#19 - GOAT peaks project (2019)

[No-more-rings]

I do think it deserves a bigger mention that Kobe's defensive and offensive peaks did not coincide, and he was actually fairly mediocre on defense during most of the years we're talking about as his best ones. With that in mind I'm starting to think a little more carefully about him vs Nash in general.

You think Kobe was mediocre defensively in 08 and 09? Any drapm source i know has him as a positive there, and we know he could amp it up in the playoffs as needed.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Is this ranking purely just regular season? Robinson's 22 PER and 53% TS is really better than 2017 Leonard?

Leonard should at the very least be in KG's spot and KG should be in Robinson's spot. Some bias going around here, oh well to each its own. Bump this list in 7 years when Kawhi is a top 5 GOAT and it will look rather silly, I'm just warning you guys.

You think Leonard peaked higher than KG?

Overall offense is probably close(KG better playmaker, Leonard is a much better scorer), very small edge to Kawhi imo, but KG is worlds above 2019 Kawhi as a defender.

I do think Kawhi’s peak is interesting, and I’ll be interested to see where he falls. I persnally have several guys above them that are still on the board.

The scoring gap is too much for KG to make up and Kawhi is a great defender in his own right. Kawhi is FEARED on defense no matter what type of stat you want to look at. While a guy like Larry Bird? People would go at his defense 1 on 1. I even saw Adrian Dantley waving off his team and feeling comfortable attacking Bird 1 on 1 defense. You would never see that with Kawhi, go look at Giannis or Curry when Leonard guarded him and you will see they were scared.

Kawhi is also worlds above Robinson as an offensive player. Robinson is soft as hell, enjoy losing in the playoffs every year with that guy as your best player regardless of the supporting cast.

[70sFan]

Is this ranking purely just regular season? Robinson's 22 PER and 53% TS is really better than 2017 Leonard?

Leonard should at the very least be in KG's spot and KG should be in Robinson's spot. Some bias going around here, oh well to each its own. Bump this list in 7 years when Kawhi is a top 5 GOAT and it will look rather silly, I'm just warning you guys.

You think Leonard peaked higher than KG?

Overall offense is probably close(KG better playmaker, Leonard is a much better scorer), very small edge to Kawhi imo, but KG is worlds above 2019 Kawhi as a defender.

I do think Kawhi’s peak is interesting, and I’ll be interested to see where he falls. I persnally have several guys above them that are still on the board.

The scoring gap is too much for KG to make up and Kawhi is a great defender in his own right. Kawhi is FEARED on defense no matter what type of stat you want to look at. While a guy like Larry Bird? People would go at his defense 1 on 1. I even saw Adrian Dantley waving off his team and feeling comfortable attacking Bird 1 on 1 defense. You would never see that with Kawhi, go look at Giannis or Curry when Leonard guarded him and you will see they were scared.

Kawhi is also worlds above Robinson as an offensive player. Robinson is soft as hell, enjoy losing in the playoffs every year with that guy as your best player regardless of the supporting cast.

Even Dantley? Yeah, even the best isolation scorer ever could score on Bird one on one. Don't worry, he would do the same with Kawhi. He did that to all defenders, no matter how good they were.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

You think Leonard peaked higher than KG?

Overall offense is probably close(KG better playmaker, Leonard is a much better scorer), very small edge to Kawhi imo, but KG is worlds above 2019 Kawhi as a defender.

I do think Kawhi’s peak is interesting, and I’ll be interested to see where he falls. I persnally have several guys above them that are still on the board.

The scoring gap is too much for KG to make up and Kawhi is a great defender in his own right. Kawhi is FEARED on defense no matter what type of stat you want to look at. While a guy like Larry Bird? People would go at his defense 1 on 1. I even saw Adrian Dantley waving off his team and feeling comfortable attacking Bird 1 on 1 defense. You would never see that with Kawhi, go look at Giannis or Curry when Leonard guarded him and you will see they were scared.

Kawhi is also worlds above Robinson as an offensive player. Robinson is soft as hell, enjoy losing in the playoffs every year with that guy as your best player regardless of the supporting cast.

