Peaks project update: #15

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Peaks project update: #15 

Post#1 » by LA Bird » Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:03 pm

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77
14) Oscar Robertson 1963-64

Please include at least 1 sentence of reasoning for each of your 3 picks. A simple list of names will not be counted.
If repeating votes from previous rounds, copy and paste the reasoning because "see previous thread for explanation" will not be counted as a valid vote.

Please submit your votes by 12 pm (noon) August 15 Eastern Time

THE VOTING SYSTEM:

Everyone gives their 1st-ballot choice, 2nd-ballot choice, and 3rd-ballot choice. I'll award 4.5 pts for a 1st ballot, 3 for a 2nd ballot, and 2 for a 3rd. Highest point-total wins the round (24-hour run-off will then only be done in the unlikely event of a tie).
Players don't get credit for all the votes they receive in a round, we just count the votes (and the points) for the designated year.

So, you can use your 3 choices to vote for more than 1 season of the same player (if you think that the best 3 seasons among the players left belong all to the same player, nothing is stopping you from using all you 3 choices on that player), but you can't continue voting for other seasons of that player once he wins and gets his spot. The final list will be 1 season per player.

Thank you for your participation!

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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#2 » by freethedevil » Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:42 pm

liamliam1234 wrote:
Again, was 2001 Kobe's peak?

Does 2011 post similat #'s to his later versions? No?

Red herring is red. Frankly, this kind of questioning is tangential and gives me the impression you want me to make your arguments for you. However if we're going to do this thing where you ask me random opinions to seek inconsistencies rather than just crafting your case, I'll ask that you ask questions that would actually tease out inconsistencies.

My case for curry is based on
-> better impact #'s
-> more portability
-> better team

So. any questions should be revolved around examples should feature seasons which posted
-> better impact #'s
-> more portability
-> better team success.

If they don't, then it's a red herring and i'm going to be ignoring it.

It certainly is convenient how we can dismiss the bad playoffs for Curry such that we leave as a sample the single playoffs where his team was operating at its absolute peak and he faced zero adversity at all.

It's amazing you're complaining about sample size while specifically ignoring all data but two small stretches where curry was coming off injuries. If we're going to actually look at sample, then lets look at it properly.

Pro curry sample:
-> 2013-2015 postseason stretch with better #'s than kobe or wade
-> 2017 stretch where a healthy curry posted impact #"s in line with the 82 games of his 2016 rs and which, like the 2013-2015 postseson stretch had better impact #'s than kobe or wade
-> 2019 postseason where he posted best in the league-arguably best #"s. Last 4 regular seasons where he's posted #"s challenging lebron.
Anti-curry sample:
a few games off an injury in 2016 and 2018.

We're talking about single season peaks and you're hand waving a single postseason where curry obliterates both kobe and wade on impact #'s because of multi-game stretches coming off injuries. You're also, by neccesity, hand waving an 82 game regular season where his impact #'s destroyed anything kobe's because of a few games of an injury. So no, this is nonsense. My sample of data is way bigger than yours, so I'm going to dismiss you and eballa's complaints regarding sample size.
Regardless, draymond's impact isn't an argument against curry's so this really is a moot point.

It is when I am trying to call into question inconsistent reliance on "impact".

Draymond being a top 6 player wouldn't contradict curry's being better than kobe. Dray not being a top 6 player wouldn't contradict curry being better than kobe. If i was using the fact curry won exclusively, you may have a point. Alas, I am not, so red herring is red.
If that increases based on playoff value, how good was Nurkic if he ranks in the top ten without being in the playoffs? My guess is that the bigger reason was that Giannis dipped.


You do realize what the pm in pipm stands for? Compare nurkic's minuites with the players you would consider superstars and answer your own question. And no, giannis didn't dip, it's per minuite, not accumulative. Giannis went up a bit. Curry went up more.

Red herring is red.
Cite the full CORP numbers if you are going to use them.


2019 CORP:
Curry, -> 18.7 %
Giannis, -> 18.3 %
Davis -> 16%
Kawhi-> 14%


FYI, Kobe's very best peak corp was 18.7 and unlike 2019 curry, he didn't have points docked for health. Curry has multiple seasons on or above peak kobe's level across the board on impact #"s. So whatever you think of said #"s, the notion that curry only graded higher based on outlier's can only be arrived at with extensive gymnastics.




What impact metrics are you checking? This is what I mean when I say you need to be clear, because I have seen plenty of impact metrics marking Embiid as possibly the league's most impactful force.

Please post these metrics. PIPM, luck adjusted rapm, rpm, corp all say otherwise.

"Physical dominance" is already baked in to skillset, so it's silly to value that seperately.

Considering how we have watched Curry struggle with physical defence more than most, it obviously is not.

You realize what "baked in" means right? Curry's phyiscal failings will affect his effectiveness at basketball skills. So double counting that is redundant and silly and just conforming to your own biases.


Great sample size.

My sample size is bigger than yours which is non existent. And given you're the one whose making assertions regarding curry's teammate on his teammates, it is you who has the burden of proof.



Based on what? They were both very consistent in their playing style. They are less system flexible the way Curry hypothetically is (because of his off-ball value), but that is not the same as being system dependant (unless you mean the "system" is them having high usage, which is pedantic and can be applied to basically any top player).


Alright lets nip in this bud. The problem is we're categorizing certain skills in one box while treating other catergories as a variety of skills. So, lets actually look at who does what better.

Here's what curry does better:


-> cutting inside
-> cutting outside
-> setting screens
-> corner threes
-> elbow threes
-> catch and shoot threes
-> key threes
-> deep threes
-> pull up threes
-> mid range
-> free throws
-> ball handling
-> switching
-> fighting sceeens
-> defensive positioning
-> guarding smalls
-> spacing
-> drawing coverage
-> attacking smalls
-> steals
Here's what kobe does better:
-> interior scoring
-> rim protection
-> passing
-> attacking bigs
-> defending bigs

Kobe is way less versatile meaning there's a smaller range of systems he could excel on meaning he's more system dependent. I realize why you tried to assert the opposite(it's literally your only viable argument for kobe here), but it's utterly baseless and nonsensical. And fyi, i could do the same with wade.

(unless you mean the "system" is them having high usage, which is pedantic and can be applied to basically any top player).

Yes, because curry is far more versatile off the ball than "basically any top player." So, to justify a one way superstar like Bryant being better, you would have to show he's signifcantly more impactful. Nothing supports that though, so you're now trying to reverse engineer excuses for kobe's lack of comparable impact.
Here is PIPM:
Image

Seem familiar? How is that meaningfully different from the exact complaints E-balla had of BPM?

Because that data is being used as an adjustment for the rapm, it isn't actually being used in place of it. Hence why pipm is able to massively outperform bpm.

If good players cannibalise each other, why do impact metrics paint the opposite picture? Why do the Warriors have three of the best six or eight guys? Why does Kevin Durant suddenly leap up the rankings once he joins

Why do you keep insisting on grouping every impact stat together?

Durant's rpm was 11th in 2017. His luck adjusted stats were top 5. The better player's stats got cannibalized by other offensive players. Curry was ranked behind chris paul, while his luck adjusted stats painted him as lebron on their own tier. Again, the better player got cannibalized. I specifically listed rpm, and you just listed a bunch of different metrics as the sabe to obfuscate the point. Also, rpm is a fraction of a team's total value. So. YOu would expect, if a team is cannibalizing, that the shares would be shares by multiple players. Having the best players lowered while the # of players increase is exactly what would happen if they're getting canniablized.

; did he just happen to learn "winning" basketball in that 2016 offseason? Or if we use your PIPM metric, why do the 2018 Rockets have two of the league's three best players?

Because it's luck adjusted? Why wouldn't a team that won 65 games and posted a + 10 srs not have three high players? Do you think they nearly beat the greatest team ever by not being great? :-? Where is the contradiction.

Why is Danny Green a superstar impact player on the Raptors? Why is Robert Covington basically on par with Towns? Why is Otto Porter a perpetual metrics maestro? It is because they are all excelling in their roles.

