Peaks Project #26

[bastillon]

so Chris Paul's playoff impact is justified based on a couple plays in one game.

You've never had much issue with puny sample size in prior arguments (e.g. video of cherry-picked plays vs. Westbrook (all from the same game??? can't remember); prior arguments regarding TMac or others, generally revolving around a mere couple games, etc), but whatever, I'll play ball.....

Chris Paul '15 rs defensive on/off: 105.2 DRtg when he's on the court, 106.4 DRtg when he's off the court (-1.2).
'15 Paul playoff defensive on/of: 106.4 DRtg when he's on the court, 109.0 DRtg when he's off the court (-2.6).
'15 Paul PI DRAPM: +1.79
'15 Paul NPI DRAPM: +0.62

Going to cite his '14 numbers too (relevance suggested: maybe not too significantly different in '15 than '14 in this regard???):
'14 Paul rs defensive on/off: -4.3
'14 Paul playoff defensive on/off: -5.7
'14 Paul PI DRAPM: +1.73

**RAPM considers playoffs, too, btw; generally weighted heavier, actually, unless I'm mistaken. And >+1.5 is quite sizable defensive impact for a PG (as you yourself noted, PG's aren't able to exert as much defensive impact as bigs).***

Accolade based evidence:
All-Defensive honors the last five years running (1st team the last four).

Match-up based evidence (playoffs only version, just for you):
'14 Steph Curry in rs: 24.0 ppg/8.5 apg/3.8 topg @ 61.0% TS
'14 Steph Curry in series against Paul: 23.0 ppg/8.4 apg/3.7 tov @ 59.9% TS
The partial game against Durant (whose numbers were down a little overall in this series, though yes: Westbrook's were up)
'15 Tony Parker in rs: 14.4 ppg/4.9 apg/2.1 topg @ 53.9% TS
'15 Tony Parker in series against Paul: 10.9 ppg/3.6 apg/1.6 topg @ 38.6% TS
Jason Terry's (Paul's primary charge in WCSF) per 36 numbers were basically even (to marginally worse) in series vs. his rs per 36.
Paul spent a little time guarding Harden.....Harden in series: 25.4 ppg/8.1 apg/5.0 topg @ 59.3% TS vs. 27.4 ppg/7.0 apg/4.0 topg @ 60.5% in rs.


I would never try to imply that Paul is a "never-fail" defender. But I do try to look at the balance evidence available (combined with my eye-test, which indicates to me he's above average----sporadically elite when he's "really trying").....and the majority (vast majority) of evidence appears to suggest he's at least a "pretty good" defender (in both rs and playoffs).
So I wouldn't quite say other posters are "desperate" to find evidence of good defense.....there's actually an ample supply (although you continually attempt to disregard chunks of it for a variety of arbitrary reasons).

Just for future reference (so we don't repeatedly waste our time): which of the above pieces of evidence are invalid in your opinion? I'm guessing all those which do not support the narrative you're trying to pass off (which in this case is basically everything except Westbrook's numbers in that one series........Michael Jordan avg 29.8 pts/7.0 ast/3.0 tov @ 64.6% TS in series against Detroit in '91===>zomg! Dumars---+/- Rodman??---actually sucks at defense!).

And btw, what is the narrative you're pushing?...

CP is above average as a defender,....

He's a poor playoff defender.

Are you just trying to argue that "elite" overstates his defensive prowess? Fine, I don't have a problem with that (so maybe we can just drop it?).
Or are you trying to suggest he's a below average (or "poor") defender? Because, well.......see above.

I agree mostly with the above post. Just please make sure next time you're not quoting single sentences taken out of context. That really makes no sense. Chris Paul is clearly an above average for the RS. He's below average for the playoffs though, mainly because he keeps getting injured. I never relied on couple plays as evidence for overall defensive impact. Not to mention, it is absurd to suggest that Paul was able to guard Durant. That was the argument of last resort and it screamed of desperation.

What I was contesting is that Paul is allegedly an "elite" defender. That's simply not true.

Above average defender overall, really good help defense, mediocre man defense. Poor playoff defender. Either way, certainly not elite. Cheeks was an elite defender. Nate McMillan was an elite defender. Chris Paul was not an elite defender.

