#25 - GOAT peaks project (2019)

[euroleague]

There's been talk up and down this exact thread about how useless DRTG and defensive box stats are. But I'm dropping it here you're consistently contradicting yourself here and I'm not even sure at what argument you're trying to make beyond "he won a ring in 90".

You realize the difference compared to the league average makes his TS% and scoring numbers better in 90...

I don’t know how you quantify TS%, but I’m guessing you cherry pick and don’t use context, just like everything else you argue, so your argument isn’t surprising ...

The average TS% given up by the Pistons opponents in 90 (who were ranked 24th out of 27th, 13th, 19th, and 4th) was 54.0 and the average TS% given up by the Pistons opponents in 85 (who were ranked 12th and 5th) was 53.2. But yeah totally, my point lacks context and yours doesn't...

Taking their opponents out of context, by not accounting for the changes in the league and the way they were built to match up against the Pistons offense... and just using their league wide TS... seems like a weak argument.

Nets defensive anchor was at PF in Buck Williams, and that series was where Isiah dominated. That team was a great defensive frontcourt, old defensive backcourt.

In 90, Isiah dominated against Terry Porter in the Finals on the 4th best defensive team in the league. Easily better than anything he did in 85, and at the highest stage.

The Knicks added Maurice cheeks to Ewing on the Knicks, a late season acquisition who boosted their defense at PG, making the stat about the Pistons opponent’s average defense very useless... although, I guess you’re not intentionally cherry picking it

[E-Balla]

You realize the difference compared to the league average makes his TS% and scoring numbers better in 90...

I don’t know how you quantify TS%, but I’m guessing you cherry pick and don’t use context, just like everything else you argue, so your argument isn’t surprising ...

The average TS% given up by the Pistons opponents in 90 (who were ranked 24th out of 27th, 13th, 19th, and 4th) was 54.0 and the average TS% given up by the Pistons opponents in 85 (who were ranked 12th and 5th) was 53.2. But yeah totally, my point lacks context and yours doesn't...

Taking their opponents out of context, by not accounting for the changes in the league and the way they were built to match up against the Pistons offense... and just using their league wide TS... seems like a weak argument.

Tell me how the 24th and 19th ranked defenses in the league were built to stop the Pistons defense more than the 85 Celtics?

You keep saying to add context but you don't and you dismiss whenever I do so...

Nets defensive anchor was at PF in Buck Williams, and that series was where Isiah dominated. That team was a great defensive frontcourt, old defensive backcourt.

He did better against the 63 win NBA finalist Celtics who had an All Defense HOFer PG. How is playing against Terry Porter (0 time all defense) more impressive?

In 90, Isiah dominated against Terry Porter in the Finals on the 4th best defensive team in the league. Easily better than anything he did in 85, and at the highest stage.

The Knicks added Maurice cheeks to Ewing on the Knicks, a late season acquisition who boosted their defense at PG, making the stat about the Pistons opponent’s average defense very useless... although, I guess you’re not intentionally cherry picking it

We've been through this already the Knicks got worse after adding Mo Cheeks on both ends of the ball.

Screw context, you gonna make sure what you're saying is true before you say it?

[euroleague]

The average TS% given up by the Pistons opponents in 90 (who were ranked 24th out of 27th, 13th, 19th, and 4th) was 54.0 and the average TS% given up by the Pistons opponents in 85 (who were ranked 12th and 5th) was 53.2. But yeah totally, my point lacks context and yours doesn't...

Taking their opponents out of context, by not accounting for the changes in the league and the way they were built to match up against the Pistons offense... and just using their league wide TS... seems like a weak argument.

Tell me how the 24th and 19th ranked defenses in the league were built to stop the Pistons defense more than the 85 Celtics?

You keep saying to add context but you don't and you dismiss whenever I do so...

Nets defensive anchor was at PF in Buck Williams, and that series was where Isiah dominated. That team was a great defensive frontcourt, old defensive backcourt.

He did better against the 63 win NBA finalist Celtics who had an All Defense HOFer PG. How is playing against Terry Porter (0 time all defense) more impressive?

In 90, Isiah dominated against Terry Porter in the Finals on the 4th best defensive team in the league. Easily better than anything he did in 85, and at the highest stage.

The Knicks added Maurice cheeks to Ewing on the Knicks, a late season acquisition who boosted their defense at PG, making the stat about the Pistons opponent’s average defense very useless... although, I guess you’re not intentionally cherry picking it

We've been through this already the Knicks got worse after adding Mo Cheeks on both ends of the ball.

Screw context, you gonna make sure what you're saying is true before you say it?

Danny Ainge was guarding Isiah while DJ defended Vinnie or Dumars in every series available. It’s unlikely the Celtics changed that especially for 85...

Talk about making sure what you’re saying is true

[liamliam1234]

1. Per 100 comparisons only make sense if their playing time is similar. McAdoo played 43 mpg. Davis played 36 mpg, it's not the same producing in 36 mpg as compared to 43. Same for Barkley a 39 mpg and Karl's 38.