Fringe top 20 is superstar now?
:lol:

They aren't even close to the best players. Red herring is red.
They are not being dinged because they are not being asked to do anything difficult for their skillset. They are not carrying the teams the way players like Garnett and Lebron and young Jordan and 2002-03 Duncan did. This is not the full story of basketball, and it should be obvious if you guys ever bothered to look at the players next to your specific points of focus.

This is relevant to curry how?

Oh, no, it's not. It's a silly red herring. Curry does more than kobe does. Yet again, you're deseprately grasping for some inconsistency on my part instead of just crafting a compelling case for the peaks you prefer. Curry has a wider variety of skills than wade or kobe, so using garnett in place of kobe and curry in place of green is beyond laughable. Kobe and wade are more similar to green or porter than curry is, rendering this anaolgy invalid. If you wish to dispute that, then do so. in fact, you really have to do so, because that's quite literally the only relevant claim you've made

And fyi, every single player you listed kills the likes of wade and kobe's best seasons in luck adjusted stats(Like AuPM). So listing players at the fringe of the top 20 and then somehow linking them, as superstars, to curry, is the most gymnastic of gymnastics.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#3 » by Colbinii » Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:47 pm

1. Chris Paul 2015

It is time for Chris Paul to start showing up here in the discussion.

Many people like Chris Paul's 2008 campaign over his Clipper days but I am not one of them. First, I think there is a natural curve for players to progress, barring health, through the entirety of their 20's until a players body wears down. Point Guards, especially Point Gods like Magic, Nash, Kidd and Paul are no different. Though they may lose a quarter of step in quickness they can make up for it with an ability to manage a game, dictate the pace and know all the nuances there are to know about teammates and opponents.

If we think back to 2015 we had first round match-ups consisting of the 55-win, reigning champion, 6.33 SRS Spurs facing off against the 56-win, 6.80 SRS Clippers. We also had the 56-win Rockets facing a 50-win Mavericks team and a 55-win Grizzles team facing the 51-win Portland team; Wow. The Clippers drew the short end of the stick but needed Chris Paul in every game this season; his only 82-game regular season of his career. The Clippers rattled off 7-games in a row to end the season and claim home-court in the first round over the San Antonio Spurs, perhaps topped by the fact the Clippers won 14 of the final 15 games of the season.

Over the final 15 games of the season, with a bolstering 14-1 record, Chris Paul put up 22.1/11.1/4.1 with 2.1 steals, 46.1% from 3 on 5.1 Attempts/Game, and a whopping 1.9 Turnovers. Let that sink in; 14-1 record, 5.8 Assist to Turnover Ratio, +18.1 On-Court rating. Some more goodies over this stretch: 66.7 TS%, 51.4 AST%/10.1 TOV%, 141 Offensive Rating.

Oh and the only loss? A 4-point loss to Golden State where Chris Paul was +4 while on the court in 39 minutes (Team -8 in the 8 minutes he sat).

In the first round of the post-season Chris Paul faced the San Antonio Spurs (mentioned above). 108.5 Offensive Rating (7th), 102.0 Defensive Rating (2nd). However, the team was even better than this as both Duncan/Leonard averaged 35 MPG in the post-season and right around 30 in the regular season (31.8 for Leonard/28.9 for Duncan). Chris Paul orchestrated a +6.0 offense against this defense, posting 22.7/4.6/7.9/2.0, 63.2 TS%, 3.4 AST/TOV ratio and 124 Offensive Rating. The Clippers were +18 in the 275 minutes Paul played in and -21 in the 61 minutes he sat. Per 48 On: +3.1; PER 48 Off: -16.5.
I realize the sample is small but it falls right in line with CP3's on/off for the regular season as well at +20.3 (PS @ +19.6).

Quite Frankly, when compared to someone like Steph Curry, well, Curry hasn't matched a lot of these numbers.

During the 24-game win streak in 2016 the Warriors were +15.1 with Curry on the Court; Paul was +18.1 for his 15 game stretch.
Curry's numbers were absurd at 32.5/6.1/5.3 with 2.3 steals, 46.5% from 3 on 11.2 Attempts/Game but with 3.8 turnovers. Chris Paul put up 22.1/11.1/4.1 with 2.1 steals, 46.1% from 3 on 5.1 Attempts/Game, and a whopping 1.9 Turnovers.
Curry had 69.2 TS%, 31.2 AST%/13.9 TOV%, 126 Offensive Rating.
Paul had 66.7 TS%, 51.4 AST%/10.1 TOV%, 141 Offensive Rating.

I will be posting more later but I am in a camp that believes quite firmly Chris Paul, in 2015, was as good if not better than 2016 Curry.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#4 » by freethedevil » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:06 pm

Colbinii wrote:1. Chris Paul 2015

It is time for Chris Paul to start showing up here in the discussion.

I look forward to seeing you support this season long stretch with a season worth of data...

If we think back to 2015 we had first round match-ups consisting of the 55-win, reigning champion, 6.33 SRS Spurs facing off against the 56-win, 6.80 SRS Clippers. We also had the 56-win Rockets facing a 50-win Mavericks team and a 55-win Grizzles team facing the 51-win Portland team; Wow. The Clippers drew the short end of the stick but needed Chris Paul in every game this season; his only 82-game regular season of his career. The Clippers rattled off 7-games in a row to end the season and claim home-court in the first round over the San Antonio Spurs, perhaps topped by the fact the Clippers won 14 of the final 15 games of the season.

Over the final 15 games of the season, with a bolstering 14-1 record, Chris Paul put up 22.1/11.1/4.1 with 2.1 steals, 46.1% from 3 on 5.1 Attempts/Game, and a whopping 1.9 Turnovers. Let that sink in; 14-1 record, 5.8 Assist to Turnover Ratio, +18.1 On-Court rating. Some more goodies over this stretch: 66.7 TS%, 51.4 AST%/10.1 TOV%, 141 Offensive Rating.

...or we can use less than a 4th of the rs. That works, too, I guess. :roll:


During the 24-game win streak in 2016 the Warriors were +15.1 with Curry on the Court; Paul was +18.1 for his 15 game stretch.
Curry's numbers were absurd at 32.5/6.1/5.3 with 2.3 steals, 46.5% from 3 on 11.2 Attempts/Game but with 3.8 turnovers. Chris Paul put up 22.1/11.1/4.1 with 2.1 steals, 46.1% from 3 on 5.1 Attempts/Game, and a whopping 1.9 Turnovers.
Curry had 69.2 TS%, 31.2 AST%/13.9 TOV%, 126 Offensive Rating.
Paul had 66.7 TS%, 51.4 AST%/10.1 TOV%, 141 Offensive Rating.

Yes, lets compare a 15 game stretch to a 24 game one. Thats' not arbitrary...

I will be posting more later but I am in a camp that believes quite firmly Chris Paul, in 2015, was as good if not better than 2016 Curry.

You know curry's played more than one season, right?
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#5 » by Colbinii » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:20 pm

freethedevil wrote:You know curry's played more than one season, right?


Why the need to be condescending?

2015 RS Paul: 4.4 Ast/TO, 126 Ortg
2016 RS Curry: 2.1 Ast/TO, 125 Ortg
2015 PS Paul: 4.1 Ast/TO, 127 Ortg
2016 PS Curry: 2.0 Ast/TO, 126 Ortg

I think there is a lot more data pointing to Paul being the better, more consistent offensive player here.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#6 » by freethedevil » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:36 pm

Colbinii wrote:
freethedevil wrote:You know curry's played more than one season, right?


Why the need to be condescending?

2015 RS Paul: 4.4 Ast/TO, 126 Ortg
2016 RS Curry: 2.1 Ast/TO, 125 Ortg
2015 PS Paul: 4.1 Ast/TO, 127 Ortg
2016 PS Curry: 2.0 Ast/TO, 126 Ortg

I think there is a lot more data pointing to Paul being the better, more consistent offensive player here.

Are you defining "better offensive player" as the player with the higher assist to to ratio? :-?

