RealGM Top 100 List 2017 -- #8

[AdagioPace]

Personally,I've been torn on this matter: whether having bigger impact (either by correlation with point differential or above-ness over replacement level )... means being a better player.
Once you separate the best (Lebron,KG,Duncan,Shaq etc..) from the rest it's hard to rank the best within the best.
That's why it looks hard to reach a meeting point between some factions. BEcause,rightly so,not anybody is ready to surrender himself to the use of numbers in general,and even worse to a single model/formula. That's the reason,for example, why kobe's supporters have been so animated when talking about Kobe vs KG or whatever. They are not ready to lay down the arms because a number (a pure number!) an abstract representation says 5 instead of 6


Going back to basketball:
To me even doing nothing in some cases, namely, leaving space for others to operate, is a crucial skill of a great player. Unfortunately it's not quantifiable with the traditional approaches so it appears to be less sustainable as an argument, but not less reasonable.Even worse it may appear as a negative contribution or neutral

I'm a fan of any kind of measurements (because numbers gives us some sort of visible "truth"...despite the inherent bias of models and tools) but often being too faithful towards the use of certain methods might lead to a "brain freeze" which don't allow us to go past rankings and set of values. The more abstract the topic becomes the more removed from reality you are (the less faithful)
That's why I liked the contributions of TheRegul8er in the past threads. I found them refreshing and above the tiring (+/- vs boxscore)

[Jaivl]

So, thought I'd try something new here as a way to present numbers that are supporting previously stated scouting/qualitative arguments: graphs. They're visual, quick, and can be inserted in a post without having to keep track of all the numbers. So, below, find 2 graphs: 1) the average of total Win Shares and Wins Produced for all Spurs and Timberwolves teams (excluding KG and Duncan) from 1998 - 2007 with data added for 05 - 07 Kobe & 06 - 07 Dirk, 2) the sum of the VORP of all Spurs, Wolves, Lakers and Mavs squads from 1998 - 2007 (Dirk's starts in 2001).

Both these stats are significantly depended on team wins, so no surprise Dirk's or Duncan's supports look better. But was team winning/loosing more and thus support looking better/worse, because superstar elevated them/superstar wasn't as good as someone thinks or because support alone was so good/bad? In any case these two metrics don't answer this question.

So I went out and did the comparison using 01-15 RAPM for the top 8 in minutes played, not counting KG/Kobe -averages weighted by minutes-. The results:



Some footnotes:

Spoiler:

- 03 LAL: My god, Samaki Walker was a real cancer. -6.62 RAPM and somehow played +1200 minutes.
- 08 BOS has the best players, but the 08 LAL have greater depth.
- Trenton Hassell gets the "why" award, being a -4 player that somehow played +2000 minutes most seasons.
- 04 MIN: The core Sprewell/Cassell is decent, but that's it. Literally the only other players that aren't big negatives are Mark Madsen (-0.17) and Ervin Johnson (+0.26).
- 06 LAL: Parker, Kwame and Mihm are really really bad, but they have solid players playing ~1500 minutes: Walton, Vujacic (still young, so worse than where RAPM puts him) and Brian Cook. Also, the always underrated Lamar Odom.
- 06 & 07 LAL: They were quite young teams, so they were probably a bit worse than shown.
- The 05 MIN and 05 LAL are similar caliber teams. The Wolves won 44 games and the Lakers 34.

EDIT: R^2 between supporting cast RAPM and team SRS = 0.88 for Garnett | 0.83 for Kobe. Big correlation.

[Senior]

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?

I do like RAPM, but D-Rob's strengths and weaknesses were more suited for the RS than the playoffs - he always took advantage of weaker, less athletic defenses to put up the numbers he did, and his RS team results were probably better vs the Rockets despite having arguably a weaker cast.

Problem is, those strengths never held up in the playoffs. He was far easier to gameplan for compared to Hakeem, the Jazz kicked their asses out of the playoffs in 96 like they did in 94 with D-Rob's offense dropping off a cliff both years (94: 30 PPG/58% TS and 96: 25 PPG/59% TS down to 20/47% TS and 19/53% TS), and we all know what happened in 95. There were clear weaknesses in D-Rob's play that weren't exposed by the RS.

Now if you value RS production/play heavily, that's cool...but I could never agree with taking D-Rob over Hakeem in any way, shape, or form from 94-96. D-Rob's style just wasn't built for the playoffs, and I will never side with a guy whose game constantly fades when it matters most.

[eminence]

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?

I do like RAPM, but D-Rob's strengths and weaknesses were more suited for the RS than the playoffs - he always took advantage of weaker, less athletic defenses to put him up the numbers he did, and his RS team results were probably better vs the Rockets despite having arguably a weaker cast.

Problem is, those strengths never held up in the playoffs. He was far easier to gameplan for compared to Hakeem, the Jazz kicked their asses out of the playoffs in 96 like they did in 94 with D-Rob's offense dropping off a cliff both years (30 PPG/58% TS and 25 PPG/59% TS down to 20/47% TS and 19/53% TS), and we all know what happened in 95.

Now if you value RS production/play heavily, that's cool...but I could never agree with taking D-Rob over Hakeem in any way, shape, or form from 94-96. D-Rob's style just wasn't built for the playoffs, and I will never side with a guy whose game constantly fades when it matters most.

My thoughts on this:

a) We only have RAPM for '97, +/- is still nice, but it isn't RAPM by any means.
b) The foundation for Hakeems case over Robinson is built on playing better in big games and head to head. Over the course of the season against an average opponent it's entirely possible Robinson would come out ahead even in their primes.
c) Perhaps most importantly a '95-'97 stretch isn't really Hakeems peak anymore and most likely is Robinsons, him ranking ahead over time period (injury not included) wouldn't shock me at all.
d) Still not really meant as a 'ranking' so to say, if Hakeem/Robinson both come in in the top 5-10 in the league, unless there is a chasm at some point (eg LeBron/Curry over the field this year), it's not really saying much about their 'impact' relative to one another, just that they were both very good players.

[Senior]

a) We only have RAPM for '97, +/- is still nice, but it isn't RAPM by any means.

Yeah, that's why I focused on 94-96. 97 D-Rob was hurt anyway.

b) The foundation for Hakeems case over Robinson is built on playing better in big games and head to head. Over the course of the season against an average opponent it's entirely possible Robinson would come out ahead even in their primes.

The problem is you don't face average opponents in the playoffs, and you certainly don't get the luxury of getting average or cupcake teams in the conference finals or finals. Even if D-Rob comes out ahead against average opponents, it doesn't really matter when the standard is dealing with elite opponents in the playoffs. If the goal is to win the title, why should I judge these two on the basis of playing average opponents?

Also, it's not just "Hakeem played better in big games", it's that his overall skillset allowed him to maintain his strong play against tougher defenses. That's why he played better - more consistently and closer to his ceiling than D-Rob. We can't dismiss playoffs as a smaller sample size when the differences between the two are their fundamental skills and abilities.

c) Perhaps most importantly a '95-'97 stretch isn't really Hakeems peak anymore and most likely is Robinsons, him ranking ahead over time period (injury not included) wouldn't shock me at all.

I'd have Hakeem's peak as 93-95 and D-Rob's as 94-96, so they overlapped a bit. The difference between the two was borne out in the playoffs. Again, those metrics were based on the RS where D-Rob was a god, so it's not even surprising to see D-Rob rate out ahead. I just don't really care about that when there's a clear trend of one guy fading in the playoffs and the other guy improving his play on the way to 2 titles.

d) Still not really meant as a 'ranking' so to say, if Hakeem/Robinson both come in in the top 5-10 in the league, unless there is a chasm at some point (eg LeBron/Curry over the field this year), it's not really saying much about their 'impact' relative to one another, just that they were both very good players.