[eminence]

1st Ballot Chris Paul 07-08

2nd Ballot Dwight Howard 08-09

3rd Ballot Karl Malone 91-92 I think this was possibly Karl's best postseason(mention to '94), combined with a very solid regular season. Great man defender and his offense was highly effective. Why he fell down this far for me is believing his offense was a bit reliant on having a great initiator on his team and I'm not super high on the value of man defense in general.

HM: Nash and Hill are my two big ones. Frazier/McAdoo are solid mentions too.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Hey, just putting a feeler out there.......how do you guys feel about Elgin Baylor (likely '61)? With Oscar in at #15, West in at #19, he feels like someone who should be getting some traction really soon. Thoughts?

interesting on Baylor...
I recall Cavs said he was criminally underrated, and his ability to finish at the rim reminded me of MJ, in terms of acrobatics, though, considering his fg%, its definately questionable how many of those shots he actually made...

on a sidenote, in 1962, the team was on a 63 win pace with him. they were on a 43 win pace without him. granted, 5 losses of the 15 losses they had without baylor were against celtics (though they generally beat hte cceltics in the season series, though one could argue the celtics were coasting at times, since they obviously, well...).

still, even if they were basically a 20-10 win team without him, he still seemed to have incredible impact, despite his misleading fg%

he would have still basically brought a 50 ish win team to a 63 win pace, which, while probably not sustainable (I think that west's absense in a few games coincided with baylors) would still be pretty great impact.

[70sFan]

Hey, just putting a feeler out there.......how do you guys feel about Elgin Baylor (likely '61)? With Oscar in at #15, West in at #19, he feels like someone who should be getting some traction really soon. Thoughts?

I will vote either for him or Nash next thread. This guy is criminaly underrated. It's not only his scoring ability (amazing, but some players were better scorers in history), he's GOAT SF rebounder (even considering pace, he's better rebounder than peak Marion that year) and he's very very good passer (just like Dr. J). Defensively, he's probably above average. Overall, show me weaknesses in his game. One of the best all-around players ever.

[mischievous]

At what point do we start discussing James Harden? I'd for sure put him behind Karl, Dwight, Cp3, and Nash. But after that, i'd say he has a reasonable case over anyone else. I think he should definitely have a top 35 peak, and I'm not even a fan of the guy. Bob Macadoo is another guy with a clear top 35 peak imo.

[Quotatious]

At what point do we start discussing James Harden? I'd for sure put him behind Karl, Dwight, Cp3, and Nash. But after that, i'd say he has a reasonable case over anyone else. I think he should definitely have a top 35 peak, and I'm not even a fan of the guy. Bob Macadoo is another guy with a clear top 35 peak imo.

Yeah, Harden absolutely belongs in the top 35, and I don't like him that much, either. Probably even fringe top 30 (I don't think Nash or Howard over Harden should be a given).

Artis Gilmore should probably start gaining traction already. Honestly, it's a tough choice between Gilmore and Howard (and Artis probably belongs slightly ahead of Zo).

1969 or 1970 Willis Reed deserves some attention, too (IIRC Narigo voted for him as his #3 pick in the last thread, or this thread, and then changed to '72 Frazier).

[The-Power]

At what point do we start discussing James Harden?

Feel free to make your case. In my opinion it's definitely reasonable to start making arguments for Harden from now on, somewhere around 30 seems absolutely fair to me.

[mischievous]

(I don't think Nash or Howard over Harden should be a given).

Nash might not be a given, but i'd take him being they both are offense-only players and i think Nash wins in an offense debate. Dwight over Harden certainly is a given imo, he did too much on both ends of the floor in 2011 and was arguably the 2nd best player in the league that year, and iirc you even had him 1st no? If one were to put Dwight over Lebron and Wade in 2011 then i don't see how he wouldn't be ahead of 2015 Harden as well.

[mischievous]

At what point do we start discussing James Harden?

Feel free to make your case. In my opinion it's definitely reasonable to start making arguments for Harden from now on, somewhere around 30 seems absolutely fair to me.

Still a little early. Like i said i think there's still at least 4 guys that belong ahead right now.

