballot. Worst-case scenario for Erving is that he had '03 T-Mac-like peak, where he was considerably better in '76 compared to any other year of his career, but it seems very unlikely to me. Erving was definitely more consistent, and far more durable, on a superstar level, than McGrady was, although it's still clear that '76 was his best season.

Now, I want to say something about Wade - team ORtg is the absolute worst way to evaluate a player. That's exactly the same thing as evaluating players based on team success, and that's something I detest. I'd much rather look at it this way - Wade was the only reason the Heat didn't have a historically horrible offense, and weren't ranked dead-last on offense in '09. You really can't expect him to lead a top half (top 15) offense with the supporting cast he had (extremely poor) and a rookie coach (not to mention that coach was really more defense-oriented). Heat offensive gameplan was extremely simplistic and primitive those two years ('09 and '10) - give Wade the ball, and let him make things happen. When Michael Beasley isolation is your #2 option on offense, you really can't hope to have great success offensively as a team, to put it nicely...

When we actually use player evaluation stats (team ORtg is NOT a player evaluation stat, that's a team evaluation stat), you can see that Wade's offense looks absolutely fantastic. '09 Wade has the 14th highest OBPM since we can calculate this stat (since 1973-74), slightly higher than Magic Johnson's offensive peak, clearly higher than Larry Bird's offensive peak...How about that?

Also, he had +11.2 on/off court offensive rating, which is great (we've seen some players, like Bryant, Curry, Nowitzki, with higher ratings, but Wade makes up for that on defense, where he's clearly better than them - in fact, '09 and '10 Wade was one of just a few wings who played consistent defense on a weak team - Jordan and LeBron are the only other all-time great wings like that, who did that as well as Wade did, and MJ/LBJ are IMO easily the two best wings of all-time), +3.0 offensive split in single year RAPM, and +5.4 or +5.7 (depends whether you look at sites.google.com or gotbuckets.com) in prior informed RAPM. All of that at 36.2% USG (5th highest since we can calculate this stat, since 1977-78, plus the ABA from '68 to '76).

He averaged over 30 ppg on +2.9% league average TS, and he had an incredible AST/TOV% ratio. He was a playmaker on the level of the best point guards in the NBA, and an absolutely elite scorer to boot.

Besides, Wade's offensive impact should be obvious to anyone with eyes. Wade pick & roll was probably the most feared play in basketball at that time. I've already mentioned how great his defense was (legitimate All-Defensive team level), which is pretty incredible - he had an insane motor and stamina, to be able to play so hard on both ends of the court, carry his team on both ends, really.

Bastillon said that Wade was "lackluster" in the '09 playoffs - what? 29/5/5 on 56.5% TS and 26.3 PER against an above average defensive team is now lackluster? That's are some insanely high standards. Sure, it was below his RS standards, but it was still a great series, especially considering that he had to deal with back spasms. He had to expend so much energy throughout the entire '09 season just to lead the Heat to the playoffs, that I'm inclined to be pretty forgiving. He forced game 7 against a superior team, too. He had 41/5/2/2 blk. on 67% TS with zero turnovers in elimination game (game 6), to lead the Heat to a blowout win. 31/3/4/1/2 in game 7 (53.5% TS, 4 turnovers) isn't really a bad game, either.

I don't think people are legitimately saying that Wade wasn't having great impact on that particular team...what we are contesting is the scalability and portability of such a playstyle, as it pertains to team lift with better talent baselines, given that his modern competition is Curry, who has comparable impact without nearly the scaling troubles, that's a big issue that needs to be addressed...

And since we are using RAPM here...
Wade
08-11 4-year DRAPM - 0.5
2009 DRAPM - 0.7
Gotbuckets DRAPM - 0.59

In comparison to some really excellent wing defenders that year
Kirilenko - 2.18
Artest - 2.83
Bowen - 2.12
Lebron - 2.16

We can say that he was above average that year, but all-defense level it isn't...

[picc]

I'm not a voter in this project, but noticed this discussion going on and read some of the thread. Very interesting stuff from all sides. Illuminating, honestly. Wade/Steph/CP3/Dirk, all great players with great arguments being put forth in their favor.

Without seeking to backseat drive anything, I did have a few comments on a couple of the ongoing threads. For one, the challenge of Stephen Curry as a playmaker akin to Nash/Paul/Wade, somewhat of a result of his deflated assist numbers compared to theirs. Steph isn't a volume assist player, yes, but its not because he's not as talented a playmaker - its because he's so much more talented a scorer (or at least shooter).

The way Nash/Paul probe the defense and weave in and out looking for a cutter or shooter to finish a pass is often impossible for Steph to do, because the defense will simply not allow him to dribble for as long as they do. The oft-talked about strategy with the other PG's is to make them scorers instead of playmakers. The strategy with Steph is exactly the opposite, and the phenomena we've seen with him is that teams would rather play 3 on 4 inside the paint against the Warriors than risk Steph getting daylight for a 27 foot jumper.

That's insane. And its the reason that despite his relatively lower assist numbers, he's probably responsible for just as many baskets (or, "plays made") in the halfcourt as they are. Draymond Green owes most of his dimes to Steph, and Barnes/Iguodala in particular feast off that trap/pass/shot routine the Warriors have down to a T now because of the attention Steph draws waaaaaay out on the perimeter.

The Warriors, this year, had a EFG% of over 7% better with Steph on the court than without. Nash and Paul both peaked around the same percentage, and while it doesn't measure playmaking effectiveness perfectly, it does suggest that his presence may have had a similar impact on his teammates ability to score in spite of not averaging 10+ assists over the season.

***Cliffs notes: Curry isn't a less effective playmaker than Nash and Paul, he simply makes plays in a different fashion than they do, because he's defended differently.

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re: Dwyane Wade and his team ORTG's compared to others, like Dirk. Without delving too deep, as this is you guys' argument and not mine, it bears mention that Wade's 2009 and 2010 teams were bad in a way that differentiates them in the conversation. Dirk's teams from 08-10 weren't stacked either, but they had one thing Wade's prime teams lacked, and that was secondary players who could create their own offense. As I think 09 was Wade's offensive peak i'll focus on that.

Aside from Wade, the 09 Heat had only one player who posted a positive on-court ORTG, and played over 1000 minutes: Daequan Cook, at a +0.9. A career spot-up shooter. Everyone else, including Marion and rookie Beasley, was in the negative, and Jermaine O'Neal's +4.9 was only available for 27 games.

The Mavs were running Dirk alongside Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Devin Harris and Kidd from 08-10. None of them are stars, but what they could all do was operate (to an extent) independent of Dirk and create offense when he was unavailable to. That will make a difference in how your team performs, and it showed up in the on-offs. Devin Harris: +7, Terry: +3, Howard: +5, Kidd: +5.

Essentially, Wade was the only plus offensive player on his team, and more importantly, the only one who could create his own shot. While Dirk - though by far the best - had better support from players who could score autonomously, and not just off a pass. Jason Terry alone, as much as I've hated him over the years, is enough to make the comparison very unbalanced. We've obviously seen that he's good enough to be your secondary star in a championship run if the first one is Dirk/Wade caliber.

The 08-10 Mavs and 09 Heat played at around the same snails pace (89 to 90), but a slow pace is more debilitating to teams that lack halfcourt creators and are in more need of easier, transition points. Teams like the Heat.

Again, not a backseat driver vote for anyone. I simply have questions about the usage of their respective team ORTG to juggle the issue, when their team makeups were composed of such different types of players. Not really an apples-to-apples situation IMO.