How about curry being more efficient on higher volume? As in #1 in effiency AND #1 in volume.

It also puzzles me you decided to use +/- for a 15 game stretch, but didn't mention there season wide +/- where curry had paul beat in 2015 and 2016.

Then there's the fact that while curry was leading the league in effiency and volume, he also led the league in box creation, as in, he created the most open shots for his teammates, which i assume is the point of trying to pass the ball. not trying to keep a nice assist to turnover ratio.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#7 » by HHera187 » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:49 pm

N.1 STEPHEN CURRY 2016
Goat offensive regular season, GS was a 50 W team. Despite the injuries and bad finals, he was the best player on the court in the WCF VS OKC.

N.2 STEPHEN CURRY 2017
His best postseason. He was the leader in every advanced statistic of the best team ever, another all time level offensive CLINIC. 9.1 OBPM in postseason.

N.3 JERRY WEST 1969
West is one of the best 3 or 4 finals performer of all time, in '69 he showed up why: legendary performance vs Boston. He was the best offensive player by far from 65 to 69, I choose his best postseason.

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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#8 » by E-Balla » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:49 pm

Timmyyy wrote:Dirk played POR, LAL, OKC and MIA. The offensive performances against these teams were +4.1, +10.9, +5.5, +5.7 above the RS Drtg of these teams respectively. Taking a simple average of that, they were +6.55 per PO series (defense -3.2, -10.2, -1.1, -5.3. Average -4.95). Comparing that to the RS offense of the Mavs which was a +2.1, they actually elevated themselves pretty clearly (+4.45 over the expectations from RS) with Dirk as their clear leader on that end (defensively -2.8. So clear improvement there too albeit I won't credit Dirk for that too much). Seeing that the Mavs where significantly worse when Dirk was off and that he had a ortg of 112.2 with him is another indicator for how important he was (although I have to say that Terry played a huge part too).

Now doing the same for Wade, he played CHI, NJN, DET and DAL. Offensive performances were +3.6, +9.3, +2, -4.1 resulting in an average of +2.7 (defense +0.4, +1.7, -10.9, -11.5. Average -5.1). Comparing that to the Heats RS performances they did roughly as expected on offense (+0.1 compared to RS offense) and elevated their performance on defense (-3.6). Wade as Dirk was the heart and soul on offense (107 Ortg). He other than Dirk didn't have another player with a comparable on court Ortg (in Dirks case only Terry who had an even better one than Dirk). So that should clearly be acknowledged when drawing conclusions.

I have no idea what you're doing with these calculations exactly but the Mavs by my calculation had a +8.1 offense and Miami a +3.5. I do have the averages done to account for games played against each team so maybe those weights do enough to change the numbers off what you got. Just wanted to fix those numbers for you there, the conclusion (that Dirk led a better offense) is still true. It's relevance? I don't know.

To me these the argument for these two comes down to the fact that Wade outplayed Dirk by a DISTANCE in both the 06 and 11 Finals. Off that I find it hard to place him higher, when they've both been on the floor together during their peaks at key moments and it was pretty obvious who was the better player. Why someone would take Dirk over Wade knowing in a head to head situation Wade is going to be the best player on the floor at almost all times, I don't know.

And you mention Terry but only in passing. Terry's offensive on/off was just as strong as Dirk's and his overall performance offensively (18/2/3 on 60 TS% while shooting 44% from deep) was way better than every player in Miami outside of Wade by far. Terry had a higher offensive rating and on/off than Dirk in the 2011 playoffs. Wade had a +21.9 offensive on/off and the next highest that saw significant PT was James Posey's +4.5. Posey was also one of 2 players on the team to shoot over 30% from deep and the only player to shoot over 40% which is why his offensive impact was so high. Shaq, while good in some series, was 37% on FTs and generally bad offensively outside in 2 of the 4 series.

To sum it up, starting from a pretty good +/- data base that is painting Dirk as the higher impact player for the season, we look into the PO's and see that Dirks team elevated their offensive performance to a great degree. Not all of that is on Dirk as he had good help, but he was the leader and should get a lot of credit. The defense improved too, but I don't think Dirk should be seen as a major part of that.
Wade's team didn't elevate their offensive performances and although that seems to be for the most part due to having less help, the gap still seems to be pretty significant. The Heats defense improved but as Dirk, Wade wasn't more than a part of the D and not the major key.

What I take away from it is that I saw Dirk and Wade comparable on both sides of the ball from the eye test. RAPM has Dirk as more impactful. Dirk elevated his game in the PO's according to my interpretation of the +/-, my eye test and the boxscore. Wade elevated his game when I follow my eye test and from a boxscore perspective too. Wade +/- analysis when used with context should make it clear that Wade had the tougher way to improve his team and therefore didn't do it as well as Dirk.
I want to make clear that I didn't do the +/- analysis to give a Dirk>Wade in the PO's argument per se. I rather want to show that looking at the boxscore doesn't do the guy that makes more impact away from the boxscore any favor. Neither does raw on/off when Dirk had a way more balanced team (on/off is higher when you have a bad bench). I wanna give a counter part showing that there are indicators that Dirk elevated his team to a comparable degree as Wade did, while having a solid argument for better overall season impact via RAPM.

So please note that I have them freakin close. I personally go with Dirk by a slight margin. I just wanna share that view since I thought talking about needing bias to have him in front is doing Dirk a huge disfavor.

So I just want to mostly comment on you continuing to say RAPM puts Dirk higher. That's a gross misuse of RAPM. First off comparing it year to year like that is really no bueno unless it's regularized. Secondly both guys led the league in RAPM and since RAPM is adjusted to league average all you can really say about them is both guys were clearly the most impactful players in the league. That's significant because Dirk led the league in RAPM in 2011, for the only time in his career, a year where the guys who were top 2 in RAPM in 2010 (Dwyane Wade and LeBron James) became teammates. Meanwhile Wade's competition in 06 was MVP Dirk, possible peak Kobe, and peak Nash. Now I'm not saying Wade's RAPM is better, just that it's effectively a wash. The most accurate thing you can say is that both guys were clearly best in the league.

Personally I'm taking Wade because I remember seeing them on the floor playing each other and he was obviously the better player, but I can see the argument for Dirk and you made it well. I just think that particular usage of RAPM is horrid. Now let me jump out of this because I still need to work on my post for my vote.

Next up for me is Moses, GOATbrook, and 09 (not 06 and there's a meaningful difference IMO) Wade.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#9 » by Colbinii » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:59 pm

freethedevil wrote:Are you defining "better offensive player" as the player with the higher assist to to ratio? :-?



No, but I'm pointing out that while Curry beats Paul in Scoring and efficiency, Paul is still Great in that regard but crushes Curry in terms of turnover economy. He is also more efficient on a per-possession basis.

How about curry being more efficient on higher volume? As in #1 in effiency AND #1 in volume.
I dont value scoring efficiency clearly above turnover economy and other fields.

It also puzzles me you decided to use +/- for a 15 game stretch, but didn't mention there season wide +/- where curry had paul beat in 2015 and 2016.


I was simply showing "Hey look, Paul can play at this level for 25 games (playoffs and 15 rs) while having significantly worse teammates around him.

FWIW Curry didnt even lead his own team in +/-; Draymond crushed him.

Then there's the fact that while curry was leading the league in effiency and volume, he also led the league in box creation, as in, he created the most open shots for his teammates, which i assume is the point of trying to pass the ball. not trying to keep a nice assist to turnover ratio.


Well a nice assist to turnover ratio is a clear signal for easy offensive buckets and a way to set the defense up. Turnovers lead to the most efficient offense for the opposition.

Do you have box-creation for 2015?
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#10 » by E-Balla » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:02 pm

1. 83 Moses Malone - The short version is that Moses was the best player in the league, on an historically great team, with great +/- estimates, and a gamebreaking ability on the offensive boards (averaged 6.5 offensive rebounds a game from 79 to 83). The gap between him and Curry who has that same argument (replace rebounding with 3 point shooting) is that outside of that one amazing ability Moses was still well above average at everything else. His jumper, defense (in 83 at least), and post game was already solid. His one weakness was his weak passing ability but it didn't hinder his chance to lead great or mediocre teams so I don't know how much it concerns me.

