RealGM Top 100 List 2017 -- #8

[rebirthoftheM]

Who's doing this btw?

And it's disingenuous to keep referring to it as just one stat, as if it's basically the same as PPG or PER. It's a stat that encompasses everything that happens on the basketball court, and with enough sample size, it's very valuable and trumps the value of the box score, because it's showing us what those box score stats are actually translating into in terms of the final score.

And the sample size is huge with KG. In a variety of situations. That's why it's so convincing to so many of us.

It is huge? The sample size in the 04 playoffs where he was off was 86 minutes. 86 minutes!. That's minuscule and is subject to a whole lotta noise. What about match-up/line-up issues? Momentum/trending issues? End of game score running by an opponent?

Or are you using cumulative on/offs from multiple playoff runs (a lot of them being 1st round exits) to interpret a single years on/off? If so, IMO this would be a fallacy. What KG did in the 2002 playoffs has zero bearing in the 2004 Playoffs. They are two separate years, against separate teams, with their own unique circumstances. We need proper context to these on/off splits.

This isn't to say that KG was not having big impact in the playoffs. I mean, we know he was a high high impact player during his prime/peak. But the monster on/offs we see in the PS, even they occur across several years, again are not at all definitive. Sample sizes way way too small.

I'm not drawing conclusions off the PS +/-, I think they just tend to show the same thing that the RS +/- consistently showed us.

I brought up PS +/- in one series just to counter the point that KG didn't play well in that series. What +/- in a small sample size can tell us is if a player was helping his team or not. If KG posts a +47 on/off in a playoff series, I think it's safe to say that the team pretty much lived and died with him in that particular series. Drawing any conclusions other than that is tricky, but it does run counter to the idea that he didn't play well.

I am not in the boat that says KG didn't play well in the PS, though what I see from him is not conclusive enough to conclude that he played at the same level in the PS, or upped his play in the PS, like other ATGs. In fact in 04, I find it hard pressed to argue that KG was better in the PS than he was in the RS. The decontexualised on/off stuff does not move me. We all need more context.

But let me flip this.

KG was not only a RS impact monster, but also a monster in the box score department. He was putting up big numbers that registered on the stat gazers mind. He was no Steve Nash.

But somehow, his PS numbers in the one extended PS run he had with the Wolves (04) drop. And I mean drop. And the same applies to 02-03, another peak year for him. His shooting percentages also tumbled down in both years (more significantly in 03/04).

Yet, we are meant to believe that KG was exhibiting the same level of impact in the PS, like he was in the RS, despite his numbers and efficiency all dropping? Where is the evidence for this, other than decontexualised on/off? I see people say his defense was epic, but again, defensive indicators are hella problematic for a variety of reasons.

I am not saying it is not possible. I am also not denying he had high impact in the playoffs. But to dismiss that a dude, who was a monster in the RS in box score + impact metrics, and then sees his box score indicators, including efficiency tumble down in the PS, might have actually under-performed in the PS, and might have been exhibiting less impact than his RS version, without actual substantive proof is simply not good analysis. Again, not saying this is true. But we all need more context and information to make conclusions. And at the moment, I see a dude who had amazing box score indicators+ had high impact in the RS and then saw his box score stuff fall off in the PS. You'd have to argue that the box score fall off was more than made up with increased impact, which again needs proof.

Otherwise (and I love RWB- my favorite player in the league at the moment) we'll have to celebrate Westbrook's 1st round performance, and deem it one of the most impactful performances of all time, despite their being serious issues with such a conclusion.

[Jaivl]

The last few posts made me think, why do you even care about boxscore / boxscore composite stats anyway?

Other than scoring (for obvious reasons) the boxscore stats are just easily countable events that happen to have some correlation to the scoring differential. With Garnett, Duncan and other recent players we literally have a much, much better approximation of that scoring differential in the form of +/- data with big enough samples.

A boxscore of scoring, successful box-outs, hockey assists, hard screens and successful defensive rotations would probably correlate about the same, or better, with the point differential and would offer totally different results in terms of "numbers".

Spoiler:

I still use them from time to time because of speed, or to talk broadly about single games.

[ElGee]

> 2003: Kobe's good bc the Lakers won.
> 2007: We know the Lakers must be bad because of his teammates, because we know Kobe's good!
> 2008: See, we knew Kobe was good.

