Peaks Project #26

[bastillon]

You know if you going to mention Chris and Nash for peaks i think 2003 Kidd should be right there with them. He is a pg that can anchor a Defense and he led the best d in the league 2003 putting up 19/6/9/2 526 ts ps 20/8/8/2 514 ts. They owned pretty much everyone including the next year champ pistons they lost to spurs with peak Duncan which most would anyway. Think he is over looked because of his offense but as for as D impact he **** on Paul and Nash well he is way above Nashs d.

Kidd did not "anchor" Nets 2003 on defense. Also, LMAO at Nets "owning pretty much everyone". Nets wouldn't even get past the 1st round in the west. They were lucky to be playing in the terrible conference. Not to mention there were several key injuries in the playoffs. Billups was injured in the 1st round, which basically meant that Pistons had no offense.

Realistically Nets were a decent team, but nothing to brag about. Kidd is not on this level because his HCO is pretty much terrible.

[MyUniBroDavis]

1. Paul
2. Howard

Considering Karl Malone, Anthony Davis and Alonzo Mourning for big men.

Somewhat agree with Quotatious regarding Malone v. Davis. Davis has remarkable looking advanced metrics, but there's a bit of a disconnect between those measures and his impact indicators (is #1 in the league in PER, but is only 22nd in RAPM in '15, for example).

Additionally, it's worth noting that PER (due to its formula specs) shines very brightly on extreme low turnover rates. This could be why Davis has the #1 PER (by a fairly decent margin), yet is only 6th in BPM, for instance.

I do think the comparison is close (Davis is coming up fairly shortly for me, at least). Ultimately, I think '15 Davis is probably somewhere in between peak Mailman and '06 Brand.
Mourning is harder for me to gauge, and I tend not to be as high on him as some are. I rate him behind Malone for sure; I possibly rate him marginally behind Davis as well, though I could be convinced otherwise based on defensive impact studies (need to look into it more).

While I've stated that low turnover rates may inflate Davis' status via things like PER, still......turnovers are a bad thing. And Mourning is fairly turnover prone. fwiw, his defensive aggressiveness and impact also came at the expense of quite a few personal fouls, too. These are the primary factors that make me apprehensive about putting him ahead of Davis.

Steve Nash, James Harden, Vince Carter and Reggie Miller are the guards/wings on my radar at the moment.

Without a doubt I'd put Nash and Harden at the head of this quad of guards. Who between those two is open for debate to me (I lean toward Nash presently, but it's close).

where did you get his rapm numbers? I mean, his PI rapm will be much lower than it should be because I think his rapm from 2014 was far from good (somewhat like durants rapm case).

and when I saw a dropbox version (you said that it was questionable though, so im not sure how much weight i should put into it)
he came out somewhere in the top ten in npi rapm I believe. his prior rapm the year prior was something like 0.7, and this year it was 3.7 ish, so would that make his "actual" rapm closer to 5 ish?

in the npi sample engelmen put out, these were the results

Stephen Curry,4.39,2.18,6.57
Draymond Green,2.28,3.77,6.04
LeBron James,3.83,1.96,5.78
Kyle Korver,3.54,1.54,5.08
Kawhi Leonard,1.95,2.95,4.9
Anthony Davis,2.8,2.02,4.82
James Harden,5.25,-0.45,4.8
Khris Middleton,1.0,3.54,4.55
Chris Paul,3.88,0.62,4.51

now, once again, you said it was questionable, but he didnt seem to say anything about it in the thread.
personally, wouldnt this rank him at around 3rd overall in the league, based on role? I mean, kawhi has always been their defensive stopper, korver and draymond are more "super duper role players" if that makes sense. thats not me trying to degrade them, but I dont know any other way to put it lol. I mean, generally, the years before this look good enough, and if anything, i believe that the only adjustment was putting more weight into the latter half of the 2000-2015 (though this is just based of memory), which obviously wouldnt matter for davis.