2. 17 Russell Westbrook - I'm on record since 2017 saying next to 09 LeBron this is the best season I've seen since I've watched basketball religiously. The short version here is that he averaged a 30 point triple double, made 200 three pointers, was the most clutch player ever (sidebar but this is one of my favorite posts in RealGM history, and it perfectly encapsulates exactly how clutch he was), and averaged 37/12/11 in the playoffs while destroying Houston, only losing because his team was the worst team I've ever seen in the playoffs without him on the floor. Unlike many here he had to also overcome horrible fitting teammates (they had the worst 3 point percentage in the league outside of him) and the worst coach in the league. Now those are things we can all agree on, the main argument against Westbrook is that he couldn't perform on a better team/contender. To that I say look at the year prior.

In 2016 Westbrook played next to KD and had a great squad around him. He was arguably the best player on the team averaging 24/8/10 for a team that was +7 in the regular season, but beat a +10 team in the second round, and went to 7 with a +11 team in the WCF. Overall in the playoffs the 2016 Thunder are the best team outside of the 09 Nuggets to miss the Finals, the 15th best team ever, and they played at a +13.4 level. Westbrook was the clear best player in their postseason run averaging 26/7/11 on 52 TS% to KD's 28/7/3 on 54 TS% and having clearly better +/- numbers than KD. Right there I'm coming to the conclusion that 2016 Westbrook is worthy of being on this list, but not this high.

The biggest gap in the game of Westbrook from 2016 to 2017 was his shooting. I think outside of that he didn't do anything he couldn't do otherwise. Westbrook's 200 3s made in 2017 was almost twice as much as his career high prior (101 in 2016), and his percentage (34%) was better than in ever (in 2016 he was 29.6%). Adding to that his improvement in 3 point shooting didn't seem like random chance. His FT% was also at a career high, and looking at his month to month shooting splits he was between 31.5% and 37.7% in each full month (so excluding April and October). That's compared to his 29.6% 3 point percentage in 2016. If Westbrook was as good a shooter in 2016 as in 2017 I think the 2016 Thunder are NBA Champions and one of the best ever so the argument that he wasn't capable of leading a team to a ring in 2017 is bogus to me.

3. 09 Dwyane Wade - I'll post more on this later as needed but the short version of his argument here is that he carried a team of nothing to great heights, put up amazing individual production, and we already know from other seasons he's good enough to lead a champion, be a sidekick, and absolutely dominate the very best defenses in league history. He's a floor raiser the level of the top 5ish guys here, just not a ceiling raiser on their level.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#11 » by GeorgeMarcus » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:08 pm

1. 95 D Rob (come on already!)
2. 16 Curry (ditto)
3. 83 Moses

Will try to add reasons later
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#12 » by Timmyyy » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:10 pm

E-Balla wrote:
Timmyyy wrote:Dirk played POR, LAL, OKC and MIA. The offensive performances against these teams were +4.1, +10.9, +5.5, +5.7 above the RS Drtg of these teams respectively. Taking a simple average of that, they were +6.55 per PO series (defense -3.2, -10.2, -1.1, -5.3. Average -4.95). Comparing that to the RS offense of the Mavs which was a +2.1, they actually elevated themselves pretty clearly (+4.45 over the expectations from RS) with Dirk as their clear leader on that end (defensively -2.8. So clear improvement there too albeit I won't credit Dirk for that too much). Seeing that the Mavs where significantly worse when Dirk was off and that he had a ortg of 112.2 with him is another indicator for how important he was (although I have to say that Terry played a huge part too).

Now doing the same for Wade, he played CHI, NJN, DET and DAL. Offensive performances were +3.6, +9.3, +2, -4.1 resulting in an average of +2.7 (defense +0.4, +1.7, -10.9, -11.5. Average -5.1). Comparing that to the Heats RS performances they did roughly as expected on offense (+0.1 compared to RS offense) and elevated their performance on defense (-3.6). Wade as Dirk was the heart and soul on offense (107 Ortg). He other than Dirk didn't have another player with a comparable on court Ortg (in Dirks case only Terry who had an even better one than Dirk). So that should clearly be acknowledged when drawing conclusions.

I have no idea what you're doing with these calculations exactly but the Mavs by my calculation had a +8.1 offense and Miami a +3.5. I do have the averages done to account for games played against each team so maybe those weights do enough to change the numbers off what you got. Just wanted to fix those numbers for you there, the conclusion (that Dirk led a better offense) is still true. It's relevance? I don't know.

To me these the argument for these two comes down to the fact that Wade outplayed Dirk by a DISTANCE in both the 06 and 11 Finals. Off that I find it hard to place him higher, when they've both been on the floor together during their peaks at key moments and it was pretty obvious who was the better player. Why someone would take Dirk over Wade knowing in a head to head situation Wade is going to be the best player on the floor at almost all times, I don't know.

And you mention Terry but only in passing. Terry's offensive on/off was just as strong as Dirk's and his overall performance offensively (18/2/3 on 60 TS% while shooting 44% from deep) was way better than every player in Miami outside of Wade by far. Terry had a higher offensive rating and on/off than Dirk in the 2011 playoffs. Wade had a +21.9 offensive on/off and the next highest that saw significant PT was James Posey's +4.5. Posey was also one of 2 players on the team to shoot over 30% from deep and the only player to shoot over 40% which is why his offensive impact was so high. Shaq, while good in some series, was 37% on FTs and generally bad offensively outside in 2 of the 4 series.

To sum it up, starting from a pretty good +/- data base that is painting Dirk as the higher impact player for the season, we look into the PO's and see that Dirks team elevated their offensive performance to a great degree. Not all of that is on Dirk as he had good help, but he was the leader and should get a lot of credit. The defense improved too, but I don't think Dirk should be seen as a major part of that.
Wade's team didn't elevate their offensive performances and although that seems to be for the most part due to having less help, the gap still seems to be pretty significant. The Heats defense improved but as Dirk, Wade wasn't more than a part of the D and not the major key.

What I take away from it is that I saw Dirk and Wade comparable on both sides of the ball from the eye test. RAPM has Dirk as more impactful. Dirk elevated his game in the PO's according to my interpretation of the +/-, my eye test and the boxscore. Wade elevated his game when I follow my eye test and from a boxscore perspective too. Wade +/- analysis when used with context should make it clear that Wade had the tougher way to improve his team and therefore didn't do it as well as Dirk.
I want to make clear that I didn't do the +/- analysis to give a Dirk>Wade in the PO's argument per se. I rather want to show that looking at the boxscore doesn't do the guy that makes more impact away from the boxscore any favor. Neither does raw on/off when Dirk had a way more balanced team (on/off is higher when you have a bad bench). I wanna give a counter part showing that there are indicators that Dirk elevated his team to a comparable degree as Wade did, while having a solid argument for better overall season impact via RAPM.

So please note that I have them freakin close. I personally go with Dirk by a slight margin. I just wanna share that view since I thought talking about needing bias to have him in front is doing Dirk a huge disfavor.

So I just want to mostly comment on you continuing to say RAPM puts Dirk higher. That's a gross misuse of RAPM. First off comparing it year to year like that is really no bueno unless it's regularized. Secondly both guys led the league in RAPM and since RAPM is adjusted to league average all you can really say about them is both guys were clearly the most impactful players in the league. That's significant because Dirk led the league in RAPM in 2011, for the only time in his career, a year where the guys who were top 2 in RAPM in 2010 (Dwyane Wade and LeBron James) became teammates. Meanwhile Wade's competition in 06 was MVP Dirk, possible peak Kobe, and peak Nash. Now I'm not saying Wade's RAPM is better, just that it's effectively a wash. The most accurate thing you can say is that both guys were clearly best in the league.

Personally I'm taking Wade because I remember seeing them on the floor playing each other and he was obviously the better player, but I can see the argument for Dirk and you made it well. I just think that particular usage of RAPM is horrid. Now let me jump out of this because I still need to work on my post for my vote.