[trex_8063]

Hey, just putting a feeler out there.......how do you guys feel about Elgin Baylor (likely '61)? With Oscar in at #15, West in at #19, he feels like someone who should be getting some traction really soon. Thoughts?

interesting on Baylor...
I recall Cavs said he was criminally underrated, and his ability to finish at the rim reminded me of MJ, in terms of acrobatics, though, considering his fg%, its definately questionable how many of those shots he actually made...

on a sidenote, in 1962, the team was on a 63 win pace with him. they were on a 43 win pace without him. granted, 5 losses of the 15 losses they had without baylor were against celtics (though they generally beat hte cceltics in the season series, though one could argue the celtics were coasting at times, since they obviously, well...).

still, even if they were basically a 20-10 win team without him, he still seemed to have incredible impact, despite his misleading fg%

he would have still basically brought a 50 ish win team to a 63 win pace, which, while probably not sustainable (I think that west's absense in a few games coincided with baylors) would still be pretty great impact.

Here's some more info regarding Baylor's impact, draw your own conclusions.....

In '58 (before Baylor), the Lakers were 19-53 (.264) with an SRS of -5.78.

In '59 they obtain rookie Elgin Baylor (and he's the only relevant transaction that occurred), and improve to 33-39 (.458) and -1.42 SRS (improvement of 14 wins and +4.36 SRS). They would also make it to the finals by first defeating a -1.36 SRS Detroit team 2-1, and then defeating the +2.89 SRS defending champ St. Louis Hawks 4-2.
wrt to how that improvement was managed......
Yeah, we always tend to think of Baylor as primarily an offensive player; but there's some to suggest he had a significant impact defensively, too. His reputation is mostly as a "decent" (but not great) defender, though I wonder if perhaps his prowess on the glass reduced a lot of easy second-chance opportunities for opponents (he was 3rd in the league in rebounds right off the bat in his rookie season).
Because in terms of rORTG, the Lakers in '58 (before Baylor) were -0.8 (ranked 6th of 8), and in rDRTG were +4.5 (8th of 8, and +2.5 to the 7th place team!). In '59, their rORTG improves to +0.6 (a jump of 1.4, up to 4th of 8); but rDRTG improves to +1.7 (a big jump of 2.8, from a distant last place to 6th of 8).
The team is 33-37 (.471) with him, 0-2 without him.


In '60, an aging Vern Mikkelsen has retired, aging Larry Foust misses some games and is playing a reduced role, too. Meanwhile the offensive primacy of the wildly inefficient (even for the era) Hot Rod Hundley increases, as well as a marginally increase in role for the even worse Slick Leonard (ridiculously bad 37.3% TS.....that's even -9% relative to league avg; similar to someone shooting 44% TS or so today; you'd have to be an elite defender to get ANY playing time at all today, and no way would you be getting 28+ mpg and be 6th on the team in FGA/g.....goes to show how efficiency just wasn't on the radar yet). And they also obtained rookie Rudy LaRusso (who would eventually become a pretty good player, but is a fairly inefficient scorer in his rookie season). They also obtained the somewhat inefficient Frank Selvy as well as an aging 6'11" Ray Felix in mid-season trades.
Anyway, their rORTG falls to -3.4 (8th of 8), though their defense continues to improve to +0.1 rDRTG (4th of 8), as they finish 25-50 (-4.14 SRS).
The team is 23-47 (.329) with him, 2-3 (.400) without him.


In '61, we have the arrival of rookie Jerry West. He's not yet the player he would become, but nonetheless is the clear 2nd-best behind Baylor. This affords them to reduce the role of Hundley and Leonard in the backcourt. rORTG improves to -1.3 (7th of 8), rDRTG continues to improve to -1.2 (4th of 8).
The team is 34-39 (.466) with him, 2-4 (.333) without him.


In '62, West is now a legit superstar, too. Slick Leonard is gone, and Hundley's role is further diminished; LaRusso continues to improve and get more efficient. Non-surprisingly, the team rORTG improves to +1.4 (3rd of 9). Critics might argue Baylor missing games contributed to this improvement in rORTG, but I'm more inclined to think it's the additive effects of a) the improvements in West and LaRusso, b) the loss of Leonard, and c) the reduced role of Hundley; especially in light of the following.......
Baylor misses 32 games, not due to injury, but rather to military service: he's only able to play if he can get a weekend pass to quickly travel to the game, play, and then come back. So he likely barely gets to practice, and yet still establishes himself among the league's elite---->Per 100 possession estimates: 33.6 pts, 16.3 reb, 4.1 ast @ +1.34% rTS in a whopping 44.4 mpg.
The team is 37-11 (.771) with him, 17-15 (.531) without him. Some of his missed games may have overlapped with West's missed games, but the thing is: West only missed 5 games total that year. And NO ONE else in their main rotation missed more than 2 games all year.
They make it to the finals and take the Russell Celtics to 7 games. Baylor averages 40.6 ppg, 17.9 rpg, and 3.7 apg in the series @ 51.0% TS (+3.1 rTS). In a close game 5 victory, Baylor logs [an I think still NBA finals record] 61 pts (and I believe 22 reb as well).