A.) Acknowledged that. B.) For the people who value higher minute performances outright, fine, but most of us are not giving a boost just because players used to have heavier minute loads.

2. Per 100 stats without adjusting for scoring efficiency is bunk. McAdoo averaged 35.6 pp100 but league wide average pp100 was 97.7. Malone averaged 37.4 pp100 vs a league average of 108.2, Barkley averaged 32.1 pp100 vs a league average of 108.1, and Davis averaged 36.9 pp100 vs a league average of 108.6. Adjust McAdoo's pp100 to a league average of 108 and he had 39.3 pp100. Slightly better than those other guys and equal to 92 MJ.

4. League average PPG in 75 was 102.6. In 90 it was 107.0. in 92 it was 105.3. in 18 it was 106.3. If anything your adjustment for McAdoo should bring his scoring average up in comparison to these guys. It's the 2nd highest ppg total of the 20 year period from the start of the ABA era (68) to the Jordan era (87) next to 72 Kareem (who got votes for this list in the top 5). These "adjustments" always fail to account for the fact that the game is different and load management back then was totally different.

I will not say this is a useless framing, but it is a framing which grossly overweighs past star players. Telling me the gap between McAdoo and the average player in 1975 is larger than the gap between Davis and an average player in 2018 does not mean McAdoo is better. If this is how you look at the game, where is the vote for Mikan? Or is there just some cutoff where it starts to matter? Obviously that is the case, because the gap between the ABA stars and the average ABA player seems to have also gone by the wayside. Even then, by this metric, you should have been like the first person to vote for McGrady, with his 32 points per game in a league averaging 95 points per game, plus great wing defence and ridiculous impact numbers and solid passing.

Also, lol at telling me minutes management is different while pushing for us to consider assessments which are aided by a heavy minutes load.

3. They also played in leagues with different TS% due to league rules and how the game was played. His rTS% was over Davis and about equal to Malone.

This is a fair point, in as much as rTS has value (and we disagree on that extent, so I am not going to waste time re-litigating it); I did not realise league true shooting was quite that low that year.

5. Correct me if I'm wrong but McAdoo in 74 is the only player along with 16 Steph to lead the league in PPG and TS%. That's the level of scorer you're comparing to those guys, someone nearly Curry level that didn't drop off in the playoffs.

Well, you are not voting for 1974 McAdoo, and all the era-relative stuff I said above still applies, but fair enough.

6. He's also one of the few players with 3 straight scoring titles along with MJ, Wilt, Mikan, Johnston, and KD.

... Okay? Not like you are voting for Mikan or, uh, Johnston, and you did not vote for Durant.

Understatement of the **** century. Here's the defenses they played and McAdoo's adjusted number compared to the defenses the others played (not adjusting TS% because we should all know at this point you failed to adjust for that and it makes a large difference here):

The Bullets gave up 91.3 pp100.

Karl's opponents (adjusted for games played vs each team) gave up 105.8 pp100 on average which would've meant over 42 pp100 for McAdoo (+6 to Karl).

Davis' opponents gave up 107.1 pp100 on average which would've meant almost 43 pp100 for McAdoo (+7.5ish to Davis).

Barkley's opponents gave up 108.1 pp100 on average which would've meant over 43 pp100 for McAdoo (+13 to Barkley).

Again, interesting numbers to offer, but prior points apply. You do not get to translate what McAdoo did in 1975 perfectly to the 1990s, let alone the 2010s.

Nah your method of adjusting numbers is just extremely flawed and doesn't account for anything but pace differentials, which is way less important than the differences in the rules and defensive play in general over the years. Past the 60s there's really no need for pace adjustment between stars outside of the late 90s to the mid 10s when the scoring average dropped from that 100-110 ppg range.

Already pointed to the problems with treating all — sorry, most — league eras as inherently equal in terms of their stars.

McAdoo in that series averaged more ppg in that series than anyone else in any series from 71 to 86 and if you exclude postseason runs from 60 to 70 that year is 3rd in PPG to 86 MJ and 88 Hakeem with 17 Westbrook and 90 MJ rounding out the top 10.

Kind-of reductive and based in a small sample size — and unsurprisingly his cohorts apart from 1990 Jordan have the same sample size issues — but I guess this would be something of a glass houses territory for me to go beyond that basic criticism. Buuuuuuut again, record-level scoring hardly seems to apply to every player now, does it?

He was playing a team with a 91.3 DRTG that held opponents to 48.3 TS% on average and had a 52.8 TS%. How in the hell is that bad?