Right, I'm not saying D-Rob is Kurt Thomas or anything, I'm saying I would always take Hakeem over D-Rob for a playoff run. Peak D-Rob doesn't suck but it's clear enough to pick peak Hakeem every time.

[eminence]

Spoiler:

a) We only have RAPM for '97, +/- is still nice, but it isn't RAPM by any means.

Yeah, that's why I focused on 94-96. 97 D-Rob was hurt anyway.

b) The foundation for Hakeems case over Robinson is built on playing better in big games and head to head. Over the course of the season against an average opponent it's entirely possible Robinson would come out ahead even in their primes.

The problem is you don't face average opponents in the playoffs, and you certainly don't get the luxury of getting average or cupcake teams in the conference finals or finals. Even if D-Rob comes out ahead against average opponents, it doesn't really matter when the standard is dealing with elite opponents in the playoffs.

If the goal is to win the title, why should I judge these two on the basis of playing average opponents?

c) Perhaps most importantly a '95-'97 stretch isn't really Hakeems peak anymore and most likely is Robinsons, him ranking ahead over time period (injury not included) wouldn't shock me at all.

I'd have Hakeem's peak as 93-95 and D-Rob's as 94-96, so they overlapped a bit. The difference between the two was borne out in the playoffs. Again, those metrics were based on the RS where D-Rob was a god, so it's not even surprising to see D-Rob rate out ahead. I just don't really care about that when there's a clear trend of one guy fading in the playoffs and the other guy improving his play on the way to 2 titles.

d) Still not really meant as a 'ranking' so to say, if Hakeem/Robinson both come in in the top 5-10 in the league, unless there is a chasm at some point (eg LeBron/Curry over the field this year), it's not really saying much about their 'impact' relative to one another, just that they were both very good players.

Right, I'm not saying D-Rob is Kurt Thomas or anything, I'm saying I would always take Hakeem over D-Rob for a playoff run. Peak D-Rob doesn't suck but it's clear enough to pick peak Hakeem every time.

Whoops, just to say, my comments were more in reply to Micah's question, quoted you only because I didn't see where he'd originally asked it

The only thing I might comment on is the playoff/regular season balance in evaluation. Now in this particular scenario I feel there is a solid amount of truth to it (Hakeem elevating play in playoffs, while Robinson slacked), but it's dangerous to go too far with that route simply due to the specificity of the matchups. Not even getting into opponent quality, but if Hakeem had had to consistently play the Sonics, or Shaq had to consistently play the Jazz through their entire careers they would suddenly look like worse playoff performers though nothing about them would have changed. But anywho, yes I agree with Hakeem over Robinson

[Senior]

Whoops, just to say, my comments were more in reply to Micah's question, quoted you only because I didn't see where he'd originally asked it

The only thing I might comment on is the playoff/regular season balance in evaluation. Now in this particular scenario I feel there is a solid amount of truth to it (Hakeem elevating play in playoffs, while Robinson slacked), but it's dangerous to go too far with that route simply due to the specificity of the matchups. Not even getting into opponent quality, but if Hakeem had had to consistently play the Sonics, or Shaq had to consistently play the Jazz through their entire careers they would suddenly look like worse playoff performers though nothing about them would have changed. But anywho, yes I agree with Hakeem over Robinson

It's all good man.

I honestly totally agree with the matchups thing - that's why I value the ability to match up against a variety of teams so heavily. That's why I have Hakeem over Shaq.

You're right that both Hakeem and Shaq would both look worse against a yearly series vs Sonics/Jazz, but they and their teams were able to leverage their strengths/hide their weaknesses well enough at their best to win titles. The Sonics took themselves out of the picture in 94/95 and the Jazz slipped/LA got better, but they were still doing enough to overcome the rest of the contenders, and that's why they won. It's not as if Hakeem/Shaq drew perfect brackets in their title runs either.

Yes, the playoff draw can matter more for certain players, but the responsibility of dealing with those matchup issues falls to the player and their team. It's not like you can say "aw geez if only we had just drawn X team instead of Y team" because that's just adversity a team has to deal with or lose. You could even argue that teams like the Jazz and Magic matched up well against the 95 Rockets, but it didn't matter because the Rockets overcame their deficiencies and defeated them. Same with 00 Portland vs LA or 02 Kings vs LA.

[eminence]

Another way to look at KG's time with the Wolves isn't the Wolves relative to other franchises (Spurs/Lakers), but the Wolves with and without KG*.

*I'm excluding rookie year ('95-'96) KG from this summary as I don't feel anyone ever brings him up as much more than a talented prospect at that point, and outside of cultural impact with the whole prep to pros wave it brought it doesn't really change his ranking on a list like this. But to note that was easily the Wolves worst season while he was there, 26-56, -5.14 SRS, no playoffs.

With KG (no rookie season), '97 to '07:

Best season - 2003-2004
58-24
5.86 SRS
Lost in WCF

Worst season - 2006-2007
30-52
-3.16 SRS
no playoffs

Average season
45-37
0.55 SRS
1st round of playoffs (8/11 seasons while there)

Without KG, '90 to '95 and '08 to present:

Best season - 2014-2014
40-42 (only season with more wins than '07, '12 also had a slightly better win% 39.4 vs 39.0)
3.1 SRS (one of four seasons with a better SRS than '07 - '12/'13/'14/'17)
no playoffs (0/16 without KG)

Worst season - 2009-2010
15-67
-9.06 SRS
no playoffs

Average season -
24-58
-4.7 SRS
no playoffs (though hopefully that'll be changing for them this year!)

[mtron929]

KG: +/- and other variants

Let's say that I am a superstar and for some reason, I am obsessed about having the best plus/minus stats (or its variants) as possible for some odd reason. I am obsessed about this similar to how Westbrook was obsessed about getting triple doubles. What would I do that does not really disrupt team basketball while optimizing my plus/minus stats? Well, I can do many things but one thing that I would do is the following: I would always try my 100% at all times. This is a head scratcher as you think that this is something that we should all be doing. But I kind of disagree. The NBA format is such that it does not necessarily reward 100% effort in for pretty much all of the games that I am playing. Most players conserve energy during a game, or even take some games off and still there is not much penalty associated with this (see Lebron 2017). Specifically with regards to a game, if the game is out of hand either way (your team is up big, your team is down big), then efforts start to wane. The idea is that you can either give up a game and fight for the next game or if your team is up big you can "coast" and if the game gets close again, then you can exert more effort. Sometimes, this type of strategy backfires but for the most part, these are high percentage moves in terms of winning a game while saving energy.

However, a player who is obsessed with plus/minus will not adopt this attitude. That is, it becomes imperative that at any point in the game (regardless of the score line), he needs to put in maximum effort such that his plus/minus stat is maximized. So it might be the case that this guy is the only person who is really trying hard when his team is down 15 (or up 15) and over a course of a season, this would lead to a significantly higher plus/minus compared to his peers. However, I feel like this missing real impact since I do not believe that plus/minus should be equal for all games at all junctures. That is, there are certain contexts where plus/minus should be weighed more compared to other contexts.

Now, with all of this being said, no one is really obsessed with plus/minus stats so none of this matters, right? Well, what is the type of person who would (with good intentions) play exactly like a person who is obsessed with plus/minus stats. Well, that player would play like KG. KG really gave 100% effort at all point in the game more than any other superstars I know. And I think this might be one of the big reasons why his advanced stats are so good. However, this type of 100% effort does not seem to necessarily correlate perfectly with impact for the reasons I outlined above. This is something that needs to be taken into account when we try to rank KG very high in these rankings.