Next up for me is Moses, GOATbrook, and 09 (not 06 and there's a meaningful difference IMO) Wade.


Just wanna comment on the misuse of RAPM thing, since the rest of what you said are valid concerns that I myself see too and that are worth looking deeper into (as I said my goal wasn't to convince guys from anything and more to give a little different perspective than the boxscore comparison we saw).

I said in the first part of my post how I compared it. Both best in the league, Dirk bigger gap between him and the competition in their respective years (No misuse at all), and because of the gap of the raw numbers which were partially +1,5 or +2 apart in the same data sets (meaning exact same prior structure, same data base, same method etc and that gapwas there in more than one set) you can at least consider it. I never said I just compared the scores straight. And to your competition point, LeBron that year was pretty good in RAPM still.

To my calculation, I took their offenses compared to the opponents RS defense, and in the end compared the simple average not adjusting for games played since the series per series info was more interesting for me to the RS offense. But interesting that it changes the picture so much when you adjust for games played, although I am not quite sure if you aren't calculating something completely different.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#13 » by No-more-rings » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:31 pm

Timmyyy wrote:
I will give my case for overall peak and I don't think there is a need to 'just like him more' to have Dirk above Wade for peak (you actually did talk about the PO runs only, so maybe I misinterpret this, but since Dr. P didn't compare Wades and Dirks PO runs in his post rather then just having Dirk 1st, I thought you took that as a point against Dirks season as a whole, since Dr. P can have Wade's PO run as slightly better while having Dirk with the better overall season). Both appear really, really close to me, so I don't know why you feel so strong about that.


He pretty literally stated that Dirk was first because he had a special playoff run, i think by that it's fairly clear the postseason was the main factor with the regular season being good enough to keep him up there. I've never seen what makes it "better" than Wade or perhaps Kobe's 09 for example. I often hear a lot of narratives in regards to it, I'm not accusing him, but i would've liked to see a bit more from him than just a few lines about how he was special and had great impact. He's a good enough poster, so good posters are held to a higher standard.

Timmyyy wrote:First of all I will give a little overall impression on them.
Wade having the ball in his hands more clearly gave him the opportunity to impact the game in the more obvious ways (boxscore) that you compared. Ridiculing Dirks off ball impact by saying it is 'magical' doesn't make it untrue. Dirk was a significantly more impactful off ball player than Wade and Dirk is not the only guy we saw where such an off ball ability made more than up for missing on ball duties (Curry). So offensively it is really close I might still give it to Wade but it is a debate worth having. Defensively Wade was good but just a small. Dirk was average or slightly above that and a big. Comparable I would say, DRAPM has Dirk in front by a solid enough margin that I give the slight nod to him.

So first off, even though it is a peak debate Wade shown during the Heatles era to be just fine at off ball. He's not Dirk in that regard but he's still plenty adaptable.

Dirk's spacing/gravity effect is of course a real thing, but there is really no way to capture it with stats. It can give him a higher ORAPM, but if you're giving Wade a slight edge on offense it's probably not worth getting to much into it.

We have video evidence of Wade being able to dictate games with his defense(through help and man to man), unless you have the same for Dirk i'm not going to agree that Dirk's better defensively because of him being a big man and is better in RAPM. I'm sorry but that's a lazy cop-out that gets repeated time and time again.

Timmyyy wrote:Overall looking at different RAPM sets both look like the best players in the league in their years. But Dirk has a significant bigger gap to the competition than Wade to his and looking at the scores the gap between both looks big enough (to overcome the fact that you can't compare it in detail) to at least consider it in the evaluation.
With that we have a little framework that says they are close and that there definitely is a case for Dirk being better.


That's one route you can go, Dirk looks better relative to completion, though personally i didn't have either as the best in the regular season. In 06 probably Kobe, Dirk and maybe Nash had better regular seasons. In 2011, Lebron definitely had a better regular season, and same with Dwight for what he was able to do.

Timmyyy wrote:Now we go to the PO you mentioned.

Since we know that Wade and Dirk were the anchor of their offenses and only secondary pieces on D I will show how their teams did against the competition they played and compare it to how much better/worse that was than the RS performance. For everything I say now I used NBA.com as a source.

Dirk played POR, LAL, OKC and MIA. The offensive performances against these teams were +4.1, +10.9, +5.5, +5.7 above the RS Drtg of these teams respectively. Taking a simple average of that, they were +6.55 per PO series (defense -3.2, -10.2, -1.1, -5.3. Average -4.95). Comparing that to the RS offense of the Mavs which was a +2.1, they actually elevated themselves pretty clearly (+4.45 over the expectations from RS) with Dirk as their clear leader on that end (defensively -2.8. So clear improvement there too albeit I won't credit Dirk for that too much). Seeing that the Mavs where significantly worse when Dirk was off and that he had a ortg of 112.2 with him is another indicator for how important he was (although I have to say that Terry played a huge part too).

Now doing the same for Wade, he played CHI, NJN, DET and DAL. Offensive performances were +3.6, +9.3, +2, -4.1 resulting in an average of +2.7 (defense +0.4, +1.7, -10.9, -11.5. Average -5.1). Comparing that to the Heats RS performances they did roughly as expected on offense (+0.1 compared to RS offense) and elevated their performance on defense (-3.6). Wade as Dirk was the heart and soul on offense (107 Ortg). He other than Dirk didn't have another player with a comparable on court Ortg (in Dirks case only Terry who had an even better one than Dirk). So that should clearly be acknowledged when drawing conclusions.


This is interesting but hardly tells me anything about their individual performance. I showed with on/off that Wade was lifting his team more. Dallas as a team shot way more 3s, and aside from the 1.8 less attempts than Dirk, neither would have much to do with it. Dallas was just a more trigger happy 3 pt shooting team that happened in an early shift into the current 3 point league. Still a few years or more away, but early signs of it. So naturally they'd perform better offensively than the Heat who were more defense oriented anyway.

So yeah, i don't know how much this means unless you think Dirk is significantly better at creating 3 point shots for his club which is dubious to say the least.

Also, the defense of those teams must be accounted for.

Blazers- 14th ranked defense, 107.1 DRTG
Lakers- 6th ranked defense, 104.3 DRTG, though for that particular series it’s misleading because the Lakers were worn down by that point, Kobe was hurt and needed surgery, Pau was mentally out of it etc. They didn’t play like a top 6 defense or 57 win team in that series or playoffs.
OKC- 15th ranked defense, 107.2 DRTG
Miami- 5th ranked defense and 103.5 DRTG, no surprise Dirk has his worst series here.

The Heat played:
Bulls: 7th ranked defense, 103.4 DRTG
Nets: 4th ranked defense, 102.4 DRTG
Pistons 5th ranked defense, 103.1 DRTG
Dallas- 11th ranked defense, 105 DRTG

Wade’s team went against better defenses overall, and the finals if you go back and watch was ugly from an offensive standpoint. Wade was carrying them offensively, and was more key to their defense than Dirk ever was. Dirk was the 4th best defender in the 2011 mavs lineup. Marion, Tyson and Kidd were all obviously better.


Timmyyy wrote:To sum it up, starting from a pretty good +/- data base that is painting Dirk as the higher impact player for the season, we look into the PO's and see that Dirks team elevated their offensive performance to a great degree. Not all of that is on Dirk as he had good help, but he was the leader and should get a lot of credit. The defense improved too, but I don't think Dirk should be seen as a major part of that.
Wade's team didn't elevate their offensive performances and although that seems to be for the most part due to having less help, the gap still seems to be pretty significant. The Heats defense improved but as Dirk, Wade wasn't more than a part of the D and not the major key.


Eh see above, it's not apples to apples.