Even Dantley? Yeah, even the best isolation scorer ever could score on Bird one on one. Don't worry, he would do the same with Kawhi. He did that to all defenders, no matter how good they were.

Lebron couldn't even do that to Kawhi, let alone Dantley lol.

[70sFan]

The scoring gap is too much for KG to make up and Kawhi is a great defender in his own right. Kawhi is FEARED on defense no matter what type of stat you want to look at. While a guy like Larry Bird? People would go at his defense 1 on 1. I even saw Adrian Dantley waving off his team and feeling comfortable attacking Bird 1 on 1 defense. You would never see that with Kawhi, go look at Giannis or Curry when Leonard guarded him and you will see they were scared.

Kawhi is also worlds above Robinson as an offensive player. Robinson is soft as hell, enjoy losing in the playoffs every year with that guy as your best player regardless of the supporting cast.

Even Dantley? Yeah, even the best isolation scorer ever could score on Bird one on one. Don't worry, he would do the same with Kawhi. He did that to all defenders, no matter how good they were.

Lebron couldn't even do that to Kawhi, let alone Dantley lol.

But Dantley was better iso scorer than LeBron.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Even Dantley? Yeah, even the best isolation scorer ever could score on Bird one on one. Don't worry, he would do the same with Kawhi. He did that to all defenders, no matter how good they were.

Lebron couldn't even do that to Kawhi, let alone Dantley lol.

But Dantley was better iso scorer than LeBron.

No way, not in his pistons days. I'm talking pistons dantley here. Lebron is 10X more athletic 10X stronger 10X better driver 10X better ball handler, it's not even close.

[DatAsh]

Is this ranking purely just regular season? Robinson's 22 PER and 53% TS is really better than 2017 Leonard?

Leonard should at the very least be in KG's spot and KG should be in Robinson's spot. Some bias going around here, oh well to each its own. Bump this list in 7 years when Kawhi is a top 5 GOAT and it will look rather silly, I'm just warning you guys.

Don’t discredit the entire project just because you have some weird love thing for Leonard.

And yes regular season definitely matters to people here, and then defense which no matter how you wanna slice it Kawhi isn’t as good on that end.

But Jerry West gets in? He's not better than Leonard on defense not a chance.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to rank West over 2019 Kawhi defensively, and he’s better offensively.

I have West slightly better defensively and moderately better on offense.

I do think the defensive thing is a bit unfair to Kawhi. Both guys have stellar defensive reputations, especially Kawhi. With Kawhi though, we have the data that proves his actual defense is no where near what his reputation suggests. With West, we don’t have that data, so we’re forced to go entirely off reputation. It’s quite possible that West, like Kawhi, is nowhere near as good as his reputation. We just don’t have the data to prove it. Definitely a little unfair to Kawhi in this particular comparison.

If you think Kawhi’s peak is good enough to get in at this stage, you should start making that case.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Don’t discredit the entire project just because you have some weird love thing for Leonard.

And yes regular season definitely matters to people here, and then defense which no matter how you wanna slice it Kawhi isn’t as good on that end.

But Jerry West gets in? He's not better than Leonard on defense not a chance.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to rank West over 2019 Kawhi defensively, and he’s better offensively.

I have West slightly better defensively and moderately better on offense.

I do think the defensive thing is a bit unfair to Kawhi. Both guys have stellar defensive reputations, especially Kawhi. With Kawhi though, we have the data that proves his actual defense is no where near what his reputation suggests. With West, we don’t have that data, so we’re forced to go entirely off reputation. It’s quite possible that West, like Kawhi, is nowhere near as good as his reputation. We just don’t have the data to prove it. Definitely a little unfair to Kawhi in this particular comparison.

If you think Kawhi’s peak is good enough to get in at this stage, you should start making that case.

I think Kawhi is stronger physically more athletic and better length than Jerry West, so I'd give him the edge in defense. Kawhi is much more versatile defender than West as well as he can guard Jimmy Butler on the wing or Giannis the big man. I think Kawhi is clearly better than every guy on this list that's outside of the top 10, so the damage has already been done. To make it a respectable list, at least put him above playoff bums like David Robinson for god sakes.