EDIT: I'd also add this quote from The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball by John Taylor....

.....Fans specifically came to see him [Baylor]. When he was on military duty and playing sporadically, they called the box office before games to ask if he would be appearing. The Lakers front office had run figures calculating Baylor’s ability to sell tickets, and they determined that in games when he did not play, the Lakers drew an average of 2,000 fewer fans. That amounted to approximately $6,000 per game, or $200,000 over the course of a season….

Going back to our agreement that impact = goodness + fit + utilization......I don't think Baylor was utilized ideally (something that I think is unfortunately true for MANY old era players). Yet there's still several indicators of substantial impact, especially in '62.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #70:

Chris Paul - 19
Karl Malone - 12
Dwight Howard - 4
Walt Frazier - 4
Steve Nash - 3
Bob McAdoo - 2
Anfernee Hardaway - 2
Elgin Baylor - 1

Calling it for Paul. Will have #27 up shortly....

[theonlyclutch]

Final Ballot

1st Ballot - 2015 Chris Paul

2nd Ballot - 2007 Steve Nash

3rd Ballot - 2009 Dwight Howard

Why Dwight over Malone?

Elite rim protection and a game that is more resilient in the postseason as far as boxscore production is concerned, younger (early 90s) Malone, who has the athleticism to rival Dwight has a finisher, doesn't pull out a big gap from Dwight in playmaking, while older Malone isn't as athletic and is therefore too jumper-reliant at times (seen in the playoffs), therefore I don't believe there is a huge gap between Malone and Dwight's offensive game. The Stockton factor for Malone should also be taken into account as well, a near-elite facilitator playing with Malone for ~10-12 years in their prime gives massive synergy bonuses to Malone that Dwight never had.

[Quotatious]

(I don't think Nash or Howard over Harden should be a given).

Nash might not be a given, but i'd take him being they both are offense-only players and i think Nash wins in an offense debate. Dwight over Harden certainly is a given imo, he did too much on both ends of the floor in 2011 and was arguably the 2nd best player in the league that year, and iirc you even had him 1st no? If one were to put Dwight over Lebron and Wade in 2011 then i don't see how he wouldn't be ahead of 2015 Harden as well.

Well, I didn't say I wouldn't take Howard over Harden (actually, I probably would), but I said it's not a given because Harden is clearly superior offensively. For a star, offense is IMO definitely more important than defense, so I can see how someone could argue for Harden. Personally, I think the gap on defense in Howard's favor is gigantic (and the fact that Howard is a bigman and Harden is a perimeter guy, only amplifies that gap), but not everyone would have to agree. As far as carrying a team, what Dwight did in 2010-11 RS is very impressive, but 2014-15 Harden helped his team overachieve, too (they didn't look like a 56-win team with Howard playing only 41 of 82 games, to me), especially considering that the '15 Rockets played in the West, and '11 Magic in the East.

So, for me, Dwight was better, but it's close. I just feel like making some loose comments here, because I'm not voting, so I don't have a horse in this race, so to speak.

Nash vs Harden is a much more natural comparison, and I wouldn't be so sure that Nash was better offensively. Here's my old '06 Nash vs '15 Harden thread:

viewtopic.php?t=1404397

Might be helpful.

Nash won the poll pretty easily, but I wonder how much Nash's more likeable persona has to do with that. A lot of people really dislike Harden, while Nash is universally liked. In that thread, I said I was leaning towards Harden, and voted for him - not sure about that anymore, but I'll just say this - I think Harden is more capable of carrying a weak/average team to a really good record in the RS, while Nash is at least a bit more reliable in the playoffs. Definitely a good debate.

By the way - anyone else feels like the gap between Curry and Nash/Harden is already too big? Steph is already in since #17, and we're at 27 now...