> 2003: We don't know if Garnett's good bc Min hasn't won.
> 2007: See, Garnett's not good. Minn can't win.
> 2008: Since we know Garnett's not good, we know his teammates must be good because they won

The difference is in 2007 the Lakers were actually good offensively, which is where Kobe's impact primarily was. His 31.5 ppg on 58% TS led them to the 8th best ORtg in the league even with Odom playing 50 games, and the other starters being Parker, Cook and Walton.

On the other hand, Garnett on the other hand led the 25th ranked offense and the 21st ranked defense. Great players have proven the ability to provide some measure of success with any cast, yet Garnett was unable to do so in comparison to Kobe here.

1. What is “some measure of success?”
2. Since great players have this success with any cast, it would matter, say, if the offense fell of without one of the teammates in the lineup, right?

[ElGee]

Yeah, so essentially what we're seeing here is that Duncan tends to score more efficiently against weaker defenses than KG does, but against similar (aka better) opponents, they're about the same.

Here are some old comparisons. You'll notice in the larger regular season sample, your premise is spot on. First chart is regular season, then playoffs, versus sub-103 and plus-107 defenses:

Numbers are per 36 min. Top row for each player is defenses over 107 DRtg. Bottom under 103. "GmSc" is GameScore, a volume-biased offensive metric that is a derivative of PER. "OBEV" is offensive box expected-value, an efficiency-biased box score metric. "Avg. D" is the average defensive rating of the opponents in that stratum.







Let’s ignore that shots aren’t taken in a vacuum. Let’s ignore that KG’s volume/load was greater than Duncan’s during 99-04. Let’s pretend all things are equal here. Let’s also pretend that KG’s small samples are reflective of his ability here (and not merely normal variance).

Does anyone know how much 3% TS impacts the odds of winning a title?

Spoiler:

less than 3%. The differences, at that volume (about 22.5 TSA) is 0.4 points per game. This can literally be offset by creating one extra open shot for a teammate or saving a missed rotation by a teammate at the rim. viewtopic.php?t=1197767

[rebirthoftheM]

Yeah, so essentially what we're seeing here is that Duncan tends to score more efficiently against weaker defenses than KG does, but against similar (aka better) opponents, they're about the same.

Here are some old comparisons. You'll notice in the larger regular season sample, your premise is spot on. First chart is regular season, then playoffs, versus sub-103 and plus-107 defenses:

Numbers are per 36 min. Top row for each player is defenses over 107 DRtg. Bottom under 103. "GmSc" is GameScore, a volume-biased offensive metric that is a derivative of PER. "OBEV" is offensive box expected-value, an efficiency-biased box score metric. "Avg. D" is the average defensive rating of the opponents in that stratum.







Let’s ignore that shots aren’t taken in a vacuum. Let’s ignore that KG’s volume/load was greater than Duncan’s during 99-04. Let’s pretend all things are equal here. Let’s also pretend that KG’s small samples are reflective of his ability here (and not merely normal variance).

Does anyone know how much 3% TS impacts the odds of winning a title?

Spoiler:

less than 3%. The differences, at that volume (about 22.5 TSA) is 0.4 points per game. This can literally be offset by creating one extra open shot for a teammate or saving a missed rotation by a teammate at the rim. viewtopic.php?t=1197767

On a side note: If it was you who put that together, why did you choose the 103 DRTG as the cut off range? And doesn't that graph lump a whole lot of teams together? For instance.. it would lump the 04 Spurs and 01 Mavericks together as both sub 103 DRTGs, yet evidently the Spurs were in another stratosphere on defense.

[eminence]

Spoiler:

Yeah, so essentially what we're seeing here is that Duncan tends to score more efficiently against weaker defenses than KG does, but against similar (aka better) opponents, they're about the same.

Here are some old comparisons. You'll notice in the larger regular season sample, your premise is spot on. First chart is regular season, then playoffs, versus sub-103 and plus-107 defenses:

Numbers are per 36 min. Top row for each player is defenses over 107 DRtg. Bottom under 103. "GmSc" is GameScore, a volume-biased offensive metric that is a derivative of PER. "OBEV" is offensive box expected-value, an efficiency-biased box score metric. "Avg. D" is the average defensive rating of the opponents in that stratum.







Let’s ignore that shots aren’t taken in a vacuum. Let’s ignore that KG’s volume/load was greater than Duncan’s during 99-04. Let’s pretend all things are equal here. Let’s also pretend that KG’s small samples are reflective of his ability here (and not merely normal variance).