im not quite sure how rapm is calculated, but if its lineup adjusted, then wouldnt his rapm drop down considerably because of the "run" the pelicans had with davis out, against bottom feeder teams mostly? (i might be wrong about bottom feeder teams, but I recall that they lost to the one good team they faced in that span, and they lost to the knicks and I think the 6ers without davis as well)

also, to me at least, since im not sure how rapm works, since I believe its lineup adjusted, wouldnt the players on the roster still somewhat effect how the team works? (as for why I dont know how rapm works, I literally dont understand every description where they say what it is lol)

as for how he did in the playoffs, while im skeptical that his 31-11 series was anywhere near as good as the numbers suggest, the pelicans were pretty exceptional against the warriors offensively, its just that they were poor defensively, though I dont think one could blame davis for that, as he was solid defensively in my opinion, in the playoffs. (his rim protection especially was very, very good)

and while I wont elaborate on it now, since davis doesent really have an arguement yet (ill probably try to root for him over howard though) I recall that quotatious mentioned it before in regards to ewing, is bad coaching an excuse? because when it comes to the pelicans, or more so how davis is utilized, while I absolutely love monty as a person, davis was underutilized, and the main reason why the pelicans were bad defensively was because of monty's defensive systems, since even asik had the worst on-off in a while (his defensive on-off rating was worse than last year, when he was "subbing" for dwight). (granted, with davis and asik both on the floor, the pelicans had the 2nd best defensive rating in the league I think)

personally, while I completely realize that he doesent have a strong case over malone, I believe he is closer to malone than he is to brand.

on a sidenote, I have even less of an idea of how this is calculated, but I think davis lead the leage in DRE, which either stands for Daily rapm estimate or daily rpm estimate, ive seen both ways.

Edit: engellmen also did a 14-15 rapm with equal weights to both years

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ju637ylhtsrjt4q/RAPM_1415_equal_weights.txt?dl=0

LeBron James,5.65,1.79,7.44
Stephen Curry,5.87,1.51,7.38
Chris Paul,4.27,2.8,7.08
Draymond Green,1.72,4.33,6.05
Kawhi Leonard,1.97,4.0,5.98
James Harden,6.27,-0.32,5.95
Ricky Rubio,3.14,2.57,5.71
Manu Ginobili,3.43,2.14,5.57
Kevin Durant,4.04,1.16,5.21
Danny Green,2.02,3.12,5.14
Marcin Gortat,1.45,3.5,4.96
Anthony Davis,2.78,2.14,4.92


despite equal weights to 2014 and 2015, where in 2014 davis was horrible rapm wise, he still ranks 12th in the league, with 3 or 4 players above him, "not counting" if that makes sense (such as ginobli)

[Dr Positivity]

Posing this question again from an earlier thread:

Totally random, but what are people's thoughts on 2014 love? Box score #s are through the roof, and he had an on/off of +10.9 that season. The wolves' actual per 100 splits while he was on the court were 111.6/106, and they ranked 9th in SRS that season despite them going 40-42. Don't look like empty stats to me as some have suggested over the last year or 2.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2014.html

Good mention since 48 win point differential for an incompetent Wolves franchise, looks just fine to me in terms of impact. My problem with Love isn't as much the RS win totals as much as that from a perspective of trying to win in the playoffs, his skillset doesn't impress me as much as him numbers. I was shocked that he was putting up 26ppg and getting 8 FTA a game because from a skillset perspective, on paper it looked more that he was pretty good at dribbling, posting up, perimeter shooting and passing than uniquely amazing at anything. In Cleveland this revealed itself as more of a problem. He wasn't so unstoppable at posting up for example that he could get off every game on his own at that. He wasn't such a nasty shooter that the open shots Lebron and Kyrie got him made him devastating. He wasn't this Pau Gasol/Chris Webber level passer in the high post to change the whole offense. I think Love's numbers in Cleveland are closer to making sense for what I would've thought post up/driving/shooting/passing/etc. talents would to as his Minnesota ones did, which worries me. I think I would have Love in category of prime Bosh and Blake

[Quotatious]

CP is above average as a defender, but far from elite. His man defense is below average. PG defense has very little significance in general, specifically when your PG is an offensive superstar. Those guys tend to be resting on defense either way.

Some Paul highlights of his playoff defense:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl0ny9_3DLnEIF2HVCwg2mEifJth1bqk4

So Paul is below average man defender because he can't stop Westbrook and Curry?
I know, he's not all time great defender. He's not Frazier or Payton, or even Van Lier or Cheeks. So what? He's still very good defensive player. Elite when he tries (like Kobe).

Based on what playoff series?

How about the time when he forced key turnovers on Durant in game 4 of '14 WCSF?

[Owly]

1. Paul
2. Howard

Considering Karl Malone, Anthony Davis and Alonzo Mourning for big men.