[trex_8063]

OK, thru post #73 (doesn't change the result):

Chris Paul - 22
Karl Malone - 12
Dwight Howard - 5
Steve Nash - 5
Walt Frazier - 4
Bob McAdoo - 2
Anfernee Hardaway - 2
Elgin Baylor - 1


btw, if you didn't cast a ballot for Paul, I'd like it if you chime in on the secondary thread regarding which year is Paul's peak.

[mischievous]

By the way - anyone else feels like the gap between Curry and Nash/Harden is already too big? Steph is already in since #17, and we're at 27 now...

I agree. I do think Curry is better than those 2, but the gap is very small. People act like Curry is far superior to Harden but i don't see it, i think Curry was only slighlty better last season. I imagine if they switched teams, Harden would've won the chip and Curry would've sat at home during the finals. The possibilty of there being a 15+ spot difference between the 2 seems absurd.

[bballexpert]

Back at home. Sorry for not being able to participate but I absolutely couldn't find the time to do so, unfortunately. I try to contribute at least a little bit going forward even though I can't guarantee it.

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.

I wouldn't consider Kidd yet. It isn't always as simple as saying 'he's clearly worse on offense but also clearly superior on defense; ergo he's belongs right up there'. In order to make the argument for Kidd you have to convincingly argue as to how his defensive impact is big enough to justify the enormous gap on offense.

Generally, perimeter players - and especially PGs - can have way more impact on offense than on defense. They control the offense but they can't control the defense to that extent. Offensively, Kidd never led a great offense and in fact he never came close to do so. In 2003 he rocked a 106.4 on-court ORTG which is quite good relative to his teammates but not even close to the offensive perimeter-forces - even if you don't hold his teammates in high regards. He managed to make a poor team average on offense. This is valuable but hardly something to write home about when we're talking about the best peaks in the history of the NBA. Nash, on the other hand, belongs in any conversation of the greatest offensive players in the history of the NBA. When your main ball handler displays such ability it carries a lot of weight because ultimately that's the first thing you're looking at unless you already have another highly effective ball handler who would lose a lot of his impact by taking the ball out of the hands. And then we're not even talking about Nash's off-ball game.

So, I'd ask you to answer this question: why should I believe that Kidd's defensive impact offsets the huge difference in terms of offense compared to Nash or Paul? You say he anchored the Jet's defense and their defense was indeed great. But did he? The numbers don't exactly back it up. The team-defense remained very steady regardless of which splits you're looking at. At a first glance it just seems like Kidd played the most minutes on a defensive-minded team. Great that he can do that but it's not like he anchored the defense all by himself or maybe not even significantly more than his average teammate. If you believe that then I tend to believe that you give Kidd way too much credit for his defensive-first team. Because not only do I not believe that one can back the anchor-argument (note that we have to put this into relation with the best anchors, i.e. most impactful defenders, in the history of the NBA) up with the numbers but you also have to make a good argument as to how a PG could actually anchor a defense like elite defensive-anchors do/did - which I think is simply not possible, especially for previous eras.

______________________________________________

I've seen Davis gaining some traction - and also people doubting his impact. I can see their reservations because we don't have much useful data outside of last season to get an overall feeling for his impact and RAPM seems to not be in awe of his impact. However, RAPM is obviously regularized and therefore should be treated with some caution when we compare Davis' current peak to players with a peak at a more established stage of their career which is usually the case.

What we do know is that he has the highest on-court ORTG, highest on/off-ORTG split and the highest on/off-DRTG on his team. The only player who comes close in terms of offensive splits is Tyreke Evans and when we look at some WOWY data to see who the main driver was, the result shows us that it was Davis most likely (looking at PPP and TS% of the team, respectively). Take it for what it's worth, but at least we shouldn't doubt his impact on his team - whether or not it puts him into the conversation of this spot. At least I don't believe one can fault someone for picking AD. But of course the same is true for a couple of other players as well, so it only means so much.

Nash and Kidd i feel are pretty close on there impact also one thing with Nash is his bpm over his career ahs been **** and Kidd is pretty solid thats the one stat i really like to look at for impact. As for defense Nash defense is **** god awful it is bad to the point were it can cost you the game. Defense is not really important for pgs but Kidd was a exception to the rule like few ps he could control the d side pretty well so it can impact games. Nash was great offense player but could not stop or lock down someone to save his life the worst defender i have seen for a AS although he does have godly offense he did not break through till the rule change which i feel help him greatly. I am not saying Kidd is better then Nash but he is close to him in impact overall.