Does anyone know how much 3% TS impacts the odds of winning a title?


less than 3%. The differences, at that volume (about 22.5 TSA) is 0.4 points per game. This can literally be offset by creating one extra open shot for a teammate or saving a missed rotation by a teammate at the rim. viewtopic.php?t=1197767

On a side note: If it was you who put that together, why did you choose the 103 DRTG as the cut off range? And doesn't that graph lump a whole lot of teams together? For instance.. it would lump the 04 Spurs and 01 Mavericks together as both sub 103 DRTGs, yet evidently the Spurs were in another stratosphere on defense.

If I remember correctly the 103 cutoff was only for that particular section of Elgee's original post.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=40799443#p40799443

In overall (as measured by game score) performance Garnett/Duncan are actually the two most resilient to opponent quality, regular season or post season, lol.

[therealbig3]

I don't have the time to run through a whole comparison right now, because this on its own took some time, but just to disprove the notion that KG wasn't a capable PS scorer, because of his efficiency, I looked at his performance against top 10 defenses in the PS between 99-08 (99 Spurs, 00 Blazers, 01 Spurs, 04 Lakers, 08 Pistons, 08 Lakers). I weighted average opponent TS% and DRating based on how many games KG played against them.

Average weighted DRating: 101.1
Average weighted opponent TS%: 50.5%

99-08 KG (30 games): 21.1 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 4.4 apg, 2.8 TOpg, 51.3% TS (+0.8%)

So KG actually scored at above average efficiency against top 10 defenses in the PS, while averaging 21/12/4. His turnovers per game actually stayed about the same compared to the RS, which is actually even more impressive considering the increased minutes and the superior defenses faced on average. Not to mention the subpar supporting cast (to put it very nicely).

Now I'm not sure how this stacks up relative to Duncan or Hakeem or Robinson or Shaq, but he definitely wasn't a subpar scoring threat by any means.

And keep in mind that the bulk of this is done during the toughest defensive era in basketball, as you can tell by the low DRating (he played 18/30 of these games during that 99-04 stretch).

[Joao Saraiva]

LOL, and if you know anything about my opinions about KD and Curry, you would know that I actually feel pretty similarly to this.

But it's not because of ONE version of +/-. On/off is different than RAPM. They're both different than WOWY. And RPM has a little box score thrown in for good measure.

They're all calculated in different ways, and they ALL point to the same conclusion sometimes. Which makes it very convincing.

Expected, since that is the king stat for you. Just shows you actually evaluate players at least with A TON of emphasis on that stat. Big mistake.

Btw care to say anything about the scoring against worse teams or something? Or does it make KG look bad?

I think it's a big mistake to rely so much on the box score like you do. I wonder where Adrian Dantley ranks for you.

I don't even know what you're talking about in the last sentence.

I definitely rely on box score. I also try to give it context too.

I use a formula as a primary way of making a list, I don't solely rely on it. Haven't ranked Dantley yet with it, but I'll do it in a few days. I think you'll be surprised about how the formula will actually not place him really high.

About the last sentence, it's about KG not raising his ts% in any situation of his career. Not against worse teams in the POs when he was with the Wolves, not even with the Celtics in 08 while being heavily favored to win all the series (Lakers the only one that could be seen as a 55/45 for the Celtics) and not carrying that much of a big load considering the ones Hakeem had to carry for example in 94 or 95 when he won his championships.

Also you said scoring against worse teams is not that important. Yes it is. It gives you gravity effect. If you can't dominate weaker defenses and be very efficient, it means better defenses won't require as much adjustment to make you not that efficient. It's also good when you're willing a bad cast to the playoffs. Scoring against bad teams is important.

Just see Kobe in 06, who with a bad cast willed the Lakers into the playoffs, with his biggest asset being his scoring. He reached volume heights KG could only dream of and he did it with efficiency. Being that #1 type of option is very important. Guys like Shaq, Hakeem or Kobe definitely had it more than KG.

[ElGee]

Expected, since that is the king stat for you. Just shows you actually evaluate players at least with A TON of emphasis on that stat. Big mistake.

Btw care to say anything about the scoring against worse teams or something? Or does it make KG look bad?

I think it's a big mistake to rely so much on the box score like you do. I wonder where Adrian Dantley ranks for you.

I don't even know what you're talking about in the last sentence.

I definitely rely on box score. I also try to give it context too.

I use a formula as a primary way of making a list, I don't solely rely on it. Haven't ranked Dantley yet with it, but I'll do it in a few days. I think you'll be surprised about how the formula will actually not place him really high.