Yet again, that “average opponent” level matters, but if you would prefer I could say “not good”. To me that says his shot profile maintains well, but the issue with this perpetual reliance on rTS is that it acts as if he would be guaranteed to have a 64% true shooting against a bad defensive team. This is why sample sizes matter. Yes, this was a great series, and I would struggle to argue against it being the best series of the bunch... but that is all it was. This was also by a massive margin the best series of his career. And I am sure your take is that he could have maintained this to a certain extent, in a similar sense as 1976 Erving did in something of an outlier fashion (although I felt people here supremely oversold his 1977 “decline”), and that is your prerogative, but I do not believe if he had it made it past the Bullets he would have suddenly been scoring 42 points per game on league-leading efficiency.

Because it's not really a valid criticism of he's leading to a good team offense is it? He had no talent around him and that offense went from a +2 offense to a -2 offense once they shipped him to NY.

You know for a damn fact that his situation isn't similar to Kawhi's IDK why you would mention this like Kawhi's offense performed as well as the Buffalo offense despite having way more talent.

Really? Not similar? Incredible scoring load. Offering little in terms of passing (McAdoo offering a fair bit less than Kawhi). Nothing spectacular in terms of defence. I think you have to be pretty stubborn to act as if they are totally different. Which, well...

Why do you isolate what they did from team performance? Why do you detract from Kawhi because his teammates have ostensible talent, but then blame him when they fail to live up to that talent? Why do his 24 games of postseason impact get waved away because regular season sample size in a coasting season is sooooo much more valuable, but McAdoo in seven games gets the full benefit of his over-performance? One counter could be that role-players are better now even if they are underperforming and that therefore passing is unilaterally more important, but you keep acting as if the average player is the same across eras, so that is out.

It is just so blatantly team-results-oriented, as if every star player is solely responsible for their team’s offensive accomplishments or disappointments. You look at the names and decide which players need to pass more without looking at how the players are performing. Kawhi had at least a +5 offensive impact in the Raptors postseason primarily by his scoring impact (and it was a fair bit higher before the Finals), but that is bad because his teammates were talented and so his lack of passing must have crippled them without him; what, would you be happier if the Raptors, top to bottom, gave the exact same performance, only the names were switched for worse players? Barry was clearly better than his volume-scoring 1967 self because he mastered passing, and he swept a statistically superior all-time defensive team, doing so with an uninspiring cast (who by the way rebounded out of their minds)... but then Blackhole Bob gets the nod because his scoring was really good against the same team in a loss?

It was in the 2nd round not the first. And no one left has comparable numbers. You don't get to say "well adjusting one and only one factor makes his numbers look way worse" while not adjusting all other factors and use that to say he's nothing special. It's the same as me going "James Harden's 2019 season isn't special if he scored 10 less ppg" with no explanation of why that's relevant.

Pedantic point; it was the first series of their playoffs.

And people do have comparable numbers, depending on the frame. And you set your frame, and that is whatever, and I wrote out a long tirade here but I guess it probably comes down to you being drawn to Barry and then looking at McAdoo and going, “You know what, I just think I would prefer to have McAdoo.” And hammering you on that and how it translates to your valuation of Kawhi is not going to lead to anything, so I guess I will just say thanks for offering a decent McAdoo case and leave it at that. I am going to leave up the rest for posterity, and because I hate for all of it to go to total waste, but I do not care about you responding about Kawhi anymore, or really about most of this, because I know it is a dead end.

[E-Balla]

Danny Ainge was guarding Isiah while DJ defended Vinnie or Dumars in every series available. It’s unlikely the Celtics changed that especially for 85...

Talk about making sure what you’re saying is true

You're right, Ainge was his primary defender because DJ was guarding Dumars (who was still at McNeese) and Vinnie Johnson (who played 15.5 less mpg in the series than Isiah) the whole time Isiah was on the floor, right?

Again:

Screw context, you gonna make sure what you're saying is true before you say it?

[E-Balla]

A.) Acknowledged that. B.) For the people who value higher minute performances outright, fine, but most of us are not giving a boost just because players used to have heavier minute loads.

But you're giving boosts because modern players have heavier per minute loads?

I will not say this is a useless framing, but it is a framing which grossly overweighs past star players. Telling me the gap between McAdoo and the average player in 1975 is larger than the gap between Davis and an average player in 2018 does not mean McAdoo is better. If this is how you look at the game, where is the vote for Mikan?

Mikan didn't play a single year of his prime with the shot clock. I'm comfortable saying the game was so different back then I see him as the weakest of the championship level first options mainly because the game was in it's infancy.

Or is there just some cutoff where it starts to matter? Obviously that is the case, because the gap between the ABA stars and the average ABA player seems to have also gone by the wayside.

Has it? 76 Dr. J made it in very early. I think people are comfortable saying a player that played with Charles Barkley and was playing at the same time as the primes and peaks of numbers 5, 12, and 13 on this list had good enough competition to compare him to. It wasn't like he was the best player over scrubs, he was arguably the best player in the world over Kareem and Dr. J.

Even then, by this metric, you should have been like the first person to vote for McGrady, with his 32 points per game in a league averaging 95 points per game, plus great wing defence and ridiculous impact numbers and solid passing.