[70sFan]

Lebron couldn't even do that to Kawhi, let alone Dantley lol.

But Dantley was better iso scorer than LeBron.

No way, not in his pistons days. I'm talking pistons dantley here. Lebron is 10X more athletic 10X stronger 10X better driver 10X better ball handler, it's not even close.

Many players were far more athletic, stronger and better ball handlers. None of them was as good as Dantley in isolation.

Listen, James is far better offensive player. Tiers above Dantley. AD made his whole career from is iso skills. He didn't do many other things well, but in that aspect he was untouchable. I'd pick very, very few players to even start debate about it and James is not one of them.

Dantley was small, quite slow and had low vertical. It didn't matter, he made everyone look completely foolish. If you watched Dantley against Bird, then you likely watched my videos. Dantley did the same against McHale, who was absolutely elite man defender. He did the same to Pippen as an old man when he played in Dallas.

Yeah, AD was past his best in Detroit, but his isolation skills didn't decline that much.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

But Dantley was better iso scorer than LeBron.

No way, not in his pistons days. I'm talking pistons dantley here. Lebron is 10X more athletic 10X stronger 10X better driver 10X better ball handler, it's not even close.

Many players were far more athletic, stronger and better ball handlers. None of them was as good as Dantley in isolation.

Listen, James is far better offensive player. Tiers above Dantley. AD made his whole career from is iso skills. He didn't do many other things well, but in that aspect he was untouchable. I'd pick very, very few players to even start debate about it and James is not one of them.

Dantley was small, quite slow and had low vertical. It didn't matter, he made everyone look completely foolish. If you watched Dantley against Bird, then you likely watched my videos. Dantley did the same against McHale, who was absolutely elite man defender. He did the same to Pippen as an old man when he played in Dallas.

Yeah, AD was past his best in Detroit, but his isolation skills didn't decline that much.

But you still agree Kawhi is going to do massively better than Bird right? Bird got embarrassed while Kawhi would hold his own. Dantley may be one of the better iso scorers ever but Kawhi is also one of the better iso defenders ever. I just don't see Dantley getting the best of Kawhi in a 1 on 1 matchup, Kawhi is pretty much the #1 guy ever on who I would want on an iso scorer. Pippen is great man to man but his main strength was help defense.

[cecilthesheep]

I do think it deserves a bigger mention that Kobe's defensive and offensive peaks did not coincide, and he was actually fairly mediocre on defense during most of the years we're talking about as his best ones. With that in mind I'm starting to think a little more carefully about him vs Nash in general.

You think Kobe was mediocre defensively in 08 and 09? Any drapm source i know has him as a positive there, and we know he could amp it up in the playoffs as needed.

This is one of my more stuffy opinions, but I look at film first to analyze defense and then advanced stats, because I don't think the stats have progressed yet to the point where they mean enough to provide a starting point. Every defensive advanced stat I've ever seen is full of weirdness and anomalies; many are very good over a long period of time, but using them as an objective, context-free ranking tool for individual players in individual seasons can be dangerous, and RAPM is no exception. What Hera said about single-year RAPM earlier is really, really true:

A tip: one year RAPM is very very noise, we need at least 3 years of data

If you're interested in delving into why this is true, this goes into it: https://squared2020.com/2018/12/24/regularized-adjusted-plus-minus-part-iii-what-had-really-happened-was/

Kobe's 14-year DRAPM as per here is -0.9: https://public.tableau.com/views/14YearRAPM/14YearRAPM?:embed=y&:showVizHome=no Now, this does cut out some of his better years at the beginning of his career, just because we don't have the +/- from back then, so I'm sure it's dragged down by that and by how awful he was after the injuries. BUT, I still think it's unlikely that he's better than okay by 08/09 given that number.

I would look at the PIPM trend, since we have full PIPM for most of Kobe's career rather than just the box prior, but for some reason I'm getting an access denied message when I try to look at the player finder - is anyone else having this problem?