[eminence]

Spoiler:

KG: +/- and other variants

Let's say that I am a superstar and for some reason, I am obsessed about having the best plus/minus stats (or its variants) as possible for some odd reason. I am obsessed about this similar to how Westbrook was obsessed about getting triple doubles. What would I do that does not really disrupt team basketball while optimizing my plus/minus stats? Well, I can do many things but one thing that I would do is the following: I would always try my 100% at all times. This is a head scratcher as you think that this is something that we should all be doing. But I kind of disagree. The NBA format is such that it does not necessarily reward 100% effort in for pretty much all of the games that I am playing. Most players conserve energy during a game, or even take some games off and still there is not much penalty associated with this (see Lebron 2017). Specifically with regards to a game, if the game is out of hand either way (your team is up big, your team is down big), then efforts start to wane. The idea is that you can either give up a game and fight for the next game or if your team is up big you can "coast" and if the game gets close again, then you can exert more effort. Sometimes, this type of strategy backfires but for the most part, these are high percentage moves in terms of winning a game while saving energy.

However, a player who is obsessed with plus/minus will not adopt this attitude. That is, it becomes imperative that at any point in the game (regardless of the score line), he needs to put in maximum effort such that his plus/minus stat is maximized. So it might be the case that this guy is the only person who is really trying hard when his team is down 15 (or up 15) and over a course of a season, this would lead to a significantly higher plus/minus compared to his peers. However, I feel like this missing real impact since I do not believe that plus/minus should be equal for all games at all junctures. That is, there are certain contexts where plus/minus should be weighed more compared to other contexts.

Now, with all of this being said, no one is really obsessed with plus/minus stats so none of this matters, right? Well, what is the type of person who would (with good intentions) play exactly like a person who is obsessed with plus/minus stats. Well, that player would play like KG. KG really gave 100% effort at all point in the game more than any other superstars I know. And I think this might be one of the big reasons why his advanced stats are so good. However, this type of 100% effort does not seem to necessarily correlate perfectly with impact for the reasons I outlined above. This is something that needs to be taken into account when we try to rank KG very high in these rankings.

It's not a bad theory, but there are +/- variants that have taken into account scoring margin and time in the game, KG still comes out in that very top tier. The box-score version would be WPA. Not sure the +/- one ever caught on enough to ever really get used (if I remember correctly there wasn't enough difference between it and a more normal RAPM to really make it worthwhile).

Edit: I believe win probability was used as kind of a one variable proxy for 'game state', but the point is the same.

[eminence]

Suppose I should get my vote in as well

Vote: Kevin Garnett
Same ol' same ol'. The big of the future, arrived yesterday. Elite in plenty of areas and very good to great in them all. Carried a cruddy T-wolves franchise for a decade as well as any player could. Still thankful he got a chance to spend his last relevant days in a better team situation and established one of the elite defenses of the modern era.

Alternate: Hakeem Olajuwon
Convinced enough by some of the posts in the last couple of threads to move him up over Shaq. Now have more faith in his early seasons and also feel better about his off court issues in comparison to Shaq. On court was obviously an excellent excellent two way player, one of the very few big men who could take over a game with his scoring. Doesn't quite have the longevity (total minutes played isn't what I'm looking at - simply # of seasons where a player could be a key contributor or better) for me to put him up with Duncan/KG/KAJ (who I feel are similar enough in primes to give that longevity an edge).

[ardee]

I am voting Kobe here. Be warned, this is an extremely long post. A look at his relevant career: 1999-2013:

Early years and emergence as a superstar: 1999-2003

1999: This is an underrated year to kick things off. 20-5-4 on +3.8% TS and being one of the best perimeter defenders in the league. He played all 50 games in the shortened, sped-up season and given the fact he was relatively green, did all right in the Playoffs. Got an early taste of the Spurs, whom he would do nasty things to for the next 10 years on a regular basis. He was probably about as good as maybe 2013 Paul George in this year.

2000: Played the sidekick role perfectly to one of the GOAT peaks. Averaged 23-6-5 on +2.4% TS in a very slow and inefficient era. Doubled up as one of the top perimeter defenders in the league: it's hard to call anyone but Payton definitely better. He torched the Kings in the first round to 28 ppg on 50% from the floor. This was the only series that went the distance so they definitely needed it. In the next round he locked up Jason Kidd: badly. The guy had one good game where he shot 8-13, other than that he went 1-6, 5-9, 1-9, and 3-13. Along with a 25% TOV. Kobe was a beast on defense that year. We all know his heroic games 6 and 7 performances against the Blazers. The Finals were poor, admittedly, but the ankle injury is obvious, and he still won the Lakers a game by himself in game 4 OT.

Overall, I'd say this is on par with any Pippen year outside of '92, '94, and '95. The only players I'd definitely take ahead of him that year were Shaq, Duncan, Malone, KG and Mourning.

2001: The birth of superstar Kobe. I feel everyone knows how good his Playoffs were that year, but his regular season is underrated. Especially in the start of the season, he was outplaying Shaq. Shaq was having trouble with fouls and free-throw shooting (REALLY bad, was going through a sub 40% stretch), so Kobe took over early and averaged 32-5-5 on a 117 ORtg for about 30 games, while Shaq was at about 24-13-4 on 106 ORtg. For the first half of the season before the AS Break, it's arguable Kobe was the best player in the league, considering if you remember Kobe was still ELITE on defense that year.

He then began suffering some niggling injuries, and the team suffered. Then Shaq got his groove back, and once Kobe was healthy as well the team was clicking on all cylinders. They were both more or less on cruise control against the Blazers, and then took turns dropping 40/15 games on the poor Kings. Kobe had his best ever series against the Spurs, and was 32-7-6 on 121 ORtg against the entire Western conference. He really was playing better than Shaq at that point. If someone wants to use the Finals gap (Kobe still did play well after game 1, 27-9-6 on 55% TS) to rank Shaq ahead for the whole Playoffs, I guess its fair, but Kobe WAS the driving force for the offense for the majority of the Playoffs for the best Playoff team ever.

He was undoubtedly second to only Shaq that year. I can't see any reason to rank Duncan over him that year, not when Duncan had a real solid team around him with a D-Rob who led the league in WS/48, and got so badly trounced and destroyed by the Lakers.

2002: A bit of a down-year for him. He still had a good regular season, 25/6/6 on a 112 ORtg, but didn't hit the heights of 2001. Worth noting he had to carry the team more with Shaq missing 15 games. The supporting cast was pretty poor by that point. Fisher played the whole season for a change, but Grant was gone, Horry was aging, and the Lakers were dependent on guys like Samaki Walker and Devean George for reliable contributions. It was impressive the way Shaq and Kobe got the team to a title that year. Kobe was the best player in a beatdown of the Spurs and MVP Duncan, and against the Kings he put up 31/11/6 in games 6 and 7, him and Shaq dragging the Lakers back from the abyss. He also had his best Finals of the Shaq era, 27/6/6 on 62% TS against the best defensive team in the league.

I'd rank Shaq/Duncan over him (hard choice between those two that year), and I can see some kind of argument for Garnett but don't buy it. This was the best supporting cast KG ever had before 2004, and they still finished with a below average defense and got roasted by the Mavs. I'm not seeing the impact that year. In 2003 I'll rank KG ahead because of his improved offensive game and he really did do less with more. This year I think Kobe's value as an offensive constant able to put consistent pressure on the defense. beats out whatever KG was doing.... especially since I really don't like his defense that year. I have no clue what 2002 KG was doing against the Mavs, it looked like he was playing some kind of crazy one man zone. Furthers my point I made earlier that Minny KG is overrated on defense. So, Kobe is third.