About the last sentence, it's about KG not raising his ts% in any situation of his career. Not against worse teams in the POs when he was with the Wolves, not even with the Celtics in 08 while being heavily favored to win all the series (Lakers the only one that could be seen as a 55/45 for the Celtics) and not carrying that much of a big load considering the ones Hakeem had to carry for example in 94 or 95 when he won his championships.

Also you said scoring against worse teams is not that important. Yes it is. It gives you gravity effect. If you can't dominate weaker defenses and be very efficient, it means better defenses won't require as much adjustment to make you not that efficient. It's also good when you're willing a bad cast to the playoffs. Scoring against bad teams is important.

Just see Kobe in 06, who with a bad cast willed the Lakers into the playoffs, with his biggest asset being his scoring. He reached volume heights KG could only dream of and he did it with efficiency. Being that #1 type of option is very important. Guys like Shaq, Hakeem or Kobe definitely had it more than KG.

Isn't this a straw man? Are people actually arguing KG's offense is better than Shaq or Kobe's?

Also, why is this level of isolation scoring so important to you in a player?

Here's a list of roughly the 30-best teams in NBA history: http://www.backpicks.com/2016/07/18/top-healthy-teams-in-nba-history/

About half have these GOAT-level offensive players (Jordan, Bird, Kobe, Shaq, Magic). The rest don't. Yes, there is an asymmetry between offense and defense, but people are completely overstating the effect. A guy like Duncan -- eg +3 on D and O -- is ripe for building top-level teams around because of the portability of defense.

Is the reason you'd rather have a +5 offensive star who's neutral on defense over a +3 O/+3 D guy because to really make the team good, you'll need to find one of those rare people who is also good at offense? If so, I'd point at that almost every good team in history has (at least) a second really good player, and almost always strong depth after that to the 6 or 7 spot, and fills the pillars are team-building well.

[ThaRegul8r]

Shaq was injured during the 03 series against the Spurs, but not against the 03 Wolves. That makes a difference too.

I couldn't care less about this entire argument, but this is blatantly hypocritical in light of your bringing up Duncan's '05 series against the Pistons. Duncan injured his ankle Mar. 20 against the Pistons, missed 12 games, returned Apr. 13 at Utah to play the last four games of the regular season, and averaged 12.0 points on 43.6 percent shooting and 51.2 percent true shooting, 6.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 2 blocks per game the rest of the way after averaging 21.2 points on 49.9 percent shooting and 54.1 percent true shooting, 11.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.72 blocks prior to that. And he played with that injury through the entirety of that postseason, and also played through injury the entirety of the '05-06 season.

It was talked about during the '05 playoffs. For example, Manu Ginóbili after the Spurs beat Seattle in the Western Conference Semifinals:

This series was really tough, really long. We’re tired, bummed out. Tim has a bad ankle.

Again after beating Phoenix in the Western Conference Finals.

With two creaky ankles, Duncan tops the list of players who need the time to recuperate.

But no one ever mentions this when they hold up '05 as an example to criticize Duncan, while many of these same people bent over backward to say Curry was injured in 2016, and that Harden must have been injured this year when he had a season-low 10 points (2-11 FG, 2-9 3-Pt. FG, 4-6 FT) and seven turnovers in the elimination Game 6. But pertinent to this thread is that you also held up '05 Duncan while also turning around and saying another player was injured, and not saying word one about this:

Duncan claimed his last Finals MVP after closing out the series with 25 points, 11 rebounds, three assists and two blocks despite being slowed by some nagging injuries.

(Apparently, having a nagging injury since the end of the season before going against an elite defensive team doesn't make any difference, but someone else's injury does. No double standards there. [And I spoke up way back in the Retro Player of the Year Project about people bringing up some injuries but not others.]) I'll refer to 70sFan in this thread who was the only person to bring it up:

Also, you mentioned 2005 finals as a normal example of Duncan against great defenses. Timmy had health problems all season, he wasn't at his best.

Now this happens all over the internet on basketball forums, which is a large reason why I post. But stuff like that always makes me skeptical, because the majority of internet posters only seem to know what benefits whatever they're trying to argue, while they don't seem to know anything that doesn't benefit it.

[RCM88x]

Vote: Shaq

This is pretty close for me, these next three guys are very close and I often times have thought about moving them around (or developing a more concrete formula to rank them) in my list. But to me the real separation here for Shaq is his peak in 2000, it ranks for me as the #4 single season peak and is just enough to slide him over Bird and Hakeem. Another factor is the slight longevity advantage that Shaq holds over Hakeem and Bird. His missed games do hurt him a bit, but he played in the meaningful games and extended his career enough to offset that somewhat.