On film, Kobe's defense is just not that impressive to me. He's not totally awful, but he's not great either. He gets blown by a LOT, and his attention level is inconsistent. He can turn things up on an individual-possession basis, sure, but I think he does this less often than his reputation indicates. Better than Nash? Absolutely. Meaningfully positive? I'm not sure.

edit - even if you do look at individual seasons, this has him hovering around +0.5 in the regular season (which is what I think of as "just okay") in and around the years mentioned, with playoffs seeming essentially random: https://basketball-analytics.gitlab.io/rapm-data/

[E-Balla]

I do think it deserves a bigger mention that Kobe's defensive and offensive peaks did not coincide, and he was actually fairly mediocre on defense during most of the years we're talking about as his best ones. With that in mind I'm starting to think a little more carefully about him vs Nash in general.

Not really. I mean people are talking about 08 the most I think and he was clearly well above average that year and borderline All D. It is odd there's not much mention of 01 and 03 Kobe here though. I think those years are screwed by Shaq and Duncan being around at the top of their games.

[cecilthesheep]

I do think it deserves a bigger mention that Kobe's defensive and offensive peaks did not coincide, and he was actually fairly mediocre on defense during most of the years we're talking about as his best ones. With that in mind I'm starting to think a little more carefully about him vs Nash in general.

Not really. I mean people are talking about 08 the most I think and he was clearly well above average that year and borderline All D. It is odd there's not much mention of 01 and 03 Kobe here though. I think those years are screwed by Shaq and Duncan being around at the top of their games.

Was he really borderline All-D that year? I would dispute that - see my post from a few minutes ago. I don't think he was particularly impressive defensively really any year after sometime in the early aughts. Honestly I'm surprised the idea that he was a big difference-maker has so much currency right now.

[E-Balla]

I do think it deserves a bigger mention that Kobe's defensive and offensive peaks did not coincide, and he was actually fairly mediocre on defense during most of the years we're talking about as his best ones. With that in mind I'm starting to think a little more carefully about him vs Nash in general.

Not really. I mean people are talking about 08 the most I think and he was clearly well above average that year and borderline All D. It is odd there's not much mention of 01 and 03 Kobe here though. I think those years are screwed by Shaq and Duncan being around at the top of their games.

Was he really borderline All-D that year? I would greatly dispute that - see my post from a few minutes ago. I don't think he was particularly impressive defensively really any year after sometime in the early aughts. Honestly I'm surprised the idea that he was a big difference-maker has so much currency right now.

I mean all evidence we have points to Kobe being a difference maker from 08-10 defensively. Terrible in 05-07 and after 2010, but he was very good in the other years of his career.

He's not the best at keeping his man in front of him unless he's dialed in (which was very rare), but he was a very smart defender, knew where to be, and was never bad enough for other teams to decide to challenge him.

As far as your issues with RAPM they don't exist in the 08-11 RAPM study and Kobe rated as a positive defender according to that even after his horrendous 2011 season where he ranked as the 15th worst defender among players with a positive RAPM. I just don't see any evidence Kobe wasn't a good defender when he gave a damn and by my own eye I've seen Kobe lock in when needed.

[cecilthesheep]

Not really. I mean people are talking about 08 the most I think and he was clearly well above average that year and borderline All D. It is odd there's not much mention of 01 and 03 Kobe here though. I think those years are screwed by Shaq and Duncan being around at the top of their games.

Was he really borderline All-D that year? I would greatly dispute that - see my post from a few minutes ago. I don't think he was particularly impressive defensively really any year after sometime in the early aughts. Honestly I'm surprised the idea that he was a big difference-maker has so much currency right now.

I mean all evidence we have points to Kobe being a difference maker from 08-10 defensively. Terrible in 05-07 and after 2010, but he was very good in the other years of his career.

He's not the best at keeping his man in front of him unless he's dialed in (which was very rare), but he was a very smart defender, knew where to be, and was never bad enough for other teams to decide to challenge him.

As far as your issues with RAPM they don't exist in the 08-11 RAPM study and Kobe rated as a positive defender according to that even after his horrendous 2011 season where he ranked as the 15th worst defender among players with a positive RAPM. I just don't see any evidence Kobe wasn't a good defender when he gave a damn and by my own eye I've seen Kobe lock in when needed.