I actually am very high on McGrady he just made it in while I was still voting Westbrook and Moses each thread. I've argued plenty around here that I put him over KD for example.

Also, lol at telling me minutes management is different while pushing for us to consider assessments which are aided by a heavy minutes load.

Not exactly what I'm doing. I'm saying you can't take one into account without taking the other. Sure they produced better per minute, but they were clearly better utilized to be able to produce more per minute by being restricted in minutes.

... Okay? Not like you are voting for Mikan or, uh, Johnston, and you did not vote for Durant.

Mikan is coming up, Johnston might come up, and KD has other weaknesses but he's probably the best scorer I've seen in my life and I've always said that. Where he loses me is in other areas.

Again, interesting numbers to offer, but prior points apply. You do not get to translate what McAdoo did in 1975 perfectly to the 1990s, let alone the 2010s.

And you don't get to pace adjust and act like his numbers are no longer more impressive than those guys. Remember I didn't make my case for him adjusting his numbers at all if you go back and read it. I decided to just adjust the numbers correctly as a response to you adjusting his numbers horribly.

Already pointed to the problems with treating all — sorry, most — league eras as inherently equal in terms of their stars.

This is just a fundamental gap in how we see the game here. I don't think Kareem benefitted from playing in a weaker era, just that he's so amazing he would be equally dominant at all times. It's hard for me to watch him play and not see he's clearly head and shoulder against anyone in the league recently outside of LeBron. With that in mind I think we can look at how McAdoo performed relative to the transcendent stars of the time (Kareem, Walton, Dr. J) and come to the conclusion that he was amazing. Plus when you watch him play he looks like Dirk. Seriously I can see him dominating the league now pretty easily.

Kind-of reductive and based in a small sample size — and unsurprisingly his cohorts apart from 1990 Jordan have the same sample size issues — but I guess this would be something of a glass houses territory for me to go beyond that basic criticism. Buuuuuuut again, record-level scoring hardly seems to apply to every player now, does it?

I'm only framing it this way because your argument against McAdoo was that his scoring wasn't particularly impressive. My post is all a very long winded way of saying yes it is.

Yet again, that “average opponent” level matters, but if you would prefer I could say “not good”. To me that says his shot profile maintains well, but the issue with this perpetual reliance on rTS is that it acts as if he would be guaranteed to have a 64% true shooting against a bad defensive team.

As I've said plenty of times I don't care what people do against bad teams so I would say even if it does imply this I never think about it and now that I am thinking about it I don't see why it's relevant.

It's just a way to show his efficiency was very good (+4.5 rTS% is very good, it would translate to a 60.5 TS% last year) against Washington since you took the raw number to say he was bad.

This is why sample sizes matter. Yes, this was a great series, and I would struggle to argue against it being the best series of the bunch... but that is all it was. This was also by a massive margin the best series of his career. And I am sure your take is that he could have maintained this to a certain extent, in a similar sense as 1976 Erving did in something of an outlier fashion (although I felt people here supremely oversold his 1977 “decline”), and that is your prerogative, but I do not believe if he had it made it past the Bullets he would have suddenly been scoring 42 points per game on league-leading efficiency.

He scored 32 ppg on 52 TS% in his 4 series from 74 to 76. He led the league in scoring all 3 years in the regular season. He lost to the champions in 74, the runner ups in 75, and the champions in 76. It's not like McAdoo was playing bad at any point in the playoffs, he just wasn't consistently God tier, just occasionally. That's still highly impressive when no one else on the board can claim better than that.

Really? Not similar? Incredible scoring load.

Kawhi's scoring load isn't anywhere near the same as McAdoo's and unlike McAdoo he plays on a talented roster and I don't think anyone here would say it's not easier to be more efficient and effective on talented rosters.

Offering little in terms of passing (McAdoo offering a fair bit less than Kawhi). Nothing spectacular in terms of defence. I think you have to be pretty stubborn to act as if they are totally different. Which, well...

Why do you isolate what they did from team performance?

This is what I'm asking you. Kawhi's offense had other good players and did just fine without him. McAdoo's didn't. That's a clear difference. Yeah McAdoo would've been better if he could pass but he wasn't dominating possessions like Kawhi. He got the ball to score and that's what he did. He didn't run PNRs as a ball handler.

Why do you detract from Kawhi because his teammates have ostensible talent, but then blame him when they fail to live up to that talent?

Because they consistently lived up to that talent when he wasn't around at all? They went 17-5 without him last year.

Why do his 24 games of postseason impact get waved away because regular season sample size in a coasting season is sooooo much more valuable, but McAdoo in seven games gets the full benefit of his over-performance?

Because 24 games ain't a relevant sample when it's the exact opposite of what a career's worth of data for Lowry, Gasol, Green, Siakam, and Leonard tell us?