I'm also going to include 2klegends post, as it is basically what I would go by in a more perfect world. He also offers some good comparison to my #9 and #10 guys and why Shaq should be placed over them.

Spoiler:

Top 7 is what I expected so still no surprised. #8 should be nothing less of surprise.

This time, I'm going to change thing a little bit and introduce the concept of Final run performance from the 3 candidates that deserve to be at #8. I calculates them based on the simple formula..

FP Total = (avgPER*PER_STD)+(avgTS%*TS_STD)+(avgWS48*WS48_STD)+(avgOBPM*OBPM_STD)+(avgDBPM*DBPM_STD).

First I need to know the league leader average from 1960-2016 from these statistical categories (PER, TS%, WS48, OBPM, DBPM). Then assign each PT with 30 to get my standard deviation for each. That is, PER_STD, TS_STD, WS48_STD, etc.

Code: Select all

                       PER      TS%     WS48    OBPM    DBPM
LG Avg                 28.365   0.618   0.269   7.415   5.379
PT Value               30       30      30      30      30
Standard Deviation     1.06     48.51   111.38  4.05    5.58

Now, these are the raw data for each of my 3 candidates (Shaq, Bird, Hakeem) from their respective Final Run in their prime.

Code: Select all

    Season    PER       TS%      WS/48    OBPM     DBPM     BPM
   1994-95    26.10     0.60     0.18     2.30     2.80     5.10
   1999-00    30.50     0.56     0.22     4.50     2.80     7.20
   2000-01    28.70     0.56     0.26     5.70     1.50     7.20
   2001-02    28.30     0.57     0.24     3.60     2.60     6.20
   2003-04    24.80     0.57     0.20     2.40     4.00     6.40
Shaq          27.68     0.57     0.22     3.70     2.74     6.42
   1980-81    21.80     0.53     0.20     3.80     4.50     8.30
   1983-84    26.30     0.61     0.24     6.30     3.90     10.20
   1984-85    20.90     0.54     0.16     3.40     2.30     5.70
   1985-86    23.90     0.62     0.26     7.90     2.40     10.30
   1986-87    21.80     0.58     0.15     2.60     3.20     5.80
Bird          22.94     0.57     0.20     4.80     3.26     8.06
   1985-86    25.60     0.57     0.23     4.60     2.80     7.40
   1993-94    27.70     0.57     0.21     3.30     5.70     9.10
   1994-95    26.70     0.56     0.14     1.00     4.30     5.30
Hakeem        26.67     0.56     0.19     2.97     4.27     7.27

Which brought me to get their average from these categories...

Code: Select all

        PER       TS%      WS/48    OBPM     DBPM     BPM
Shaq    27.68     0.57     0.22     3.70     2.74     6.42
Bird    22.94     0.57     0.20     4.80     3.26     8.06
Hakeem  26.67     0.56     0.19     2.97     4.27     7.27

FP Total = (avgPER*PER_STD)+(avgTS%*TS_STD)+(avgWS48*WS48_STD)+(avgOBPM*OBPM_STD)+(avgDBPM*DBPM_STD).

Code: Select all

           FP Total
 Hakeem    113.00
 Bird      112.04
 Shaq      111.72

Conclusion: It appears all 3 performed extremely close at their dominant prime. If I have to choose one, I would go with Shaq because '04 Final Run may screw his stat. He was partially in his prime then. But Hakeem is slightly above. This final performance run in addition to their individual accolades and longevity consideration, I have to go with Shaq as my choice to be consistent with my GOAT projection.

1st Pick: Shaq
2nd Pick: Bird

2nd Vote: Bird

[therealbig3]

Shaq was injured during the 03 series against the Spurs, but not against the 03 Wolves. That makes a difference too.

I couldn't care less about this entire argument, but this is blatantly hypocritical in light of your bringing up Duncan's '05 series against the Pistons. Duncan injured his ankle Mar. 20 against the Pistons, missed 12 games, returned Apr. 13 at Utah to play the last four games of the regular season, and averaged 12.0 points on 43.6 percent shooting and 51.2 percent true shooting, 6.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 2 blocks per game the rest of the way after averaging 21.2 points on 49.9 percent shooting and 54.1 percent true shooting, 11.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.72 blocks prior to that. And he played with that injury through the entirety of that postseason, and also played through injury the entirety of the '05-06 season.