2003: One of the best years of his career. Perfect storm, his all-around game really came together. His 3-point shot was like a pull-up 5 footer at that point, had it almost on automatic. He averaged 28-8-7 for the first 40 games, almost LeBron-like. He really had to carry a pretty awful team for some time with Shaq out. Still, the team was dysfunctional and plodding by the half-way point, 19-23 through 42 games. Phil asked Kobe to take a bigger role in the offense, and he did. 41-5-3 on 59% TS over the next 14 games, leading the Lakers to a 12-2 record over that stretch, putting them over .500 for good and into the thick of the Playoff seedings. He closed the year out with several more monster games, including the 55 point one against Jordan with 9 threes, 42 in the first half.

At the close of the regular season, I'd say Kobe was right there with Duncan and KG for the best player in the league. He was very effective against the Wolves, but I will admit that the injury + shot selection a little out of control in the Spurs series harmed the Lakers. Still, if Horry's shot had gone in in game 5, Kobe would have successfully made up for it all by leading the Lakers back from 25 down, and was anyone stopping a 4th straight title then?

I have him 3rd this year, behind Duncan and KG. Shaq and McGrady battling it out for 4th/5th. I can't see Shaq over him this year, not when the Lakers season turned around after it was KOBE who took a bigger role and put the team on his back.

So far, we're looking at a very good sidekick year where he was in the 6-7 range in the league, and 3 top 3 years, one of which he was the second best player in the league.

The in-between years: 2004-2005

Going onto the rest of his career:

2004/2005: The two worst years of his prime, I'm clubbing them together. 2004 in particular really smarts. He's coming off an epic season that propelled him into the MJ discussion, and now his raw numbers and efficiency drop across the board, plus he misses 17 games. The raw numbers are explainable, he was now splitting possessions with three other HOFs, and it's possible that all of them were affected by a system that just did not fit the roster very well. Still, it was a notch below '01 and '03, and even '02. He still kept it up defensively though. He had a terrible Rockets series efficiency-wise, but then killed the Spurs (30/6/6 over the four comeback games). Average against the Wolves and had the worst series of his career in the Finals. He played well defensively though, locking down Rip, converse to Shaq who killed it offensively and was a sieve on defense. I place equal responsibility on those two for the Finals loss. In any normal year, it'd be enough for me to rank both out of the top 5, but this was such a weak year that after KG/Duncan I have to rank Shaq and Kobe at nos. 3 and 4. I'll say this, Kobe is probably the weakest number 4 as far as I can remember, in 2004.

2005 is an underestimated year. 28-6-6 on 56% TS, 109 On-Court ORtg with a truly terrible supporting casts. I've seen several nonsensical posts about how good guys like Brian Grant and Chucky Atkins were and it makes me shake my head. If Kobe and Odom had been healthy they'd have still made the Playoffs (32-29 through 61 games), but Rudy's retirement and the injuries just really took their toll. Kobe still performed well individually, started the season averaging 29-7-7 with a bunch of triple doubles in the first 30 games, with the Lakers at 16-12. I still have no problem ranking him possibly near the end of the top 10, this was a very strong year for the league. Nash, Duncan, KG, Dirk, Wade, Shaq, McGrady, and Stoudemire would all be over him.

Now we enter Kobe's true prime. Right now we have a top 2 year, two top 3 years, a top 4 year (admittedly very weak), and two years where he's close to the bottom of the top 10. Not bad for a pre-prime guy.[/spoiler]

The volume years: 2006/2007

2006: What a season. What a player. I'm going to leave this to one of the best posters to have ever been active on this on the board, ShaqAttack, because he had a GOAT level post on '06 Kobe.

In hindsight, I think Nash was a good choice for 2005, though I was in the "Shaq was robbed" crowd at the time. However, I don't think Nash was the right choice in 2006. I'd go with Kobe in 2006.

First I will say that since the MVP is the closest things the NBA has to a best player award, I try to keep best player in mind to some degree, though of course, I don't always think it should go to the best player since games played and record are factors. But to me, 2006 was the most obvious year he was the best player in the league. I think he was the best in '07 as well, but you could at least make the case for Duncan in '07 and Paul in '08.

Anyway, not only were Kobe's individual feats exceptional in 2006, but they led to the Lakers overachieving and exceeding most expectations following a 34-48 season. Phil asked Kobe to carry the offense because many of the players didn't know the triangle and probably due to their lack of talent as well, and he did so in a remarkable way.

Warning, this will be a LONG post since I will look over their entire supporting casts.

Kobe only had one other player on the roster you could call a legit NBA starter, and that was Lamar Odom who was inconsistent throughout the first half. Odom averaged just 14/9/5 on 45% shooting and just 53 TS% in the first half, though Kobe still carried the Lakers to a .500 record at 26-26 while averaging 35/5/4 on 44/34/84 shooting and 55 TS%. Odom was obviously a good player, but he shouldn't be your second best player by a huge margin as he was on the 2006 Lakers when he was relied on to play 40.3 mpg. We saw how valuable Odom could be when he became the 3rd guy after Gasol was acquired and he was noticeably more comfortable playing his game. His versatile skill set can obviously be an asset with his strong rebounding, ball-handling skills at 6'10" and the ability to get the rebound and create or finish the fast break by himself. This was also the last year Lamar played a lot of the 3 which had been his position as a young player with the Clippers and when Phil tried Odom in the Scottie Pippen point forward role with mixed results, though passing has always been one of Lamar's strengths and he did lead the Lakers with 5.5 apg while averaging just 2.7 turnovers. Lamar did have talent as a scorer as evidenced by his transition game, he could be a threat to create off the dribble, had the length to finish, and while I wouldn't say he was ever a good shooter, he did shoot 37.2% on 3s in 2006 while making one per game. However, Odom couldn't go right which made him predictable, as mentioned, he wasn't a great shooter, and perhaps most importantly, he lacked the consistent focus and aggressiveness to be a really good scorer so scoring really wasn't his forte as evidenced by the fact that his season high was 27 points in 2006. However, Odom became more consistent late in the year and played like a borderline all-star averaging 16/9/6 on 53% shooting in the second half as well as 43% on 3s and 60 TS%. Kobe also raised his game during this time averaging 36/5/5 on 46/36/87 shooting and 57 TS% as the Lakers went 19-11, a 52 win pace. Pretty impressive to win at that pace with just one legitimately good, but not great teammate.

As for the rest of the team, they had Smush Parker starting at PG and playing 33.8 mpg. Smush was a bit of a surprise for LA this year, but to put things in perspective, despite being just 24 at the time, Smush didn't even last 2 more years in the NBA. Then there was Kwame Brown whose only legitimate asset was his post defense, and he can only be described as a liability at the offensive end. Of course there's the infamous small hands which prevented him from being a reliable catch and finish player around the rim, one of the more basic skills asked of a big man offensively, his footwork and shooting touch were horrible leaving him without a single decent post move, he was a terrible free throw shooter at 54.5% and he could get rattled very easily. Chris Mihm was another starter for most of the year, and while he had a decent offensive skill set, he wasn't much of a defender or rebounder, and the Lakers played their best ball by far after Mihm's injury so he wasn't an impact player. Devean George was one of the few holdovers from the champion Lakers, and while he was a decent defender, he was a poor offensive player who didn't shoot particularly well at just 40 FG% and 31.2 3P% and couldn't create. Then there was Luke Walton whose only real skill was passing. Brian Cook's only value could be as a stretch 4, but he wasn't a good defender, rebounder or post player. Finally, Sasha Vujacic was in the rotation getting 19 mpg despite the fact that he shot a horrendous 34.6% from the floor for the season and even his 3 point shooting was underwhelming at 34.3%.