I've brought up a ton of evidence showing his teammates both in San Antonio in 2017 and Toronto in 2019 are very good and way better than the results make it seem they are, so what gives?

One counter could be that role-players are better now even if they are underperforming and that therefore passing is unilaterally more important, but you keep acting as if the average player is the same across eras, so that is out.

Not a thing. I've said previously role players are more specialized now and with that have become more valuable.

It is just so blatantly team-results-oriented, as if every star player is solely responsible for their team’s offensive accomplishments or disappointments. You look at the names and decide which players need to pass more without looking at how the players are performing. Kawhi had at least a +5 offensive impact in the Raptors postseason primarily by his scoring impact (and it was a fair bit higher before the Finals), but that is bad because his teammates were talented and so his lack of passing must have crippled them without him; what, would you be happier if the Raptors, top to bottom, gave the exact same performance, only the names were switched for worse players?

Team results are what matters this is 5 on 5 basketball not 1 on 1. If what you're doing doesn't help your team win it's not worth valuing. You're pretending I'm saying Kawhi's production is bad, and I'm not and I haven't. What I have said was it's not impressive or valuable if it didn't make the team better and I provided tons of evidence it didn't make the team better than the alternative.

Barry was clearly better than his volume-scoring 1967 self because he mastered passing, and he swept a statistically superior all-time defensive team, doing so with an uninspiring cast (who by the way rebounded out of their minds)... but then Blackhole Bob gets the nod because his scoring was really good against the same team in a loss?

First off I said they were close, second off McAdoo's team offense outperformed Barry's against the same defense. McAdoo absolutely slayed them, and on top of that he had the better regular season too.

Pedantic point; it was the first series of their playoffs.

And people do have comparable numbers, depending on the frame. And you set your frame, and that is whatever, and I wrote out a long tirade here but I guess it probably comes down to you being drawn to Barry and then looking at McAdoo and going, “You know what, I just think I would prefer to have McAdoo.” And hammering you on that and how it translates to your valuation of Kawhi is not going to lead to anything, so I guess I will just say thanks for offering a decent McAdoo case and leave it at that. I am going to leave up the rest for posterity, and because I hate for all of it to go to total waste, but I do not care about you responding about Kawhi anymore, or really about most of this, because I know it is a dead end.

I mean maybe the gap here is you don't see how much better McAdoo's scoring is than Kawhi's? Like we're comparing 30 ppg to 37 ppg. 27 ppg in the regular season to 35 ppg. And the efficiency is about similar. And Kawhi plays in the league environment where the average ORTG is way higher and the pace is practically the same. And McAdoo with less offensive talent led a better offense than Toronto.

[liamliam1234]

McAdoo stuff is fine, although I do think it is funny that you are not really willing to acknowledge your own era adjustment has its biases. But whatever, what I have come to expect.

Kawhi stuff is even more same as usual: pretending the Raptors regular season, or Kawhi’s 2019 regular season, has any real suggestion of translating to the playoffs to remotely equivalent levels, as a means to dismiss what the playoffs clearly showed to be their respective true production when the games actually mattered. It is not rational, but you refuse to stop doing it, so as I said, there is nothing more to be gained from me attacking it.

[E-Balla]

McAdoo stuff is fine, although I do think it is funny that you are not really willing to acknowledge your own era adjustment has its biases. But whatever, what I have come to expect.

I'm not saying it doesn't, I don't even use era adjustments outside of rTS% and rORTGs (which is something pretty consistently shown to be affected heavily by league environment year to year, player to player). I don't personally find much usefulness in adjusting stats outside of 60-70 and the mid 90s to the mid 00s like I said before and that's because those are the 2 eras where league environment was wildly different from most other years (2019 has a case too but it's only a single year so we'll see if freedom of movement is weakened going forward). I was just trying to show your adjustments were extremely flawed and crafted in a way that specifically makes older stars looks horrible.

Kawhi stuff is even more same as usual: pretending the Raptors regular season, or Kawhi’s 2019 regular season, has any real suggestion of translating to the playoffs to remotely equivalent levels, as a means to dismiss what the playoffs clearly showed to be their respective true production when the games actually mattered. It is not rational, but you refuse to stop doing it, so as I said, there is nothing more to be gained from me attacking it.

And you refuse to acknowledge the argument I've already made using the Raptors postseason rORTGs from 2015 to 2018 so I don't know what you're talking about here. We've already discussed how the 2018 Raptors were better offensively than the 2019 Raptors in the regular and postseason. We've also already discussed how San Antonio's offense is slightly better without Kawhi.

I posted all the numbers in these threads already. You keep saying things with no proof or numbers and you ignore the proof saying otherwise whenever it's brought up.

EDIT: Here it is for people that forgot.

The Raptors had a +3.1 offense in the 2018 postseason and a +1.1 offense the 2019 postseason prior to the Finals where they played a crippled Warriors team (overall they had a +2.4 offense). Maybe you're overestimating the Raptors offense here, make no mistake they won their games with crippling defense and luck playing a hobbled Warriors team, not Kawhi leading them to great offensive results.