It was talked about during the '05 playoffs. For example, Manu Ginóbili after the Spurs beat Seattle in the Western Conference Semifinals:

This series was really tough, really long. We’re tired, bummed out. Tim has a bad ankle.

Again after beating Phoenix in the Western Conference Finals.

With two creaky ankles, Duncan tops the list of players who need the time to recuperate.

But no one ever mentions this when they hold up '05 as an example to criticize Duncan, while many of these same people bent over backward to say Curry was injured in 2016, and that Harden must have been injured this year when he had a season-low 10 points (2-11 FG, 2-9 3-Pt. FG, 4-6 FT) and seven turnovers in the elimination Game 6. But pertinent to this thread is that you also held up '05 Duncan while also turning around and saying another player was injured, and not saying word one about this:

Duncan claimed his last Finals MVP after closing out the series with 25 points, 11 rebounds, three assists and two blocks despite being slowed by some nagging injuries.

(Apparently, having a nagging injury since the end of the season before going against an elite defensive team doesn't make any difference, but someone else's injury does. No double standards there. [And I spoke up way back in the Retro Player of the Year Project about people bringing up some injuries but not others.]) I'll refer to 70sFan in this thread who was the only person to bring it up:

Also, you mentioned 2005 finals as a normal example of Duncan against great defenses. Timmy had health problems all season, he wasn't at his best.

Now this happens all over the internet on basketball forums, which is a large reason why I post. But stuff like that always makes me skeptical, because the majority of internet posters only seem to know what benefits whatever they're trying to argue, while they don't seem to know anything that doesn't benefit it.

Good point. Duncan was hurt throughout the 05 playoffs, that's fair.

But if he was hurt throughout the 05 playoffs, and THAT'S the main reason why his efficiency suffered...then why did it only fall off so much when he faced the Pistons? After having only a 51% TS against the Nuggets in R1, he was at 54% TS against the Sonics IIRC, and then he had a huge series against the Suns in which he was extremely efficient...and then has one of the worst offensive series of his career against Detroit in the Finals. I think it's clear that it was the level of defense being faced in the Finals moreso than his injury that caused his efficiency to drop off, since he wasn't having much issues with his efficiency prior to that, even though his injuries weren't magically healed during that time, and then magically got significantly worse during the Finals. I'm sure the injury didn't help, but I'm not really buying THAT being the main reason as to why he struggled, otherwise he would have had major problems throughout the playoffs, not just the Finals.

And it's still a little different than the Shaq injury, because that had IMMEDIATE impact on that series (including causing him to have to leave a game for a period of time to tend to the injury), while Duncan's injury was one that dated back to the RS, and was something that him and his team were able to adjust to over a period of time, and wasn't something that immediately started to affect him in the Finals.

[trex_8063]

Was scanning a little thru what I missed while gone; interesting that the discussion largely centered around Shaq, KG, and Hakeem…..meanwhile it’s like Magic said “while you guys fight this out” and slipped past unnoticed.

Btw, damn I see how tough this is going to be to contribute as much as I want to here in the summer (kiddo no longer going to school for 6-7 hours/day 5 days per week).

Anyway, with Wilt and Magic now in, I’m very comfortably going with Shaq here.

He’s [I think somewhat handily, no?] the most statistically dominant candidate still on the table. Even in the playoffs, he’s arguably the most dominant left. Let’s compare to Hakeem, who has an amazing playoff resume in his own right…..

’93-’95 Hakeem (playoffs)
29.8 ppg, 11.4 rpg, 4.4 apg, 3.5 topg, 3.7 bpg, 56.4% TS.

’00-’02 Shaq (playoffs) *in a slower paced league, fwiw
29.9 ppg, 14.5 rpg, 3.0 apg, 3.0 topg, 2.4 bpg, 56.2% TS.

He’s every bit as statistically dominant [perhaps marginally more so] in the playoffs as Hakeem was in his peak 3 years, as further evidenced by advanced all-in-one rate metrics:

’93-’95 Hakeem (playoffs)
27.1 PER, .186 WS/48, +7.9 BPM, 110 ORtg/101 DRtg (+9) in 42.7 mpg

’00-’02 Shaq (playoffs)
29.3 PER, .238 WS/48, +6.9 BPM, 113 ORtg/100 DRtg (+13) in 42.3 mpg.

And it’s not like this came without tangible team results: 3 consecutive titles and combined 45-13 record in the playoffs in those three years. A distinguishing difference in the statistical comparison is to note that Shaq was basically just as dominant all thru the rs, too (Hakeem was not); this is a semi-consistent trend (Shaq being more dominant in rs, I mean) thru their respective primes, too.