Timmyyy wrote:What I take away from it is that I saw Dirk and Wade comparable on both sides of the ball from the eye test. RAPM has Dirk as more impactful. Dirk elevated his game in the PO's according to my interpretation of the +/-, my eye test and the boxscore. Wade elevated his game when I follow my eye test and from a boxscore perspective too. Wade +/- analysis when used with context should make it clear that Wade had the tougher way to improve his team and therefore didn't do it as well as Dirk.
I want to make clear that I didn't do the +/- analysis to give a Dirk>Wade in the PO's argument per se. I rather want to show that looking at the boxscore doesn't do the guy that makes more impact away from the boxscore any favor. Neither does raw on/off when Dirk had a way more balanced team (on/off is higher when you have a bad bench). I wanna give a counter part showing that there are indicators that Dirk elevated his team to a comparable degree as Wade did, while having a solid argument for better overall season impact via RAPM.


Why should box score production be totally dismissed just because Dirk had a higher RAPM? You can keep saying "well impact" but that doesn't explain how the results are actually coming to be.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#14 » by E-Balla » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:46 pm

Timmyyy wrote:
E-Balla wrote:
Timmyyy wrote:Dirk played POR, LAL, OKC and MIA. The offensive performances against these teams were +4.1, +10.9, +5.5, +5.7 above the RS Drtg of these teams respectively. Taking a simple average of that, they were +6.55 per PO series (defense -3.2, -10.2, -1.1, -5.3. Average -4.95). Comparing that to the RS offense of the Mavs which was a +2.1, they actually elevated themselves pretty clearly (+4.45 over the expectations from RS) with Dirk as their clear leader on that end (defensively -2.8. So clear improvement there too albeit I won't credit Dirk for that too much). Seeing that the Mavs where significantly worse when Dirk was off and that he had a ortg of 112.2 with him is another indicator for how important he was (although I have to say that Terry played a huge part too).

Now doing the same for Wade, he played CHI, NJN, DET and DAL. Offensive performances were +3.6, +9.3, +2, -4.1 resulting in an average of +2.7 (defense +0.4, +1.7, -10.9, -11.5. Average -5.1). Comparing that to the Heats RS performances they did roughly as expected on offense (+0.1 compared to RS offense) and elevated their performance on defense (-3.6). Wade as Dirk was the heart and soul on offense (107 Ortg). He other than Dirk didn't have another player with a comparable on court Ortg (in Dirks case only Terry who had an even better one than Dirk). So that should clearly be acknowledged when drawing conclusions.

I have no idea what you're doing with these calculations exactly but the Mavs by my calculation had a +8.1 offense and Miami a +3.5. I do have the averages done to account for games played against each team so maybe those weights do enough to change the numbers off what you got. Just wanted to fix those numbers for you there, the conclusion (that Dirk led a better offense) is still true. It's relevance? I don't know.

To me these the argument for these two comes down to the fact that Wade outplayed Dirk by a DISTANCE in both the 06 and 11 Finals. Off that I find it hard to place him higher, when they've both been on the floor together during their peaks at key moments and it was pretty obvious who was the better player. Why someone would take Dirk over Wade knowing in a head to head situation Wade is going to be the best player on the floor at almost all times, I don't know.

And you mention Terry but only in passing. Terry's offensive on/off was just as strong as Dirk's and his overall performance offensively (18/2/3 on 60 TS% while shooting 44% from deep) was way better than every player in Miami outside of Wade by far. Terry had a higher offensive rating and on/off than Dirk in the 2011 playoffs. Wade had a +21.9 offensive on/off and the next highest that saw significant PT was James Posey's +4.5. Posey was also one of 2 players on the team to shoot over 30% from deep and the only player to shoot over 40% which is why his offensive impact was so high. Shaq, while good in some series, was 37% on FTs and generally bad offensively outside in 2 of the 4 series.

To sum it up, starting from a pretty good +/- data base that is painting Dirk as the higher impact player for the season, we look into the PO's and see that Dirks team elevated their offensive performance to a great degree. Not all of that is on Dirk as he had good help, but he was the leader and should get a lot of credit. The defense improved too, but I don't think Dirk should be seen as a major part of that.
Wade's team didn't elevate their offensive performances and although that seems to be for the most part due to having less help, the gap still seems to be pretty significant. The Heats defense improved but as Dirk, Wade wasn't more than a part of the D and not the major key.

What I take away from it is that I saw Dirk and Wade comparable on both sides of the ball from the eye test. RAPM has Dirk as more impactful. Dirk elevated his game in the PO's according to my interpretation of the +/-, my eye test and the boxscore. Wade elevated his game when I follow my eye test and from a boxscore perspective too. Wade +/- analysis when used with context should make it clear that Wade had the tougher way to improve his team and therefore didn't do it as well as Dirk.
I want to make clear that I didn't do the +/- analysis to give a Dirk>Wade in the PO's argument per se. I rather want to show that looking at the boxscore doesn't do the guy that makes more impact away from the boxscore any favor. Neither does raw on/off when Dirk had a way more balanced team (on/off is higher when you have a bad bench). I wanna give a counter part showing that there are indicators that Dirk elevated his team to a comparable degree as Wade did, while having a solid argument for better overall season impact via RAPM.

So please note that I have them freakin close. I personally go with Dirk by a slight margin. I just wanna share that view since I thought talking about needing bias to have him in front is doing Dirk a huge disfavor.

So I just want to mostly comment on you continuing to say RAPM puts Dirk higher. That's a gross misuse of RAPM. First off comparing it year to year like that is really no bueno unless it's regularized. Secondly both guys led the league in RAPM and since RAPM is adjusted to league average all you can really say about them is both guys were clearly the most impactful players in the league. That's significant because Dirk led the league in RAPM in 2011, for the only time in his career, a year where the guys who were top 2 in RAPM in 2010 (Dwyane Wade and LeBron James) became teammates. Meanwhile Wade's competition in 06 was MVP Dirk, possible peak Kobe, and peak Nash. Now I'm not saying Wade's RAPM is better, just that it's effectively a wash. The most accurate thing you can say is that both guys were clearly best in the league.

Personally I'm taking Wade because I remember seeing them on the floor playing each other and he was obviously the better player, but I can see the argument for Dirk and you made it well. I just think that particular usage of RAPM is horrid. Now let me jump out of this because I still need to work on my post for my vote.

Next up for me is Moses, GOATbrook, and 09 (not 06 and there's a meaningful difference IMO) Wade.


Just wanna comment on the misuse of RAPM thing, since the rest of what you said are valid concerns that I myself see too and that are worth looking deeper into (as I said my goal wasn't to convince guys from anything and more to give a little different perspective than the boxscore comparison we saw).

I said in the first part of my post how I compared it. Both best in the league, Dirk bigger gap between him and the competition in their respective years (No misuse at all), and because of the gap of the raw numbers which were partially +1,5 or +2 apart in the same data sets (meaning exact same prior structure, same data base, same method etc and that gapwas there in more than one set) you can at least consider it. I never said I just compared the scores straight. And to your competition point, LeBron that year was pretty good in RAPM still.

To my calculation, I took their offenses compared to the opponents RS defense, and in the end compared the simple average not adjusting for games played since the series per series info was more interesting for me to the RS offense. But interesting that it changes the picture so much when you adjust for games played, although I am not quite sure if you aren't calculating something completely different.

No I think we're calculating the same and that's just the difference in the weights then. Also I get what you're saying about RAPM but I'd say LeBron and Wade playing together knocked out his competition for the highest RAPM since they were top 2 in 2010, and Lebron was #1 in 2009 with Wade at 4th. I think if they didn't play together Dirk's RAPM would probably be hovering around there's as by 2010 I think they emerged as the 2 best players in the league easily. Overall beyond that you've made a compelling argument for Dirk, I just wanted to comment on that I think the gap between how we feel about Wade and Dirk is understood, as is it's genesis.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#15 » by Timmyyy » Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:37 pm

No-more-rings wrote:
Timmyyy wrote:
I will give my case for overall peak and I don't think there is a need to 'just like him more' to have Dirk above Wade for peak (you actually did talk about the PO runs only, so maybe I misinterpret this, but since Dr. P didn't compare Wades and Dirks PO runs in his post rather then just having Dirk 1st, I thought you took that as a point against Dirks season as a whole, since Dr. P can have Wade's PO run as slightly better while having Dirk with the better overall season). Both appear really, really close to me, so I don't know why you feel so strong about that.