EDIT: I'm not punching all the numbers but a cursory glance at the Raptors in the playoffs from 16-18 showed me the Raptors performed at over a +1.1 level in 4 of their 7 playoff series. Kawhi increased their performance, but only because with Kawhi there there's no way Toronto was going to be -5 in a series like they were 3 times from 16 to 18. He clearly didn't raise their ceiling though.

This "carry job" we're talking about for Kawhi is still only him leading a team that was a +5 offense without him, and has a lot of talent, to a +2.4 offense (+1.1 before playing a completely decimated team). It's not like McAdoo leading a +5.6 offense against Washington.

[liamliam1234]

You will need to remind me who the 2018 Raptors played in the postseason. For someone so concerned with performance against top defences, you sure are placing a massive amount of weight on how they did against the famously stout 2018 Wizards and Cavaliers, and seem to be very happy to ignore how that system which was so functional without Kawhi suddenly vanished in the playoffs such that the Raptors were like a -5 every time he stepped off the floor.

[E-Balla]

You will need to remind me who the 2018 Raptors played in the postseason. For someone so concerned with performance against top defences, you sure are placing a massive amount of weight on how they did against the famously stout 2018 Wizards and Cavaliers, and seem to be very happy to ignore how that system which was so functional without Kawhi suddenly vanished in the playoffs such that the Raptors were like a -5 every time he stepped off the floor.

And this is why conversation breaks down because WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE!

and Bucks (statistically top three all season) a year later.

This series was impressive but maybe you missed my main point. I've already said Kawhi improved their postseason offense. Why are you sticking to this? I already brought up 2 other years of postseason data including series against the 2016 Pacers (-3.5 defense), and the 2016 Heat (-2.0 defense) who are both better than the 2019 76ers defensively and Indiana was better than Orlando. So again, the highs of the 2019 Raptors offense in the postseason shouldn't be surprising or unexpected. Kawhi raising their floor so they didn't have their annual series playing like a -5 offense is what helped them turn the corner along with injury luck once they made the Finals and LeBron leaving the conference.

To which you replied to by saying something you don't even believe in an attempt to not lose face saying the loss of JV was the reason the Raptors offense didn't improve much:

My point is that no one is arguing those earlier years as his peak, so maybe there is more to this analysis than just glancing at relative offensive rating and saying, “Oh, Tim Duncan’s absence probably did not matter and is the only thing worth considering.”

Maybe the Raptors suffered on offence because they basically never had Valanciunas. Anyone can pick and choose like this.

In 2018 the Raps had a 111.1 ORTG with Val on the floor and a 109.2 ORTG without him. Again, gish gallop. Look something up before you say it for once.

The fact you don't remember this makes it obvious you didn't mean it at all when you said it, or even think it was a good point, or even put a split second of thought into it, because otherwise you'd remember we did this less than 5 threads ago.

Then you acted like that +2 on/off gap was a big deal so I mentioned their ORTG went up after the Gasol trade to a 114.6 (because as everyone knows Marc is better than JV).

After I mentioned that you completely stopped replying and I continued with DatAsh who acknowledged that while he doesn't agree with my conclusion on Kawhi's offense it's a great point with solid evidence.

This is pretty solid evidence you're not even putting thought into responses because I'd think you'd remember a series of posts that took effort 2 weeks later like I did.

[liamliam1234]

You know what, forget just dismissing it; if you are going to keep pushing bull narratives, they deserve every amount of discredit I can offer.

I posted all the numbers in these threads already. You keep saying things with no proof or numbers and you ignore the proof saying otherwise whenever it's brought up.

This "carry job" we're talking about for Kawhi is still only him leading a team that was a +5 offense without him, and has a lot of talent, to a +2.4 offense (+1.1 before playing a completely decimated team). It's not like McAdoo leading a +5.6 offense against Washington.

You want proof of impact? How about we actually look at Kawhi's proof of impact, rather than extrapolating from what the team at large was doing in a regular season nobody took seriously.

Kawhi 2019 regular season, playing 51% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 117.5 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.8 (-0.6), net team offensive difference of +7.7. His defence was a general negative, so overall net difference was +5.3.

Wow, that sure does not look like a negative (although he did indeed disrupt the motion aspect of the offence). Ah, well, you said compared to Demar, right?

Demar 2018 regular season, playing 69% (nice) of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.7 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 111.4 (+2.8), net team offensive difference of +4.3. His defence was a massive negative, so overall net difference was -1.5.

So in a season where Kawhi coasted throughout the regular season, he led the offence to the same relative level as Demar (since that is the metric you love) and was overall a bigger offensive difference maker. Gee, I thought the Raptors were so much better with Demar in the regular season?

Okay, what about prior Kawhi years, where he was such a more willing passer?