Were these “empty stats” for Shaq? Well, basically every single indicator we can look at suggests no. I’ll cite a few examples:

*The Magic are 21-61 (-6.52 SRS) in ‘92. In ‘93 with the only relevant change being the addition of a rookie Shaquille O’Neal they improve to 41-41 (+1.35 SRS, a +7.87 SRS shift). The following year, with the addition of rookie Penny Hardaway, they improve to 50 wins. By his third season, he has them in the NBA finals.

**colts18 did some regressions to provide RAPM (NPI of rs only) for ‘94 to ‘96; so we have some data going back as far as that….
In ‘94 a 2nd year Shaq is 8th in league (+4.09); peak Hakeem is 4th (+5.10).
In ‘95, Shaq is 2nd (+5.80) only to peak-ish David Robinson; Hakeem is 6th at +4.47.
In ‘96 Shaq is 7th at +4.31.
‘97 (NPI), Shaq is 17th (+4.17).
‘98, Shaq is 1st in league (+7.55; only one player is within 1.0 of him).
In ‘99, Shaq is 2nd (+7.63).
In ‘00, Shaq is 1st (+8.52; no one is even within 1.3 of him).
In ‘01 (NPI), Shaq is 2nd (to only Tim Duncan) at +6.5 (Stockton, in limited minutes, is the only other player within 1.0 of him).
In ‘02, Shaq is 1st in the league.
In ‘03, Shaq is 3rd in the league.
In ‘04, Shaq is 2nd in the league.
In ‘05, Shaq is 3rd in the league…..

…..repeatedly throughout his prime, he is right there, at, or very near the top pretty much each and every year.


With Shaq we see someone who is pretty much the only BIG man of the databall era (Barkley the possible exception, right on the edge of the databall era) to exert the same offensive impact as “all-time elite perimeter offensive players”. And at the same time he was usually a positive (sometimes significantly so) on the defensive end; see DRAPM for reference, but also…...

In ‘00, he anchored the #1 defense in the league (-5.9 rDRTG).
In ‘01, the Lakers (and Shaq) had a disappointing defensive showing during the rs; though in the playoffs----relative to the average ORtg faced----he anchored an elite -7.2 rDRTG on their way to repeat as champs in the playoffs.

Is his game as “complete” as Hakeem’s? No. Nor is it as “complete” as Kevin Garnett’s, or David Robinson’s; or hell, even Rasheed Wallace’s. But he’s so much more dominant in what he was elite at (attacking the rim), and had so much more gravity than any of them…….it trumps “completeness” or versatility, as far as I’m concerned. And as indicated above, his defensive reputation (at least in prime), is maligned more than is deserved.

He’s generally got good to ridiculou on/off splits, too, fwiw (missing his peak season, fwiw):
‘01: +15.6
‘02: +9.9 (+22.9 in playoffs, fwiw; but sample size….)
‘03: +12.8
‘04: +11.6 (+25.4 in playoffs)
‘05: +6.2


So anyway, I’m comfortably going with Shaq for this spot. My alternate for now is Hakeem Olajuwon, though I could be theoretically swayed to Bird or Garnett.

1st vote: Shaquille O’Neal
2nd vote: Hakeem Olajuwon

[oldschooled]

Duncan actually faced some Blazers teams. He also faced 2003 Nets - 1st defense in the league.

KG didn't play against good defensive teams in 2004 and his scoring efficiency still dropped much compared to RS.

But +/-!!!!.

People act like Kg's massively better at non-scoring apects, so therefore Duncan's scoring efficiency means nothing.

Duncan averaged 5+ apg in those 03 playoffs. He may not have been Kg's equal at passing/playmaking but he was still damn good at it.

Funny i was re-watching The Sopranos. Tony was mad at Carmela saying "You're only religious when it suits you!". Anything can be propped up if its suits the agenda.

KG was damn good (really good) but the argument really just revolves around "+/-". Its not bad though, i just think, including some of the people here, that its not enough for him to overtake Shaq, Bird, Kobe, Hakeem. Heck even Dirk, Malone and DRob imo. I mean we all saw them play and for me results matter whatever cards you're dealt with.

And just in case i forget my vote,

1st Vote: Shaq
2nd Vote: Kobe

[THKNKG]

For those who are pro-RAPM - what does the fact that the RAPM we have for 95-97ish all has DRob ahead of Hakeem, sometimes multiple places?