That's the team Kobe made 7th in scoring and 8th in offensive rating, and I'd bet they were near the top in the second half when Odom finally played more consistently.

Nash's Suns were obviously a more potent offense, and they were 1st in scoring and 2nd in offensive rating, but they had a lot more talent to work with, and had a team who not only fit well in D'Antoni's system, but played off of Nash well as almost all of them were dangerous 3 point shooters, slashers or good open court players. Shawn Marion had a much better year than Odom and made the all-nba 3rd team. Marion averaged 22/11 on 53% shooting with 2 spg, 1.7 bpg and just 1.5 turnovers per game. Obviously, Marion benefited from playing with Nash since his strengths offensively were his finishing in the open court, his slashing and he liked the corner 3, but Marion was already a 20 ppg scorer before he played with Nash so Nash just made him more efficient. Of course, Marion's versatility, particularly defensively was very valuable as well. Boris Diaw was also voted the Most Improved Player as he averaged 13/7/6 on 53% shooting. Diaw has always been a great passer, he had a nice post game, made his mid-range shots, and despite playing a different style, he gave the Suns something similar to what Odom gave the Lakers with his versatility. Diaw was a forward who had entered the league as a guard with the Hawks and was often the Suns' biggest player on the court as the de facto center while being an excellent secondary facilitator. Diaw also didn't start the year as a starter, but played his way into that role and like Odom, got better as the year went on averaging 16/7/7 on 57% shooting in the second half. Nash also got a great year out of Raja Bell who in addition to his defense, shot lights out from 3. No question he capitalized on Nash's passing, but you still have to make the shots, and Bell did just that averaging 14.7 ppg while making 2.5 threes per game while shooting 44.2%, which was 5th best in the NBA, and he was 3rd in made 3s with 197, just behind Gilbert Arenas who only made 2 more, but took one more game to do it. Bell was also 3rd in eFG% at 56.3%. Leandro Barbosa was one of the fastest players in the league and averaged 13 ppg while coming off the bench most of the year. He complemented his speed with a very dangerous 3 point shot as evidenced by his 44.4 3P%, which was 3rd best in the league and his 55.8 eFG%. They also had Tim Thomas late in the year, and he was always a talented offensive player at 6'10" who averaged 11 ppg in just 24 mpg for them while shooting 43% on 3s and had even more shooters in Eddie House and James Jones who averaged between 9-10 ppg, shot about 39% on 3s, made 1.5 of them per game and did it in just 17.5 and 23.6 mpg, respectively. To round out the cast was Kurt Thomas who was one of their few big men, but a good defender and rebounder with a consistent mid-range shot who was definitely better than any of the Lakers' big men excluding Odom. Not surprisingly, Phoenix finished first at 39.9% and led the league with 837 made 3s, 212 more than the Warriors who were 2nd.

Given the enormous disparity in the talent, I'd argue the Lakers having the 8th best offense was more impressive than Phoenix having the 2nd best offense. Kobe's cast was really bad lacking a legit 2nd option, being surrounded by fringe players other than Odom, lacking shooters as evidenced by the fact that they were in the bottom half in 3P% and a pretty mediocre defense(which was actually virtually identical to the Suns' defense statistically.) The only thing you can really say is that the Lakers were a solid rebounding team outrebounding opponents by 2 rpg. Nash's cast certainly lacked size, but there's no question they had loads of offensive talent with more shooters than anyone could hope for, versatile forwards like Marion and Diaw and if you look at their sixth man Leandro Barbosa, he was definitely a more dangerous scorer than any of Kobe's teammates.

There's so many things to look at, but aside from how impressive it is to lead your team to a very productive offensive season while being asked to play 41 mpg and take over 27 shots per game, just look at how each of these team's offenses fared with and without the stars. The Suns offensive rating was a phenomenal 114.8 with Nash on the court, but still respectable without him at 106.4, which was just above league average. Meanwhile, the Lakers had an excellent 112.6 offensive rating with Kobe on the court, but it was horrendous with him off the court at 93.7. Finally, it's worth noting that Nash played 35.4 mpg, while Kobe played 41 mpg as mentioned before. What it comes down to is there's no question in my mind that Kobe was a better player and had a better season, and there's also no question in my mind that the disparity in team success was not nearly as great as the disparity in talent, and Kobe's success was more impressive considering their situations.

The more I think about this season, the more I'm leaning towards it as Kobe's peak over 2008.

Historical stuff from Bryant. This is a year, offensively, I'd rank only slightly below peak Magic/Bird/Jordan/LeBron. He was at his peak athleticism wise, jumper was there, he could basically do whatever he wanted to any defense he wanted.

Undoubtedly the best in the league. To me, when I was watching back then, it wasn't even close. Only Dirk really had an argument. Once Odom started playing at a decent level for the last 30 games, Kobe had the Lakers at a 111.5 ORtg, 0.1 behind the Mavs for the league lead. Kobe was anchoring a league-best offense with ONE other serviceable offensive player. This says it all I think.

2007: The most efficient season of Kobe's career. It also gave a good glance of the game-management and facilitation skills that Kobe would show in 2008-10.

Through 39 games, he had the Lakers at 26-13. In fact, they were 14-6 through the first 20 games before Odom got hurt. Odom was playing like a near AS, averaging 18-9-5 on good efficiency. This should really dispell notions that Kobe at that era couldn't play with good teammates. Walton was benefiting too, averaging 12-5-4 on 50-43-75 through that good start. Kobe was playing steady basketball as the captain of a ship that was cruising along at a 112.2 ORtg, with 28-6-6 on 59% TS.

Then the injuries really took their toll. As soon as Odom returned, Walton got injured. And Odom was playing far worse than he was pre-injury. Kobe continued to play his part-facilitator role, but the team was just too bad for it to be effective. With Kobe, a broken Odom, and a D-League roster, the Lakers stumbled to a 7-18 record over the next 25 games. They were going to be out of the Playoffs, until Phil told Kobe to completely take over the offense. He did, to the tune of 40-6-5 on 58% TS. The Lakers managed to crack .500 for that stretch at 9-8, showing the difference between Kobe taking a step back (like his detractors love him to) and actually taking control of the offense on a terrible team.

His Playoffs were good by his own standards, but not spectacular. His team was so outmatched there really wasn't much he could do. It is memorable for that 45-6-6 game 3 when he threw the kitchen sink at the Suns and somehow came away with a win despite the Lakers getting 86% of their points from him, Odom and Kwame.

He probably was better than in '06 when he really got going, but for the whole season, probably just slightly worse. I'd say he was the best in the league again, Nash and Duncan were a bit better than in '06, but his main contenders in '06 were Dirk and Wade and both of them had much weaker years.

The MVP and repeat years: 2008-10

2008: The promised land. People love to claim that it was just Pau that turned the franchise around but Kobe had the Lakers at 25-11 through 36 games with his second option, Bynum, averaging 13-10. That's one of the worse second options in the league, and Kobe still had them comfortably in the middle of the WCF standings, flitting between the 2-4 seeds.