Kawhi 2017 regular season, playing 62% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.3 (+6.5), off-court team offensive rating of 105.3 (-3.5), net team offensive difference of +10.0. Defence slid a lot, so overall net difference was an abysmal +1.6 (we can come back to this).

Wow, that is quite the offensive impact. Kawhi sure must have been spectacular the prior year, since he was so much worse here, right?

Kawhi 2016 regular season, playing 60% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 111.5 (+5.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.0 (+2.6), net team offensive difference of +2.5. Defence was great, so overall net difference was +7.1.

Remember when I told you that case for Kawhi's defensive decline being more impactful than his offensive improvement was substantially more coherent than saying his offence itself declined?

And just for fun:

Demar 2019 regular season, playing 68% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.6 (+2.2), off-court team offensive rating of 115.4 (+5.0), net team offensive difference of -2.8. Defence was typically bad, so overall net difference was -5.1.

Now, who was it who said San Antonio was just as good with Demar's offence replacing Kawhi's offence?
Oh, that is right, all you have been doing is looking at end-of-year results without bothering to look at the actual context of those results. What high quality analysis.

But here is the part I care about:

Kawhi 2016 postseason, playing 71% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.0 (+5.6), off-court team offensive rating of 108.2 (+1.8), net team offensive difference of +3.8. Defensive impact was poor, so overall net difference was -0.6.
Kawhi 2017 postseason, playing 55% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 121.4 (+12.6), off-court team offensive rating of 105.1 (-3.7), net team offensive difference of +16.3. Oh, and he picked up his defensive effort, so his overall net difference was +22.2.
Kawhi 2019 postseason, playing 81% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 114.3 (+3.9), off-court team offensive rating of 95.6 (-14.8), net team offensive difference of +18.7 . Not really doing this by series, but guessing his negative defensive impact stemmed in large part from the Finals; his overall net difference was +16.8.

Weird, it is almost as if this reflects everything I have been saying (if anything, I should have been much, much, much stronger about how terrible the Raptors were without Kawhi, but I wanted to play it safe). Kawhi was not great in the 2016 postseason, offensively or otherwise. He was spectacular in the 2017 postseason and carried San Antonio's offence. And he carried the offence even harder in 2019, against a substantially tougher defensive slate. Your numbers were not representative, either logically or empirically. You presented the most uneven possible analysis, misrepresented regular season results, and tried to push multiple trends not remotely supported by the data.

How is that for remembering?

But hey, good job gambling that it would take me several threads before I became concerned enough that anyone else might buy your bull to feel obliged to correct you with some real impact data. Really excited to see how you attempt to wave away the bounty of fabrications you have been spewing for the past week simply because the Raptors had some big names. It is a garbage point with the barest minimum amount of "evidence" which I rightly treated as the absolute joke it was, but do go on about how much time and effort you put into "research".

Separately, just for the sake of comparison:

Giannis 2019 regular season, playing 60% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 116.6 (+6.2), off-court team offensive rating of 111.5 (+1.1), net team offensive difference of +5.1. Overall net difference was +8.9.
Giannis 2019 postseason, playing 70% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.1 (+1.7), off-court team offensive rating of 112.3 (-1.9), net team offensive difference of -0.2. Overall net difference was +3.2.

[E-Balla]

You want proof of impact? How about we actually look at Kawhi's proof of impact, rather than extrapolating from what the team at large was doing in a regular season nobody took seriously.

Kawhi 2019 regular season, playing 51% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 117.5 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.8 (-0.6), net team offensive difference of +7.7. His defence was a general negative, so overall net difference was +5.3.

Wow, that sure does not look like a negative (although he did indeed disrupt the motion aspect of the offence). Ah, well, you said compared to Demar, right?

I didn't say he's a negative compared to DeMar overall, just that he was to the Spurs and Raptors in the regular season and that their postseason offense was nothing special but there's a big issue here not being mentioned. Kawhi has the worst offensive on/off of the starting 5 minus Serge and the offense had an estimated 116.2 ORTG in their games without him (and a 111.2 ORTG in their games with him). Makes it seem like the players he was in lineups with carried his offensive on/off.

Demar 2018 regular season, playing 69% (nice) of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.7 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 111.4 (+2.8), net team offensive difference of +4.3. His defence was a massive negative, so overall net difference was -1.5.

Demar had the highest on court rating on the team though. Well over the others. Kawhi didn't.

So in a season where Kawhi coasted throughout the regular season, he led the offence to the same relative level as Demar (since that is the metric you love) and was overall a bigger offensive difference maker. Gee, I thought the Raptors were so much better with Demar in the regular season?

Okay, what about prior Kawhi years, where he was such a more willing passer?

Kawhi 2017 regular season, playing 62% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.3 (+6.5), off-court team offensive rating of 105.3 (-3.5), net team offensive difference of +10.0. Defence slid a lot, so overall net difference was an abysmal +1.6 (we can come back to this).