Sorry if I'm behind the curve on this, but what's the 08-11 RAPM study? I'd stress that the issues don't suddenly go away once the sample size is three years, they're actually still pretty prevalent just not quite as severe

I guess that about the dip from 05-07 would make some sense, but what is the "all evidence we have"? I'm inherently suspicious of any assessment that he was just good when they made the Finals and bad when they didn't. If the evidence is that convincing, though, I'll be convinced.

[cecilthesheep]

1. 1949 George Mikan - It's time. Mikan's peak was so far above his contemporaries that I don't think we can leave him out any longer. He was the most unstoppable scorer of basketball's first decade or two, he raised his game in the playoffs to lead his team to 5 titles in 6 years and create the league's first dynasty, and this was his most dominant year.

2. 1950 George Mikan - same player, second-best year, basically the same level of performance

3. 2009 Kobe Bryant - Well, I squinted at this long and hard, played devil's advocate in all the ways I could think of, but I don't think there's anyone left who beats Kobe. I do think it's true that he could turn his defense up in crucial moments, and I think that makes a difference; I also think his offensive load-bearing capabilities are the best remaining. You wouldn't think he could scale to championship-level teams, but that's exactly what he did at this point in his career. So Kobe it is. '09 over '08 mostly because of the ring and a lower turnover rate.

[DatAsh]

I agree with others saying that we shouldn’t discount defense simply because they’re point guards. Defense can make a massive difference when they’ve on opposite ends of the +/- boundary.

Chris Paul has been as good as +2 to +3 at his peak. If Nash is a -1 on defense, he would need to have more than a +3-4 advantage on offense to be a better player than Paul.

I do think Nash is better on offense, but is he really that much better? I just don’t see it. Paul is probably a +5-6 offense guy himself.

Same reasoning could be applied with Kobe, though to a lesser extent. I could see Kobe as a +1 or even slightly more come playoff time in 08, for example.

[E-Balla]

Was he really borderline All-D that year? I would greatly dispute that - see my post from a few minutes ago. I don't think he was particularly impressive defensively really any year after sometime in the early aughts. Honestly I'm surprised the idea that he was a big difference-maker has so much currency right now.

I mean all evidence we have points to Kobe being a difference maker from 08-10 defensively. Terrible in 05-07 and after 2010, but he was very good in the other years of his career.

He's not the best at keeping his man in front of him unless he's dialed in (which was very rare), but he was a very smart defender, knew where to be, and was never bad enough for other teams to decide to challenge him.

As far as your issues with RAPM they don't exist in the 08-11 RAPM study and Kobe rated as a positive defender according to that even after his horrendous 2011 season where he ranked as the 15th worst defender among players with a positive RAPM. I just don't see any evidence Kobe wasn't a good defender when he gave a damn and by my own eye I've seen Kobe lock in when needed.

Sorry if I'm behind the curve on this, but what's the 08-11 RAPM study? I'd stress that the issues don't suddenly go away once the sample size is three years, they're actually still pretty prevalent just not quite as severe

I guess that about the dip from 05-07 would make some sense, but what is the "all evidence we have"? I'm inherently suspicious of any assessment that he was just good when they made the Finals and bad when they didn't. If the evidence is that convincing, though, I'll be convinced.

Well 08-11 is actually 4 years.

And the issues aren't all gone, but it's way better than the 1 year samples. Here's a link to it though: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/4-year-rapm

And all the evidence we have is his standard +/- numbers, his synergy numbers (which IIRC were amazing in 09 and 2010 but not really outside of that but synergy doesn't publish them for me to look them up since the NBA brought them out), his reputation, his raw +/-, the production of opposing Gs he was up against (in the few occasions he guarded good players), and the strength of his team defenses.

For the bolded it makes perfect sense to me. When Kobe had a great team around him he tried, when he didn't, he didn't care. I mean in 03 they didn't make the Finals and Kobe was still an above average defender by most metrics.

[cecilthesheep]

I mean all evidence we have points to Kobe being a difference maker from 08-10 defensively. Terrible in 05-07 and after 2010, but he was very good in the other years of his career.