The Bynum injury, by all rights, should have killed the Lakers season. Possibly scared of the prospect of being the second option again, Odom went into a funk and averaged 12-10 on 42% shooting over the next 11 games. Kobe refused to let the team slip, going into supernova, averaging 34-8-6 on 61% TS in the same stretch, somehow keeping Fisher, Sasha, Turiaf, Farmar and Walton at a 6-5 record until the front office found a way to replace Bynum's production.

The Gasol trade was the best thing to happen to Kobe's career. It showed just how effective he could make a team with one other truly reliable offensive player. Kobe increased his efficiency, rebounding, facilitation and played better defense, with his volume remaining pretty much the same. Gasol's efficiency jumped up from 50.1% FG to 58.9% FG playing with Kobe, and the Lakers went 22-5 in the games that both played.

Overall, Kobe averaged 28-6-5 with elite defense, on 57% TS. The Lakers finished with a 7.3 SRS, and this was on a team with another truly reliable player for less than a third of the season. This was an underestimated carry job by Kobe. The Lakers could have slipped into oblivion at any time but he didn't let them.

The Playoffs were the cherry on the cake. ShaqAttack again:

The Lakers were virtually unbeatable with Gasol at 22-4 excluding the 2-3 minute game and then dominated the West including the defending champion Spurs in 5 during the WCF. The Spurs were no joke either since they had Duncan who was only slightly past his prime and 2 other all-star caliber players in Parker and Ginobili who was at his peak and probably the 2nd best shooting guard behind only Kobe that year. What was so impressive about Kobe's playoff run is that he almost seemed to be toying with his West opponents as he averaged 31.9 ppg, 6.1 rpg and 5.8 apg on 50.9 FG% in 15 games during the 3 West rounds playing that team-oriented style. Despite the finals loss, I still consider this Kobe's best playoff run. He had that game vs Denver when he shot 18/27 overall, 5/9 on 3s and 8/9 from the line for 49 points, and while I haven't seen the game since, I remember him being so hot that it looked like he could have had 60+ early had he pushed the issue, but LA won easily by 15 points.

32-6-6 on 61% TS against 3 top 6 defenses and 50 win teams. The Finals against the Cs was underwhelming, but as good as the Lakers were the Celtics were just so loaded they were clearly outmatched. I'm not one of those Laker fans that think Bynum would've made a difference. The big 3 were playing at a historic level at that point. Hold it against him if you wish, but remember, make sure to hold KG's failures against him too when his team is lacking in comparative talent.

I have Kobe no. 1 again, the last year he will be at this spot. I do think he was the best overall player for '06-'08, and in terms of three-year peaks it's not quite in the '91-'93 MJ, '63-'65 Russell or '66-'68 Wilt level but I think it matches up fairly well with guys like Bird and Hakeem.

2009: I summed this up with a post in a thread I made some time ago:

I was watching parts of the Lakers '09 Playoffs and it just occurred to me that 2009 doesn't get brought up enough when talking about Kobe's best seasons, and indeed some of the best seasons by a wing, ever.

The Lakers had a 10 game lead on one of the toughest conferences in history. Not to say Kobe didn't have a great cast, but this was a 7.8 SRS team and he was +11.1 on/off for the +/- guys. For an elite team, it doesn't get too much higher, because they aren't going to be putrid when the star is off, they wouldn't be elite then. His +116.1 On-Court ORtg is among the highest we've seen from a player not on the Suns dynasty.

He was also still quite elite on defense, probably the last year he was consistently up there.

The Lakers cruised to a 37-9 record, and then Bynum got injured. Many people feared a slowdown, but Kobe took on the extra load and averaged a 32-5-5 over the next 12 games, leading the Lakers to a 11-1 record. That stretch shows he was still absolutely capable of scoring how many ever points he needed to, just like '06 and '07, he just took it easy to get the team-mates into the game as well.

That stretch put the Lakers in the driving seat for the conference and they cruised from then on. They beat every other contender, home or away. Snapped the Celtics' 19 and 12 game winning streaks, and the Cavs' 23 game home winning streak. Kobe kept them focused as hell, this was probably when his team-mates' fear of him transformed into a determination to please. His leadership had real, tangible impact on the Lakers that season.

Then in the Playoffs, the Lakers stomped. The Houston series was a minor blip where they were losing focus from time to time, but every time they lost they responded with a blowout. After that 118-78 result, did they ever look like losing that series? Kobe was still consistent enough in that series, it was the supporting cast who couldn't keep it together mentally. He did, however, along with Phil, keep getting them back on track and winning all the statement games. He did so while dealing with Battier and Artest tag-teaming him on defense.

The Denver series was his magnum opus. Has anyone forgotten that 'bad mofo' face? Has anyone forgotten all the insane shots he hit with a hand in his face, Dahntay and the other Nuggets playing picture perfect defense? Has anyone forgotten the way he pulled a team that was struggling to close game 1 to a victory by scoring or assisting 13 of the last 15 points? Has anyone forgotten that game 6 when he basically looked untouchable, going for a 35/10 and ripping the Nuggets to shreds while the Lakers won by 30? Has anyone forgotten the ridiculous 35/6/6 overall performance he put together?

I'm not saying he was better than LeBron that year, but this should be considered one of the best seasons by a wing ever. His numbers weren't as good as they used to be, but what was he supposed to do, put up nicer stats when he had Odom/Gasol and lose instead? He did everything his team needed him to, and when his guys were sagging, he picked up all the slack and dominated, as we saw in multiple stretches throughout the season.

Really, I think the only Playoff run by a wing definitely better than this (after Jordan) is '12 LeBron. What do you guys think?

LeBron was definitely better this year. No question in my mind. But Kobe was a deserved no. 2. I can get ranking Wade over him, but I think Kobe played just as well in the later Playoff rounds as Wade did in the regular season, and Wade really didn't have a good Playoffs at all.

2010: A very underrated year for Kobe.

This was the year he completed the development of his post-game, and it was more effective than Jordan's ever was. Here's Bill Simmons on Kobe during the first half of the season, a stretch when Bryant had the Lakers at 25-6 through 31 games (more than half of which Pau missed by the way), averaging 30-6-5 on 57% TS.

I can't remember anyone reinventing himself historically as well as Kobe did these past 16 months. The Olympics, then the 2009 Finals, then the media victory lap that everyone ate up … and then, when it seemed as if we were headed for a decline, he reinvented himself as the second coming of post-baseball Jordan and developed an even nastier, more physical post-up game than MJ had. I can't believe what I am watching. It's staggering. He's like a 6-foot-6 Hakeem Olajuwon. I went into this season thinking Kobe would be able to last just one or two more seasons at a high level; now I'm wondering whether he could play like this well into his late 30s. Why not? I mean, Karl Malone did it. Like Malone, Kobe is a workout freak who takes care of his body and seems predisposed to staying healthy, anyway. Malone averaged a 26-10 and made second-team All-NBA in the 1999-2000 season when he was 36 years old … and then he played four years after that. Kobe is only 31. Could he replicate Malone's longevity and consistency?

He did get injured later on, yes, no one is disputing that. But before that, he was playing as well as he ever had, and picked up at that level in the Playoffs. I don't know why people were shocked in the Playoffs, he played just as well in the first half... For 9 games before his injury, he averaged 37-7-5 on 58% TS!

I'm not going to lie and say the second half of the regular season was pretty. Coming out of the regular season one could argue he was behind LeBron, Durant and Howard all.

But then he went and had one of his best Playoffs ever. He still struggled with his knee for a bit at the beginning of the OKC series, but after game 5 had his knee drained and then ripped off an all-time hot streak. He averaged 31-7-6 on 59% TS over the last 18 games of the regular season. He was easily the best player in the Playoffs that year, and I think it should boost him over Durant and Howard. I'd still give LeBron the edge that year, with Kobe 2nd. Wade, Nash, Durant and Howard fight it out for spots 3-5.

