So I wanted to look at both of these things (team success and supporting casts) for each individual in the RealGM top 20; and in the case of the former I wanted to look at success in more granular detail than simply counting rings.
Lenses thru which I compared team success
a) Titles
b) Finals appearances
c) Cumulative rs Win%
d) Cumulative Active rs Win% (win% in games he actually played in)
e) Average SRS
f) Cumulative playoff Win%
g) % of playoff series’s won
Method for Comparing Supporting Casts
For this I used many of the available “all-in-one” rate metrics: PER, WS/48, BPM, and RAPM [where available for those latter two]. I used rs numbers only for PER, WS/48, and BPM, mostly for simplicity though also noting that some teams don’t go to the playoffs some years, and other years the playoff sample may be just 3-4 games or similar. As far as using some amalgamation of rs and playoff numbers, I wasn’t sure how to reconcile problems created by the typical drop-off in performance (by these metrics) that we see for most players…….by which deeper playoff runs could end up suppressing the statistical outlook of a supporting cast relative to casts that either miss the playoffs or do not go far in the playoffs.
For RAPM, I used PI RAPM where possible (I simply feel it’s more consistently reliable than NPI), though did use the available NPI data for ‘97 and ‘01. And I used the rs-only APM colts18 had provided some time back for ‘94, ‘95, and ‘96. Not as good a product as RAPM, obviously, and players who split the season between two teams within those years are missing from his data, too. Obviously still better than nothing, so I did use it.
These factors were of course weighted for minutes played, as they’re all rate statistics. And obviously I excluded the all-time great in question, as we’re targeting specifically the support he had.
For each supporting cast, I included in the evaluation all players who played at least 766 minutes for all seasons ‘61 to present (when rs was at least 79 games in length). For years prior to ‘61, I made 750 minutes the low threshold. 500 was the low threshold for ‘99 (50-game season), and 650 minutes was the cut-off in ‘12 (66-game season).
I admit a big reason I limited evaluations to only “regular rotational” players was simply to save time. But I also assumed all players who failed to reach those cut-offs are mostly inconsistently-used “garbage time” players, or players who missed too many games to have had much impact on the season as a whole.
These players shouldn't shift the needle far one direction or the other anyway, because: a) by quick review it generally appeared that the players receiving such small playing time usually measured out quite poorly (statistically) on nearly all casts (i.e. at a glance, the “garbage minutes” players appeared more or less “equally bad” across the various teams), so including them doesn't relevantly distinguish one cast from another; and b) the stats are weighted for minutes played, so the tiny-minute players don’t shift the needle very far anyway.
You might be wondering why the arbitrary cut-off of 766 for all seasons ‘61 and after. Well, initially I was going with a nice round number (800), but I kept coming across guys who played a little under 800 minutes (as low as 766 in one instance) who nonetheless clearly appeared to be consistent role players. The cut-offs are sort of arbitrary anyway, so whether or not it’s a nice round number is irrelevant. At any rate, this method generally “captured” everyone down to the 8th-11th man in the rotation (depending on how deep teams were consistently going into their bench); were a few rare instances where it only “captured” as low as the 7th man in the rotation, and one the flip-side one or two even more more teams where it included as far as the 12th man in the rotation.
Caveats
As with any metric or method, I’m sure there are plenty. The one I’ll address here is that “stats can lie”. Well, they don’t “lie”, but the tale they tell is incomplete (especially as we’re using just 4 metrics, a couple of which don’t exist for all the players evaluated). Each of these metrics has its own features and things it's “biased” toward. I had hoped that by including all four we’re at least partially circumventing much one-sided bias, if you get my meaning.
It still doesn’t much account for context, however. Well, I have opinions regarding the contextual landscape of each player’s career, but I didn’t want to pontificate or influence opinion regarding those matters (at least not here in the OP; perhaps later). Rather, I’m simply going to present the data in a semi-organized fashion, and allow you interpret it thru the lens of your own contextual interpretation.
So without further ado, I’ll list the data, beginning with listing the players in order based on various measures of team success (btw, most of this will be pan-career presentation, but I can provide splits of certain specified years upon request):
rs Win%
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rs Active Win%
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Avg SRS
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Playoff Win%
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% of Playoff Series’s Won (Series record)
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Titles
Everyone probably knows this one by heart, but we’ll list it anyway….
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Finals appearances
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So that’s the broad strokes look at various measures of team success.
Now let’s look at how their respective average supporting casts compare by those various measures. Again, these are just full career averages. Further below I am going to provide some splits for certain years, and upon request I will provide any other splits anyone wants.
Perhaps I should list these in reverse order (highest rank given to player with lowest/weakest cast), but you get the idea…..
Avg cast PER
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Avg cast WS/48
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Avg cast BPM
Am only including individuals for whom BPM exists for majority of his career.
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Avg cast RAPM
Am only including individuals for whom RAPM exists for a significant portion of his career.
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Now for some splits that pertain directly to years in the NBA finals…...
Avg PER of supporting cast during seasons they went to the NBA/ABA Finals (W or L)
You can reference above for the number of finals appearances each has made, and their records in the finals.
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Avg WS/48 of supporting cast during seasons they went to the NBA/ABA Finals (W or L)
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Avg BPM of supporting cast during seasons they went to the NBA/ABA Finals (W or L)
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Avg RAPM of supporting cast during seasons they went to the NBA/ABA Finals (W or L)
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Avg PER of supporting cast during seasons they won the NBA/ABA Finals
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Avg WS/48 of supporting cast during seasons they won the NBA/ABA Finals
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Avg BPM of supporting cast during seasons they won the NBA/ABA Finals
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Avg RAPM of supporting cast during seasons they won the NBA Finals
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Statistically worst supporting cast taken to the NBA/ABA Finals (W or L)
Am eye-balling the ranking/order based on amalgamation of all available metrics. Listing in reverse order (lowest quality---statistically---supporting cast listed #1, and so on). Again, just eye-balling it, so I’m not married to the exact order; it could easily be quibbled over. It’s just a rough order.
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Statistically worst supporting cast to win the NBA/ABA Finals
Again, just a rough order based on combined consideration of all metrics.
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I think I’ll stop there. And I’ll take requests for any other splits or specifics.