[trex_8063]

BTW, it's interesting why Wilt is always blamed for Warriors weak 1963 RS but KG isn't. Don't you think that it sounds like double standards?

I don't think anyone we're talking about had a cast as bad as that '07 TWolves cast (iirc, someone already posted how 11 out of 13 supporting cast members were out of the league---none due to injury or age (most by age 28 or less)---within 3 seasons of that). Don't think that can be fairly compared to a cast of Guy Rodgers, Meschery, Willie Naulls, quarter season of Tom Gola, etc.

Also, with Wilt having been voted in at #6, and the contention of some being "Garnett doesn't belong in the conversation yet", an argument of "his failure here is equal to Wilt's" wouldn't really prove that point or exclude him from consideration, would it?

[trex_8063]

If you think rankings don't matter, why not just not vote and have discussion threads about each player?

That's besides the point. Of course I think rankings matter, but just because they don't go the way I like doesn't give me reason to complain. This is the RealGM top 100 list so if the majority of users vote for KG > Kobe or KG > Hakeem, then that's representative of what RealGM (or this board specifically) believes. This isn't ardee's top 100 list superimposed onto RealGM's list, and you shouldn't be complaining about rankings if you're participating in a group project (where everyone's opinion counts!). Calling this project a "travesty" after Duncan got voted in at 5 over Wilt is the wrong attitude and is making you ironically unwilling to consider other positions on certain players.

Of course it's not my list. But don't give me **** for trying to argue for the players I am voting for and trying to convince other people to vote for them: that is the point of the project.

The point is also to read with an open heart and mind, and potentially have your position shifted. At this point, I can't even tell if you've done the first part (that is: read). You say the burden of proof is on them, and when PAGES of reasonable and data-supported material has been presented by way of argumentation for Garnett (by Elgee, drza, therealbigthree, etc), your only real retort has been to repeat "sorry, it's against the grain, so burden of proof is on you".

I'm not even giving Garnett my alternate pick at this point, but I read these comments and I'm like, "uh.....they just did; repeatedly." At some point you have to actually respond to specific points they are presenting with well-thought and data-supported counterpoints, or simply remain silent on the topic.

[ThaRegul8r]

Good point. Duncan was hurt throughout the 05 playoffs, that's fair.

(rest snipped.)

So with that established, my question to you is: why did you not even mention it?

I've been around, and this is regular internet practice. As I aforementioned, I commented on this during the Retro Player of the Year Project, and I commented on it again in '06 and this year, when everyone was saying the only reasonable explanation for Harden's performance was that he had to have sustained an injury at some point. People selectively seek to explain a player's performance with injury, but then neglect to mention an injury of another player that was actually documented at the time of play.

I don't care about any arguments, and I don't care about convincing anyone of everything. Since the first project I participated in, I said I post information and everyone can make up their own damn minds. I do care when facts are omitted or misstated, so I'm asking you directly why you explicitly mentioned when one player had an injury, but didn't mention when another player had an injury. I've been talking about people using the same standard across the board since the last project, so I've been consistent in that regard. Speaking for myself, it causes me to wonder what else might someone not choose to mention if it isn't beneficial to do so. 70sFan actually brought it up before I even saw this thread, but as Denzel Washington said in Training Day, "It's not whatcha know. It's what you can prove," and I can provide evidence of everything I choose to speak about.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #137:

Shaq - 6 (2klegend, oldschooled, RCM88x, scabbarista, Tesla, trex_8063)
Bird - 3 (Outside, wojoaderge, Winsome Gerbil)
Hakeem - 2 (andrewww, Joao Saraiva)
Garnett - 2 (micahclay, Doctor MJ)
Mikan - 1 (penbeast0)
Kobe - 1 (JordansBulls)
Dr J - 1 (Pablo Novi)

Several posters have been active itt, but not yet cast votes that I've seen. I'm busy tomorrow, but will try to wrap this one up by around midday tomorrow; get it done before then. If you have voted, but don't see your name listed above, please alert me (and remember to bold your picks; makes it much easier to find within blocks of text).

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[AdagioPace]

Garnett will always be probably the greatest floor raiser in history. It remains to be seen if with a slightly better offensive supporting cast the choice to pick hakeem or duncan might be preferable. At some point a specific ability like iso scoring and a high freethrow attempt rate can be more valuable especially in tight games, a harder to find skill and less replaceable. Screens setting,hockey assist and other offensive indirect skills are more spreadable between teammates.Same reason why its hard to pick draymond over kawhi despite having comparable impact. Just a perspective.