He had that historic Phoenix series, averaging 34-7-8 on a 135 ORtg, 64% TS!!! People don't appreciate how dominant he was in that series.

His Finals got marred by game 7, but before that he was doing 30/7/4 on 56% TS. Against the kind of defense he was facing, that's remarkable to say the least.

It's hard to argue against what Kobe did in the Playoffs that year.

Overall, I think Kobe from 2008-10 was more impressive than second threepeat Jordan in the Playoffs... But that's just me.

________________________________________________________________________

I know that was a ridiculously long post, lemme give it to you in cliffs:

-2000 was a great second option year, comparable to prime Pippen. Got the Lakers out of several tight situations (game 7 Portland, game 4 Indy), and doubled up as the best perimeter defender in the league. Perfect second option to Shaq.

-2001: Underrated regular season, historical Playoffs. Carried the Lakers while Shaq was less than his usual self at the start, combined with him for the best run by a duo in NBA history in the Playoffs, was Jordan-esque in the WC Playoffs (32-7-6 on 60% TS).

-2002: Slightly underwhelming regular season but still solid. Killed the Spurs in the Playoffs, came up big in games 6 and 7 against the Kings with Shaq, and had the best finals of the threepeat part of his career.

-2003: Became a complete player. Arguably his best defensive year, added the 3 point shot. Had an all-time 35/40 point game streak to drag the Lakers back into Playoff contention

-2006/2007: All-time offensive years. Dragged garbage to top 7-8 offenses, and when Odom actually played well and gave him a good second option he took the team to the best offense in the league for that same stretch, in both seasons.

-2008: Peak year. Got his defense back. Showed that he could make a bad team decent as well as make a decent team elite, as soon as Pau arrived. What's impressive is the Lakers had a 7.3 SRS with Pau only playing 27 games for them that year. Historically dominant in the Playoffs.

-2009: lead one of the best Laker teams ever despite Bynum getting injured AGAIN, with Pau again his only real reliable teammate. Dominated in the Playoffs, had possibly his best series ever against Denver, and was decisive in the Finals against Orlando.

-2010: Killed it for the first two months in the regular season, clearly the second best player behind LeBron for that stretch. Developed the post-game. Slipped into injuries, but shook them off in the Playoffs to dominate again. Killed the Jazz and Suns, had a good series against Boston considering the level of defense he was facing.

-From 2000 to 2010, here's how I'd rank Kobe in the league year by year: 8, 2, 3, 3, 4, 9, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2. Other than the blip of 2005, that is stunning consistency over a long stretch. Comparable to prime Bird easily.

-In terms of peak play, Bird was better at his absolute zenith, but Kobe gives you 7 years at that level: 2001, 2003, 2006-10, while Bird has 1984-88. The two extra years make a real difference, at that level.

I don't think I can do more talking about the meat of Kobe's career. I'll answer any questions anyone has, and expand more on 2011-13 later.

Vote: Kobe Bryant

2nd: Larry Bird

[Jaivl]

Vote: Kevin Garnett
alt vote: Hakeem Olajuwon

Reasoning all over the place.

[THKNKG]

So, thought I'd try something new here as a way to present numbers that are supporting previously stated scouting/qualitative arguments: graphs. They're visual, quick, and can be inserted in a post without having to keep track of all the numbers. So, below, find 2 graphs: 1) the average of total Win Shares and Wins Produced for all Spurs and Timberwolves teams (excluding KG and Duncan) from 1998 - 2007 with data added for 05 - 07 Kobe & 06 - 07 Dirk, 2) the sum of the VORP of all Spurs, Wolves, Lakers and Mavs squads from 1998 - 2007 (Dirk's starts in 2001).

Both these stats are significantly depended on team wins, so no surprise Dirk's or Duncan's supports look better. But was team winning/loosing more and thus support looking better/worse, because superstar elevated them/superstar wasn't as good as someone thinks or because support alone was so good/bad? In any case these two metrics don't answer this question.

So I went out and did the comparison using 01-15 RAPM for the top 8 in minutes played, not counting KG/Kobe -averages weighted by minutes-. The results:



Some footnotes:

Spoiler:

- 03 LAL: My god, Samaki Walker was a real cancer. -6.62 RAPM and somehow played +1200 minutes.
- 08 BOS has the best players, but the 08 LAL have greater depth.
- Trenton Hassell gets the "why" award, being a -4 player that somehow played +2000 minutes most seasons.
- 04 MIN: The core Sprewell/Cassell is decent, but that's it. Literally the only other players that aren't big negatives are Mark Madsen (-0.17) and Ervin Johnson (+0.26).
- 06 LAL: Parker, Kwame and Mihm are really really bad, but they have solid players playing ~1500 minutes: Walton, Vujacic (still young, so worse than where RAPM puts him) and Brian Cook. Also, the always underrated Lamar Odom.
- 06 & 07 LAL: They were quite young teams, so they were probably a bit worse than shown.
- The 05 MIN and 05 LAL are similar caliber teams. The Wolves won 44 games and the Lakers 34.

EDIT: R^2 between supporting cast RAPM and team SRS = 0.88 for Garnett | 0.83 for Kobe. Big correlation.

About what I expected - Kobe's 05 was as bad as KG's 05 teammate wise, and Kobe didn't have anything approaching 06-07 Garnett's teammates. It's not just RAPM that says it either.
What are those numbers like for Dirk/Duncan?

[Hornet Mania]

My vote goes to:

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

Shaq was arguably the most dominant player at his peak, an absolute unsolvable problem. His playoff performances from 00-04 speak for themselves, few have reached the heights of peak Shaq. Of course Shaq had downsides, his defensive effort was not consistent by any means and never really good against P&R, he had a tendency to resent the fact star guards on his team were given equal (or more) credit/fame than him and ultimately it led to every superstar sidekick he came across (Penny, Kobe, Wade) to be happy when he hit the road. Most notably he didn't really apply himself the same way as most other greats who are typically legendary workout warriors to reach those heights. Nonetheless, Shaq's natural advantages simply trumped his inferior preparation, and when he was locked in he could be as good as it gets.

Hakeem is probably the most well-rounded of the all-time centers, and was clearly the driving force behind a team that repeated as NBA champions. He was really a pleasure to watch at his best, a natural at both ends of the floor with uncommon grace for a big man.

[mischievous]

Vote: Shaq like last time. Same reasoning.

2nd Hakeem

[Jaivl]

About what I expected - Kobe's 05 was as bad as KG's 05 teammate wise, and Kobe didn't have anything approaching 06-07 Garnett's teammates. It's not just RAPM that says it either.
What are those numbers like for Dirk/Duncan?

D i r k
just
doesn't
C A R E



Footnotes:

- First of all, poor Garnett. Dude wasted his prime.
- We all know Nash wasn't "Nash" in 03 and 04, so adjust accordingly.
- Same with 03-04 Spurs Manu and Parker, who are most definitely overrated by RAPM.
- And same with 08 Eddie Jones (~70 years old) being the best Dirk teammate.