He pretty literally stated that Dirk was first because he had a special playoff run, i think by that it's fairly clear the postseason was the main factor with the regular season being good enough to keep him up there. I've never seen what makes it "better" than Wade or perhaps Kobe's 09 for example. I often hear a lot of narratives in regards to it, I'm not accusing him, but i would've liked to see a bit more from him than just a few lines about how he was special and had great impact. He's a good enough poster, so good posters are held to a higher standard.

Timmyyy wrote:First of all I will give a little overall impression on them.
Wade having the ball in his hands more clearly gave him the opportunity to impact the game in the more obvious ways (boxscore) that you compared. Ridiculing Dirks off ball impact by saying it is 'magical' doesn't make it untrue. Dirk was a significantly more impactful off ball player than Wade and Dirk is not the only guy we saw where such an off ball ability made more than up for missing on ball duties (Curry). So offensively it is really close I might still give it to Wade but it is a debate worth having. Defensively Wade was good but just a small. Dirk was average or slightly above that and a big. Comparable I would say, DRAPM has Dirk in front by a solid enough margin that I give the slight nod to him.

So first off, even though it is a peak debate Wade shown during the Heatles era to be just fine at off ball. He's not Dirk in that regard but he's still plenty adaptable.

Dirk's spacing/gravity effect is of course a real thing, but there is really no way to capture it with stats. It can give him a higher ORAPM, but if you're giving Wade a slight edge on offense it's probably not worth getting to much into it.

We have video evidence of Wade being able to dictate games with his defense(through help and man to man), unless you have the same for Dirk i'm not going to agree that Dirk's better defensively because of him being a big man and is better in RAPM. I'm sorry but that's a lazy cop-out that gets repeated time and time again.

Timmyyy wrote:Overall looking at different RAPM sets both look like the best players in the league in their years. But Dirk has a significant bigger gap to the competition than Wade to his and looking at the scores the gap between both looks big enough (to overcome the fact that you can't compare it in detail) to at least consider it in the evaluation.
With that we have a little framework that says they are close and that there definitely is a case for Dirk being better.


That's one route you can go, Dirk looks better relative to completion, though personally i didn't have either as the best in the regular season. In 06 probably Kobe, Dirk and maybe Nash had better regular seasons. In 2011, Lebron definitely had a better regular season, and same with Dwight for what he was able to do.

Timmyyy wrote:Now we go to the PO you mentioned.

Since we know that Wade and Dirk were the anchor of their offenses and only secondary pieces on D I will show how their teams did against the competition they played and compare it to how much better/worse that was than the RS performance. For everything I say now I used NBA.com as a source.

Dirk played POR, LAL, OKC and MIA. The offensive performances against these teams were +4.1, +10.9, +5.5, +5.7 above the RS Drtg of these teams respectively. Taking a simple average of that, they were +6.55 per PO series (defense -3.2, -10.2, -1.1, -5.3. Average -4.95). Comparing that to the RS offense of the Mavs which was a +2.1, they actually elevated themselves pretty clearly (+4.45 over the expectations from RS) with Dirk as their clear leader on that end (defensively -2.8. So clear improvement there too albeit I won't credit Dirk for that too much). Seeing that the Mavs where significantly worse when Dirk was off and that he had a ortg of 112.2 with him is another indicator for how important he was (although I have to say that Terry played a huge part too).

Now doing the same for Wade, he played CHI, NJN, DET and DAL. Offensive performances were +3.6, +9.3, +2, -4.1 resulting in an average of +2.7 (defense +0.4, +1.7, -10.9, -11.5. Average -5.1). Comparing that to the Heats RS performances they did roughly as expected on offense (+0.1 compared to RS offense) and elevated their performance on defense (-3.6). Wade as Dirk was the heart and soul on offense (107 Ortg). He other than Dirk didn't have another player with a comparable on court Ortg (in Dirks case only Terry who had an even better one than Dirk). So that should clearly be acknowledged when drawing conclusions.


This is interesting but hardly tells me anything about their individual performance. I showed with on/off that Wade was lifting his team more. Dallas as a team shot way more 3s, and aside from the 1.8 less attempts than Dirk, neither would have much to do with it. Dallas was just a more trigger happy 3 pt shooting team that happened in an early shift into the current 3 point league. Still a few years or more away, but early signs of it. So naturally they'd perform better offensively than the Heat who were more defense oriented anyway.

So yeah, i don't know how much this means unless you think Dirk is significantly better at creating 3 point shots for his club which is dubious to say the least.

Also, the defense of those teams must be accounted for.

Blazers- 14th ranked defense, 107.1 DRTG
Lakers- 6th ranked defense, 104.3 DRTG, though for that particular series it’s misleading because the Lakers were worn down by that point, Kobe was hurt and needed surgery, Pau was mentally out of it etc. They didn’t play like a top 6 defense or 57 win team in that series or playoffs.
OKC- 15th ranked defense, 107.2 DRTG
Miami- 5th ranked defense and 103.5 DRTG, no surprise Dirk has his worst series here.

The Heat played:
Bulls: 7th ranked defense, 103.4 DRTG
Nets: 4th ranked defense, 102.4 DRTG
Pistons 5th ranked defense, 103.1 DRTG
Dallas- 11th ranked defense, 105 DRTG

Wade’s team went against better defenses overall, and the finals if you go back and watch was ugly from an offensive standpoint. Wade was carrying them offensively, and was more key to their defense than Dirk ever was. Dirk was the 4th best defender in the 2011 mavs lineup. Marion, Tyson and Kidd were all obviously better.


Timmyyy wrote:To sum it up, starting from a pretty good +/- data base that is painting Dirk as the higher impact player for the season, we look into the PO's and see that Dirks team elevated their offensive performance to a great degree. Not all of that is on Dirk as he had good help, but he was the leader and should get a lot of credit. The defense improved too, but I don't think Dirk should be seen as a major part of that.
Wade's team didn't elevate their offensive performances and although that seems to be for the most part due to having less help, the gap still seems to be pretty significant. The Heats defense improved but as Dirk, Wade wasn't more than a part of the D and not the major key.


Eh see above, it's not apples to apples.

Timmyyy wrote:What I take away from it is that I saw Dirk and Wade comparable on both sides of the ball from the eye test. RAPM has Dirk as more impactful. Dirk elevated his game in the PO's according to my interpretation of the +/-, my eye test and the boxscore. Wade elevated his game when I follow my eye test and from a boxscore perspective too. Wade +/- analysis when used with context should make it clear that Wade had the tougher way to improve his team and therefore didn't do it as well as Dirk.
I want to make clear that I didn't do the +/- analysis to give a Dirk>Wade in the PO's argument per se. I rather want to show that looking at the boxscore doesn't do the guy that makes more impact away from the boxscore any favor. Neither does raw on/off when Dirk had a way more balanced team (on/off is higher when you have a bad bench). I wanna give a counter part showing that there are indicators that Dirk elevated his team to a comparable degree as Wade did, while having a solid argument for better overall season impact via RAPM.


Why should box score production be totally dismissed just because Dirk had a higher RAPM? You can keep saying "well impact" but that doesn't explain how the results are actually coming to be.


Again only making it short because you misunderstood one part. I already accounted for strength of the faced defenses in my +/- analysis. The gap is still that big, but as I already said Terry had a lot to do with that too. Still the gap being that big and Dirk being the anchor of it should mean something. Your on/off doesn't mean he lifted his team more. That actually is a big misuse of the stat (Wade having a way worse bench plays in it a lot and he gets credit for it which doesn't make sense).

I do not care as much about the boxscore and you actually did that analysis already so why would I address it when I explicitly said I want to give a counterview to your boxscore numbers.

And finally it might be a philosophical thing but being smart on defense time and time again shows up in good defensive RAPM and I don't think this is randomness. I take a smart big on D over the flashy perimeter defender most of the time and the fact that I have them close is a big credit I give to Wade.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#16 » by freethedevil » Tue Aug 13, 2019 10:57 pm

Colbinii wrote:
freethedevil wrote:Are you defining "better offensive player" as the player with the higher assist to to ratio? :-?