Somewhat agree with Quotatious regarding Malone v. Davis. Davis has remarkable looking advanced metrics, but there's a bit of a disconnect between those measures and his impact indicators (is #1 in the league in PER, but is only 22nd in RAPM in '15, for example).

Additionally, it's worth noting that PER (due to its formula specs) shines very brightly on extreme low turnover rates. This could be why Davis has the #1 PER (by a fairly decent margin), yet is only 6th in BPM, for instance.

I do think the comparison is close (Davis is coming up fairly shortly for me, at least). Ultimately, I think '15 Davis is probably somewhere in between peak Mailman and '06 Brand.
Mourning is harder for me to gauge, and I tend not to be as high on him as some are. I rate him behind Malone for sure; I possibly rate him marginally behind Davis as well, though I could be convinced otherwise based on defensive impact studies (need to look into it more).

While I've stated that low turnover rates may inflate Davis' status via things like PER, still......turnovers are a bad thing. And Mourning is fairly turnover prone. fwiw, his defensive aggressiveness and impact also came at the expense of quite a few personal fouls, too. These are the primary factors that make me apprehensive about putting him ahead of Davis.

Steve Nash, James Harden, Vince Carter and Reggie Miller are the guards/wings on my radar at the moment.

Without a doubt I'd put Nash and Harden at the head of this quad of guards. Who between those two is open for debate to me (I lean toward Nash presently, but it's close).

I don't know about Davis and the numbers, but some counterpoints:

What RAPM? If PI isn't that just Davis being a young player (and the suspicion that priors used as anchors haven't caught up with where he is).

Regarding PER a counterpoint would be that it overvalues usage and Davis is the lowest usage 30 PER player and his last season is 48th amongst the 54 (usage era) 27.5 PER seasons. Regarding BPM one note would be the team level info in there, and that he's getting (artificially) dragged down by that.

[theonlyclutch]

For those using RAPM, it is pertinent to understand that PI RAPM is influenced by the results of the year before, which is inherently biased against those with down years, or are young.

I.e K-Love's 2014 RAPM may be adversely influenced because of his play in 2013, and AD's 2015 RAPM may be adversely affected by his play in 2014, so don't take those RAPM results as gospel for impace

[MyUniBroDavis]

So Paul is below average man defender because he can't stop Westbrook and Curry?
I know, he's not all time great defender. He's not Frazier or Payton, or even Van Lier or Cheeks. So what? He's still very good defensive player. Elite when he tries (like Kobe).

Based on what playoff series?

How about the time when he forced key turnovers on Durant in game 4 of '14 WCSF?

paul, this year at least, is an underrated man defender.

he gives up 0.56 ppp in isolation. 10th for players with more than 30 defensive possesions.

kick it up to 40 possessions, and he goes to 3rd in the league.

kick it up to 50, he goes to 2nd

kick it up to 60. and he goes to 1st.

and the player above him at 50, in my opinion, is definately because he is basically just ridiculously lucky, since, in my experience at least, he isnt exactly a great defender (reke).

[MyUniBroDavis]

For those using RAPM, it is pertinent to understand that PI RAPM is influenced by the results of the year before, which is inherently biased against those with down years, or are young.

I.e K-Love's 2014 RAPM may be adversely influenced because of his play in 2013, and AD's 2015 RAPM may be adversely affected by his play in 2014, so don't take those RAPM results as gospel for impace

I really respect you as a poster.

im sure you are aware of the rapm request thread engellmen has set up?

trex said that the rapm there was calculated questionably. while Im sure he is right, can you tell me what was calculated wierdly? i thought they just added mroe weight to 2010-2015, which wouldnt effect davis. his NPI rapm was solid enough, in my opinion.

[theonlyclutch]

For those using RAPM, it is pertinent to understand that PI RAPM is influenced by the results of the year before, which is inherently biased against those with down years, or are young.

I.e K-Love's 2014 RAPM may be adversely influenced because of his play in 2013, and AD's 2015 RAPM may be adversely affected by his play in 2014, so don't take those RAPM results as gospel for impace

I really respect you as a poster.

im sure you are aware of the rapm request thread engellmen has set up?

trex said that the rapm there was calculated questionably. while Im sure he is right, can you tell me what was calculated wierdly? i thought they just added mroe weight to 2010-2015, which wouldnt effect davis. his NPI rapm was solid enough, in my opinion.