- 03 LAL: My god, Samaki Walker was a real cancer. -6.62 RAPM and somehow played +1200 minutes.
- 08 BOS has the best players, but the 08 LAL have greater depth.
- Trenton Hassell gets the "why" award, being a -4 player that somehow played +2000 minutes most seasons.
- 04 MIN: The core Sprewell/Cassell is decent, but that's it. Literally the only other players that aren't big negatives are Mark Madsen (-0.17) and Ervin Johnson (+0.26).
- 06 LAL: Parker, Kwame and Mihm are really really bad, but they have solid players playing ~1500 minutes: Walton, Vujacic (still young, so worse than where RAPM puts him) and Brian Cook. Also, the always underrated Lamar Odom.
- 06 & 07 LAL: They were quite young teams, so they were probably a bit worse than shown.
- The 05 MIN and 05 LAL are similar caliber teams. The Wolves won 44 games and the Lakers 34.
- The Spurs were loaded. That front office sure is something. Other than the occasional Devin Brown or Francisco Elson, they always seemed to have high quality roleplayers (Barry, Horry, Udoka, Nesterovic...).
- Rasho Nesterovic was KG's best teammate in 2003. In the 2006 Spurs, he's behind Horry, Barry and Bowen, obviously Manu, and close with Parker (who obviously had a tougher role).

I hope between this and the other posts (drza, etc) we closed the "xxx-had-similar-casts-to-garnett" argument.

[ardee]

About what I expected - Kobe's 05 was as bad as KG's 05 teammate wise, and Kobe didn't have anything approaching 06-07 Garnett's teammates. It's not just RAPM that says it either.
What are those numbers like for Dirk/Duncan?

D i r k
just
doesn't
C A R E



Footnotes:

- First of all, poor Garnett. Dude wasted his prime.
- We all know Nash wasn't "Nash" in 03 and 04, so adjust accordingly.
- Same with 03-04 Spurs Manu and Parker, who are most definitely overrated by RAPM.
- And same with 08 Eddie Jones (~70 years old) being the best Dirk teammate.

- 03 LAL: My god, Samaki Walker was a real cancer. -6.62 RAPM and somehow played +1200 minutes.
- 08 BOS has the best players, but the 08 LAL have greater depth.
- Trenton Hassell gets the "why" award, being a -4 player that somehow played +2000 minutes most seasons.
- 04 MIN: The core Sprewell/Cassell is decent, but that's it. Literally the only other players that aren't big negatives are Mark Madsen (-0.17) and Ervin Johnson (+0.26).
- 06 LAL: Parker, Kwame and Mihm are really really bad, but they have solid players playing ~1500 minutes: Walton, Vujacic (still young, so worse than where RAPM puts him) and Brian Cook. Also, the always underrated Lamar Odom.
- 06 & 07 LAL: They were quite young teams, so they were probably a bit worse than shown.
- The 05 MIN and 05 LAL are similar caliber teams. The Wolves won 44 games and the Lakers 34.
- The Spurs were loaded. That front office sure is something. Other than the occasional Devin Brown or Francisco Elson, they always seemed to have high quality roleplayers (Barry, Horry, Udoka, Nesterovic...).
- Rasho Nesterovic was KG's best teammate in 2003. In the 2006 Spurs, he's behind Horry, Barry and Bowen, obviously Manu, and close with Parker (who obviously had a tougher role).

I hope between this and the other posts (drza, etc) we closed the "xxx-had-similar-casts-to-garnett" argument.

Problem is you're using only one stat to evaluate all these players which is hardly comprehensive to start with, and on top of that it doesn't even look year by year but it takes their whole careers.

Look at it with some context. Let's take 2006.

The 2006 Timberwolves finished 28th on offense despite actually having serviceable parts around him. Say what you will about Ricky Davis, but he had more offensive utility than Smush effing Parker. Wally was injured for half the year but when he played he was a dynamo, 20 ppg on 60% TS, 40% from 3. That alone was better than anyone on the Lakers, even Odom. They got 40 games from Hudson, also a 40% 3 point shooter. Hassell was probably better offensively than anyone on the Lakers besides Odom as well.

Meanwhile Kobe had Odom and a poo-poo platter and got the 7th ranked offense.

For that team to finish with the 28th offense is just abominable. If you're a superstar with a dynamic if problematic wing, a lights out perimeter scorer, and a couple of decent shooters, and produce that kind of results, it's a major red flag.

Handwaving the Minnesota supporting cast with a single metric is wrong, if you look at it player by player he had decent stuff to work with and still couldn't get it done.

Then take 2007. Odom missed a third of the season. In the remaining games, Brian Cook was his replacement. Smush-Luke-Cook-Brown was what Kobe had to work with. That is undoubtedly worse than Garnett's cast by a good amount.

Someone like Mike James, Randy Foye or hell, even Ricky Davis would've at least given Kobe something to work with. Yet Kobe still had the Lakers with the 7th offense in the league even with all these issues. The 3 players I mentioned above all shot 37% from 3 or more, that is pretty good spacing, Garnett doesn't have an excuse for the terrible Wolves offense.

[THKNKG]

.

Drza compared the casts with 2 other stats as well, which weren't +/-, and the results were the same. How do you explain that consistency in results, while saying something different than what all of those results say?

We're not handwaving badness onto the TWolves; though it appears you are on the 06-07 Lakers.

[ardee]

.

Drza compared the casts with 2 other stats as well, which weren't +/-, and the results were the same. How do you explain that consistency in results, while saying something different than what all of those results say?

We're not handwaving badness onto the TWolves; though it appears you are on the 06-07 Lakers.

VORP and Wins Produced might be too of the worst statistics for basketball analysis. They all stem from the Hollinger school of thought which originated with PER. In fact, read this post from D Nice on why that whole family of stats is god-awful.

Statistics is supposed to be used to build a robust set of tools but, unfortunately, Hollinger is essentially the guy associated with the “advanced stats” movement and its probably why I’ve had great pushback against it; the guy is a narrative-driven hack: his championing achievement of PER was crafted to make the new ESPN poster boy look better than the then pariah who was unanimously held as the games best player. He's a pure fantasy guy with no actual basketball acumen who substituted his fantasy-informed way of thinking about the game as understanding. He basically reverse engineered a “Shawn Marion/KG weighting system” (those were the fantasy guys favorite players ever) and tweaked it a bit to give Lebron an edge over all-arounders but not lose out to superior volume scorers. And it worked. It took Lebron YEARS to catch/pass Kobe (happened in the same year...2009) yet you had people consistently putting 06-08 Lebron ahead of Bryant solely on the basis of PER. And as things moved on the the moniker “advanced” become synonymous with “better” and , well, here we are: an era where “truth” is a function of arbitrary weights chosen by those of little understanding (and...honestly...average at best intelligence).

In discourse people seem to be allowed to make assumptions about the mathematical weights to ascribe in these all in one metrics but no assumptions may be made as the importance or contribution to “goodness” that the more esoteric stuff (skillset team lift/performance, portability, etc) has. That's a shame. In all fields Analytics is supposed to be used to support quality decision-making…that’s it. As soon as you start missing the point, supplanting your assumptions as facts, you start subtracting analytic value rather than adding it – when you’re dealing with people/methods/metrics like that it really is better to just stick to the tape and the box score. If you want to be 100% matter of fact in your stances you better be doing it from a place of accuracy and intelligence and most often the time with the haters is never the case. If you really want to make the approach data centric the only valid courses of analysis are per-possession efficiency (with secondary care to volume) and per-possession impact (which still does require some context). Anything along the lines of win shares and PER are only good for large, sweeping categorizations or filters ~ I want no part of that.

Fact is that despite what the stats say, those players were still useful. Ricky Davis was a dynamic perimeter creator, better than anyone Kobe had to work with. Wally in 2006 was a better perimeter scorer than anyone the Lakers have had (other than Kobe) since probably Glen Rice: 20 ppg on 60% TS. Mike James and Randy Foye were great shooters as well.

Just because the advanced stats say something doesn't remove the utility these players had.