No, but I'm pointing out that while Curry beats Paul in Scoring and efficiency, Paul is still Great in that regard but crushes Curry in terms of turnover economy. He is also more efficient on a per-possession basis.

How about curry being more efficient on higher volume? As in #1 in effiency AND #1 in volume.
I dont value scoring efficiency clearly above turnover economy and other fields.


I was simply showing "Hey look, Paul can play at this level for 25 games (playoffs and 15 rs) while having significantly worse teammates around him.

And
FWIW Curry didnt even lead his own team in +/-; Draymond crushed him.

When injured, yes. In the surrounding seasons when healthy he's led or nearly led the league in it. Draymond's not far behind and that's because much like curry was basically the offense for the warriors, draymond is basically the defense. However players like durant have seen their +/- #"s go down joining the dubs, so it's silly to write off plus minus as merely a result of the team's success. Curry+Dray+scrubs isn't massively worse than the hampton's 5. They've been the best duo in the league these last 5 years and the data reflects that.


Well a nice assist to turnover ratio is a clear signal for easy offensive buckets and a way to set the defense up. Turnovers lead to the most efficient offense for the opposition.

Do you have box-creation for 2015?

http://www.backpicks.com/metrics/box-creation/

Curry led the league in the stat. CP's early versions are on par with him while his 2015 version is slightly behind. Off course none of this accounts for spacing

I'll concede theoretically there's a pathway for cp having an argument, mainly, "low turnover" % over everything. I say theoretically because once we actually look at the results of their skillset... um, no.

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2017

Curry in the rs provided nearly as much left to a goat level team as paul did to a good one. IOW, Curry lifted a truck about as well as paul lifted a minivan.

In the proceeding postseason he proceeds to lead the league in rpm on the goat team. Luck adjusted metrics which incoperate goodness(effiency) into their analysis paint curry as significantly better, much like they painted giannis as much better than harden. Since they're looking at effiency as well as gamescore, they can distinguish between when a player isn't being good and when his team is being good.

http://www.backpicks.com/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/
Curry has three playoffs runs significantly above paul's best.

His best adjusted plus minus also ranks above paul's. Really the only thing paul has is silghtly better regular season rpm on vastly worse teams. The gap seems pretty easy to explain:

-> Curry's a much better scorer
-> Curry creates as much as paul does
-> Curry spaces the floor more
-> Curry's much better off the ball
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#17 » by freethedevil » Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:12 pm

E-Balla wrote:1. 83 Moses Malone - The short version is that Moses was the best player in the league, on an historically great team,

Which was nowhere near as good as the warriors... Also hilarious that after the handwringing you've down about curry's teammates you're going to use the example where malone kd'd himself of a team that made 2 of 3 finals and led a team as nowhere near as good as curry's.
with great +/- estimates, and a gamebreaking ability on the offensive boards (averaged 6.5 offensive rebounds a game from 79 to 83). The gap between him and Curry who has that same argument (replace rebounding with 3 point shooting)

If we assume his offensive rebounding was as valuable as curry's shooting, then yes.
is that outside of that one amazing ability Moses was still well above average at everything else. His jumper, defense (in 83 at least), and post game was already solid.

Curry consistently grades out as an above average defender and has literally led the league in mid range efficiency. Made up gap made up.
His one weakness was his weak passing ability but it didn't hinder his chance to lead great or mediocre teams so I don't know how much it concerns me.

Ah yes, lets casually dismiss that malone was a weak passer as we say he was better than arguably the best facilitator in the league. Image


"Curry's shortcomings didn't hinder his ability to lead the goat team, so I'm not sure how much it concerns me":
Image
2. 17 Russell Westbrook - I'm on record since 2017 saying next to 09 LeBron this is the best season I've seen since I've watched basketball religiously. The short version here is that he averaged a 30 point triple double, made 200 three pointers, was the most clutch player ever (sidebar but this is one of my favorite posts in RealGM history, and it perfectly encapsulates exactly how clutch he was), and averaged 37/12/11 in the playoffs while destroying Houston, only losing because his team was the worst team I've ever seen in the playoffs without him on the floor. Unlike many here he had to also overcome horrible fitting teammates (they had the worst 3 point percentage in the league outside of him) and the worst coach in the league. Now those are things we can all agree on, the main argument against Westbrook is that he couldn't perform on a better team/contender. To that I say look at the year prior.


Consult the graph above Curry literally carried the goat team harder than westbrook carried a trash one. Lebron carried a better team harder than westbrook carried a trash one. When literally your only argument for a season was that it was a carry job and it wasn't event the second best carryjob that season... it's probablynot "the best season you've ever seen."
:lol:
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#18 » by ardee » Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:30 pm

freethedevil wrote:
E-Balla wrote:
Consult the graph above Curry literally carried the goat team harder than westbrook carried a trash one. Lebron carried a better team harder than westbrook carried a trash one. When literally your only argument for a season was that it was a carry job and it wasn't event the second best carryjob that season... it's probablynot "the best season you've ever seen."
:lol:


Yeah a simple On/Off doesn't mean ****. Anyone who was paying attention that season should remember that through the first half of the season Curry was an afterthought, everyone thought it was Durant's team.

Really odd to have 2017 Curry being argued so high based on team results while ignoring the fact that the 2nd greatest shooter of all time, another MVP, a DPoY and a Finals MVP all also contributed to those results.

I think Steph is really good and was rooting for him against the Raps last year but to pretend especially in 2017 and 2018 that he was some kind of unipolar act was disingenuous. We saw just this year in the Finals what happens when he ACTUALLY has to "carry" a team. He gets constantly doubled and loses effectiveness. Westbrook had that situation all year in 2017.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#19 » by freethedevil » Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:31 pm

As should be obvious by now, my first vote goes to 2017 curry.

He carried the goat team as much as any of the other candidates here carried vastly inferior teams and has multiple seasons of data that's more impressive than anyone left here. Quite literally the only counter provided against this is the assertion curry is a system player. relative to his peers despite clearly having the widest range of skills of anyone left.

My second vote goes to 09 wade. Led a great offense posted nice postseason #"s.

Third vote goes to 2008 bryant who led a decent cast to a 66 win pace and legit contention.


If you want to see a comprhensive case for curry, read my first post.
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Re: Peaks project update: #15 

Post#20 » by freethedevil » Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:44 pm

ardee wrote:Yeah a simple On/Off doesn't mean ****. Anyone who was paying attention that season should remember that through the first half of the season Curry was an afterthought, everyone thought it was Durant's team.

Fallacy is fallacious:
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/24/Appeal-to-Common-Belief
Description: When the claim that most or many people in general or of a particular group accept a belief as true is presented as evidence for the claim.

Really odd to have 2017 Curry being argued so high based on team results

It's odd to see you use "team results" when my argument explicitly cites how much better he made his team. You know, that thing you do to argue a player on a bad team was great?

Fallacy is fallacious:
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/169/Strawman-Fallacy
Description: Substituting a person’s actual position or argument with a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of the position of the argument.

I think Steph is really good and was rooting for him against the Raps last year but to pretend especially in 2017 and 2018 that he was some kind of unipolar act was disingenuous. We saw just this year in the Finals what happens when he ACTUALLY has to "carry" a team. He gets constantly doubled and loses effectiveness.

Yes, we saw curry carry a team with no offensive depth to game 6 of the nba finals against the second greatest modern defense in history:
Image
A team that made the final beating a historically great bucks side:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/c3pycr/reminder_how_good_the_bucks_were_this_season/

Indeed, the warriors lost in spite of the postseason's best offense because they had a postseason defense that ranked 11th. Given westbrook isn't a great defender, the notion he would have done better is ludicrous.
Westbrook had that situation all year in 2017.

And he got spanked by the rockets in the first round in 5. Curry went 6-4 and took a much better team to 6 in the nba finals. What are you trying to argue here?

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