I don't really use Engelmann's RAPM, my RAPM data comes from https://www.dropbox.com/sh/teutg7zvxudqnlw/AAAUkNkDUG0KWeewPZbnwS2ja?dl=0

In short, PI RAPM, while a more robust dataset, uses priors seasons of play to act as a "baseline" for a player's indicated impact, with the (right) assumption that a player's impact shouldn't change dramatically year by year, this shortchanges young players by effectively penalizing them for prior seasons of bad play, e.g Durant's near bottom of league RAPM in 2009, despite good boxscore production

[bballexpert]

You know if you going to mention Chris and Nash for peaks i think 2003 Kidd should be right there with them. He is a pg that can anchor a Defense and he led the best d in the league 2003 putting up 19/6/9/2 526 ts ps 20/8/8/2 514 ts. They owned pretty much everyone including the next year champ pistons they lost to spurs with peak Duncan which most would anyway. Think he is over looked because of his offense but as for as D impact he **** on Paul and Nash well he is way above Nashs d.

Kidd did not "anchor" Nets 2003 on defense. Also, LMAO at Nets "owning pretty much everyone". Nets wouldn't even get past the 1st round in the west. They were lucky to be playing in the terrible conference. Not to mention there were several key injuries in the playoffs. Billups was injured in the 1st round, which basically meant that Pistons had no offense.

Realistically Nets were a decent team, but nothing to brag about. Kidd is not on this level because his HCO is pretty much terrible.

Owned everyone in the east pretty well i mean they went 12-2 then lost to the Spurs and who was anchoring the D if not Kidd. The east was crap but they ran through and lost it to Duncan at his peak which is not really that bad of a thing to happen.

[MyUniBroDavis]

For those using RAPM, it is pertinent to understand that PI RAPM is influenced by the results of the year before, which is inherently biased against those with down years, or are young.

I.e K-Love's 2014 RAPM may be adversely influenced because of his play in 2013, and AD's 2015 RAPM may be adversely affected by his play in 2014, so don't take those RAPM results as gospel for impace

I really respect you as a poster.

im sure you are aware of the rapm request thread engellmen has set up?

trex said that the rapm there was calculated questionably. while Im sure he is right, can you tell me what was calculated wierdly? i thought they just added mroe weight to 2010-2015, which wouldnt effect davis. his NPI rapm was solid enough, in my opinion.

I don't really use Engelmann's RAPM, my RAPM data comes from https://www.dropbox.com/sh/teutg7zvxudqnlw/AAAUkNkDUG0KWeewPZbnwS2ja?dl=0

In short, PI RAPM, while a more robust dataset, uses priors seasons of play to act as a "baseline" for a player's indicated impact, with the (right) assumption that a player's impact shouldn't change dramatically year by year, this shortchanges young players by effectively penalizing them for prior seasons of bad play, e.g Durant's near bottom of league RAPM in 2009, despite good boxscore production

that looks exactly like the one I saw from engellman in his rapm request thread.

I do understand it though. Davis had absolutely horrible rapm in 2014, especially defensively. his defensive rapm in 2015 was solid, and personally, I think his defense is CRIMINALLY underrated sometimes (I hear alot of people saying he shouldnt have been an all nba-er in that regard)
I personally believe that he was the best defender, talent wise, not fit wise, in teh second team, impact wise at least.

[bballexpert]

Posing this question again from an earlier thread:

Totally random, but what are people's thoughts on 2014 love? Box score #s are through the roof, and he had an on/off of +10.9 that season. The wolves' actual per 100 splits while he was on the court were 111.6/106, and they ranked 9th in SRS that season despite them going 40-42. Don't look like empty stats to me as some have suggested over the last year or 2.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2014.html

Good mention since 48 win point differential for an incompetent Wolves franchise, looks just fine to me in terms of impact. My problem with Love isn't as much the RS win totals as much as that from a perspective of trying to win in the playoffs, his skillset doesn't impress me as much as him numbers. I was shocked that he was putting up 26ppg and getting 8 FTA a game because from a skillset perspective, on paper it looked more that he was pretty good at dribbling, posting up, perimeter shooting and passing than uniquely amazing at anything. In Cleveland this revealed itself as more of a problem. He wasn't so unstoppable at posting up for example that he could get off every game on his own at that. He wasn't such a nasty shooter that the open shots Lebron and Kyrie got him made him devastating. He wasn't this Pau Gasol/Chris Webber level passer in the high post to change the whole offense. I think Love's numbers in Cleveland are closer to making sense for what I would've thought post up/driving/shooting/passing/etc. talents would to as his Minnesota ones did, which worries me. I think I would have Love in category of prime Bosh and Blake

To be fair to Love feel he did stat pad a tad but on the Cavs he is kinda pushed down to third option no. I mean Lebron dominates the ball with Kyrie and Love is pushed out so his scoring going to suffer big time. Love season in 2013 is on par with Cousins but still putting up great numbers on a team going no were is always hard to judge how good it is.