He's not the best at keeping his man in front of him unless he's dialed in (which was very rare), but he was a very smart defender, knew where to be, and was never bad enough for other teams to decide to challenge him.

As far as your issues with RAPM they don't exist in the 08-11 RAPM study and Kobe rated as a positive defender according to that even after his horrendous 2011 season where he ranked as the 15th worst defender among players with a positive RAPM. I just don't see any evidence Kobe wasn't a good defender when he gave a damn and by my own eye I've seen Kobe lock in when needed.

Sorry if I'm behind the curve on this, but what's the 08-11 RAPM study? I'd stress that the issues don't suddenly go away once the sample size is three years, they're actually still pretty prevalent just not quite as severe

I guess that about the dip from 05-07 would make some sense, but what is the "all evidence we have"? I'm inherently suspicious of any assessment that he was just good when they made the Finals and bad when they didn't. If the evidence is that convincing, though, I'll be convinced.

Well 08-11 is actually 4 years.

And the issues aren't all gone, but it's way better than the 1 year samples. Here's a link to it though: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/4-year-rapm

And all the evidence we have is his standard +/- numbers, his synergy numbers (which IIRC were amazing in 09 and 2010 but not really outside of that but synergy doesn't publish them for me to look them up since the NBA brought them out), his reputation, his raw +/-, the production of opposing Gs he was up against (in the few occasions he guarded good players), and the strength of his team defenses.

For the bolded it makes perfect sense to me. When Kobe had a great team around him he tried, when he didn't, he didn't care. I mean in 03 they didn't make the Finals and Kobe was still an above average defender by most metrics.

Ah, thanks for the resource. +0.1 from 08-11 is just about exactly what I would have expected; I'm not trying to say he was really bad. 0.1 is effectively nothing with the margin for error that RAPM has even over four years. I think "mediocre", my initial assessment, definitely applies to that.

Could you provide some examples of Kobe guarding good opponents and seriously diminishing their production? One of the issues I have with how highly people rate both his and LeBron's defense is how much time they both spend hiding on less important offensive players.

[E-Balla]

Sorry if I'm behind the curve on this, but what's the 08-11 RAPM study? I'd stress that the issues don't suddenly go away once the sample size is three years, they're actually still pretty prevalent just not quite as severe

I guess that about the dip from 05-07 would make some sense, but what is the "all evidence we have"? I'm inherently suspicious of any assessment that he was just good when they made the Finals and bad when they didn't. If the evidence is that convincing, though, I'll be convinced.

Well 08-11 is actually 4 years.

And the issues aren't all gone, but it's way better than the 1 year samples. Here's a link to it though: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/4-year-rapm

And all the evidence we have is his standard +/- numbers, his synergy numbers (which IIRC were amazing in 09 and 2010 but not really outside of that but synergy doesn't publish them for me to look them up since the NBA brought them out), his reputation, his raw +/-, the production of opposing Gs he was up against (in the few occasions he guarded good players), and the strength of his team defenses.

For the bolded it makes perfect sense to me. When Kobe had a great team around him he tried, when he didn't, he didn't care. I mean in 03 they didn't make the Finals and Kobe was still an above average defender by most metrics.

Ah, thanks for the resource. +0.1 from 08-11 is just about exactly what I would have expected; I'm not trying to say he was really bad. 0.1 is effectively nothing with the margin for error that RAPM has even over four years. I think "mediocre", my initial assessment, definitely applies to that.

Could you provide some examples of Kobe guarding good opponents and seriously diminishing their production? One of the issues I have with how highly people rate both his and LeBron's defense is how much time they both spend hiding on less important offensive players.

I think +0.1 is mediocre, but like I said his 2011 season was horrible. I think in a 08-10 sample he'd be a strong positive (for a G) if we had the numbers.

And a good example of Kobe shutting someone down came in his old age after Kyrie Irving challenged him:

Watch on YouTube

He guarded him quite a few times in the 2013 season and yes it's young Kyrie but he was already one of the top iso players in the league (top 5 and still good enough to pull off that shot at 3:14) and he couldn't beat old man Kobe without a pick.