[MyUniBroDavis]

CP is above average as a defender, but far from elite. His man defense is below average. PG defense has very little significance in general, specifically when your PG is an offensive superstar. Those guys tend to be resting on defense either way.

Some Paul highlights of his playoff defense:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl0ny9_3DLnEIF2HVCwg2mEifJth1bqk4

So Paul is below average man defender because he can't stop Westbrook and Curry?
I know, he's not all time great defender. He's not Frazier or Payton, or even Van Lier or Cheeks. So what? He's still very good defensive player. Elite when he tries (like Kobe).

Based on what playoff series?

his man defense, this season at least, is definately not "below average"

also, you realize who that is right? look at his username, he does that to pretty much everyone not named jordan.

[bastillon]

So Paul is below average man defender because he can't stop Westbrook and Curry?
I know, he's not all time great defender. He's not Frazier or Payton, or even Van Lier or Cheeks. So what? He's still very good defensive player. Elite when he tries (like Kobe).

Based on what playoff series?

his man defense, this season at least, is definately not "below average"

I don't care about RS. His playoff defense has been consistently below average. It's funny how CP's supporters can't even point one playoff series when his defense made any impact.

[70sFan]

Based on what playoff series?

his man defense, this season at least, is definately not "below average"

I don't care about RS. His playoff defense has been consistently below average. It's funny how CP's supporters can't even point one playoff series when his defense made any impact.

Quotatious already mentioned his effort against Durant. This happened in PLAYOFFS.
Also: "I don;t care about RS". That's disrespectful and not fair...

[bastillon]

his man defense, this season at least, is definately not "below average"

I don't care about RS. His playoff defense has been consistently below average. It's funny how CP's supporters can't even point one playoff series when his defense made any impact.

Quotatious already mentioned his effort against Durant. This happened in PLAYOFFS.
Also: "I don;t care about RS". That's disrespectful and not fair...

FYI, you don't win titles during RS. I am not aware of any "effort against Durant". Chris Paul never guarded Durant in a playoff series.

[mischievous]

It's funny how CP's supporters can't even point one playoff series when his defense made any impact.

They can't because it's never happened. You're not going to make a significant defensive impact at 5'11. I keep telling people this over and over again, and no one wants to hear it. He's above average defensively for his size, but when his size and position is taken into account, his absolute defensive impact is about average. He's nowhere near the great defensive point guards like Kidd, Payton, Frazier etc.

I am not aware of any "effort against Durant". Chris Paul never guarded Durant in a playoff series.

They are cherry picking a few possessions that KD didn't score on. Durant averaged 33.3 ppg/9.5/5.3 on 61 ts%, while Westbrook averaged 27.8/6/8.8 on 61.8 ts% in that series. Where was Cp's supposed defensive impact there?

[mischievous]

Btw, are we sure that Paul peaked higher than 2011 Dwight Howard? Its to ignore 23 ppg on 61.6ts% with 14 rpg and absolute elite defense. Dwight that season was arguably a better scorer than Paul has ever been and when you throw in the rebounding and elite defensive impact it appears he has a very strong case over any CP3 version.

[RebelWithACause]

Why Howard over Mourning?

[trex_8063]

I don't care about RS. His playoff defense has been consistently below average. It's funny how CP's supporters can't even point one playoff series when his defense made any impact.

Quotatious already mentioned his effort against Durant. This happened in PLAYOFFS.
Also: "I don;t care about RS". That's disrespectful and not fair...

FYI, you don't win titles during RS.

And you don't even get to participate in the playoffs (or get just a questionable 4-5 game playoff sample size due to s****y seeding) if you don't perform in the rs. And you face good teams in the rs, too (larger sample size vs good teams in the rs than in any playoff run, regardless of depth of playoff run).

I am not aware of any "effort against Durant". Chris Paul never guarded Durant in a playoff series.

Part of one:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxa5uRKDa4[/youtube]