Umm... I've already discussed this. We've already discussed this. Why is this being rehashed? TL;DR: Kawhi didn't play the offense leaving them out of rhythm when he was off the court and leaving his 2nd best player out of rhythm. The Spurs offense recovered the second they added Demar and they looked great without him in 2016 and great on paper. Even in 2017 without Kawhi totally and with no replacement they were only a -0.7 offense which is a big drop, but not one you'd expect to see from missing a player like Kawhi.

Wow, that is quite the offensive impact. Kawhi sure must have been spectacular the prior year, since he was so much worse here, right?

Kawhi 2016 regular season, playing 60% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 111.5 (+5.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.0 (+2.6), net team offensive difference of +2.5. Defence was great, so overall net difference was +7.1.

Remember when I told you that case for Kawhi's defensive decline being more impactful than his offensive improvement was substantially more coherent than saying his offence itself declined?

Cool, I've made that case too, I don't know why you keep pretending my first post about 2017 Kawhi wasn't about his defense.

And just for fun:

Demar 2019 regular season, playing 68% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.6 (+2.2), off-court team offensive rating of 115.4 (+5.0), net team offensive difference of -2.8. Defence was typically bad, so overall net difference was -5.1.

Now, who was it who said San Antonio was just as good with Demar's offence replacing Kawhi's offence?

Umm... But they were... Again they had a higher rORTG. I never said Kawhi wasn't better I said the offense improved. This doesn't disprove that.

But here is the part I care about:

Kawhi 2016 postseason, playing 71% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.0 (+5.6), off-court team offensive rating of 108.2 (+1.8), net team offensive difference of +3.8. Defensive impact was poor, so overall net difference was -0.6.
Kawhi 2017 postseason, playing 55% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 121.4 (+12.6), off-court team offensive rating of 105.1 (-3.7), net team offensive difference of +16.3. Oh, and he picked up his defensive effort, so his overall net difference was +22.2.
Kawhi 2019 postseason, playing 81% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 114.3 (+3.9), off-court team offensive rating of 95.6 (-14.8), net team offensive difference of +18.7 . Not really doing this by series, but guessing his negative defensive impact stemmed in large part from the Finals; his overall net difference was +16.8.

Kawhi's on court rating each of those 3 postseasons was still about the same. +9.8 in 16, +11.1 in 17, +8.7 in 19. Off court samples in the playoffs are extremely small and unreliable for single seasons. Maybe if it's for a 35-40+ game sample I can take it into account but otherwise? And all that's before we add in the fact Kawhi missed most of the series against the GOAT team in 2017 so his on/off is extremely inflated. Seriously if single season postseason on/off splits is the backbone of your argument I'll accept that but I'll have to disagree.

Weird, it is almost as if this reflects everything I have been saying (if anything, I should have been much, much, much stronger about how terrible the Raptors were without Kawhi, but I wanted to play it safe). Kawhi was not great in the 2016 postseason, offensively or otherwise. He was spectacular in the 2017 postseason and carried San Antonio's offence. And he carried the offence even harder in 2019, against a substantially tougher defensive slate. Your numbers were not representative, either logically or empirically. You presented the most uneven possible analysis, misrepresented regular season results, and tried to push multiple trends not remotely supported by the data.

How is that for remembering?

There's no way you believe this. Kawhi was spectacular. Lamarcus was better against OKC but Kawhi was just about as good as KD.

But hey, good job gambling that it would take me several threads before I became concerned enough that anyone else might buy your bull to feel obliged to correct you with some real impact data. Really excited to see how you attempt to wave away the bounty of fabrications you have been spewing for the past week simply because the Raptors had some big names. It is a garbage point with the barest minimum amount of "evidence" which I treated as the absolutely joke it was, but do go on about how much time and effort you put into "research".

Totally. You're using on/off over the quarter season sample for Raptors games without Kawhi to gauge his regular season impact because that's sound analysis and not cherry picking to win an argument. There's no better tell for how a team will play without him than a 22 game sample of missed games all from different parts of the season. What kept him well rested is why we know the Raptors are great without him.

Separately, just for the sake of comparison:

Giannis 2019 regular season, playing 60% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 116.6 (+6.2), off-court team offensive rating of 111.5 (+1.1), net team offensive difference of +5.1. Overall net difference was +8.9.
Giannis 2019 postseason, playing 70% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.1 (+1.7), off-court team offensive rating of 112.3 (-1.9), net team offensive difference of -0.2. Overall net difference was +3.2.

I'd take peak Kawhi over Giannis.

[liamliam1234]

You want proof of impact? How about we actually look at Kawhi's proof of impact, rather than extrapolating from what the team at large was doing in a regular season nobody took seriously.

Kawhi 2019 regular season, playing 51% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 117.5 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.8 (-0.6), net team offensive difference of +7.7. His defence was a general negative, so overall net difference was +5.3.

Wow, that sure does not look like a negative (although he did indeed disrupt the motion aspect of the offence). Ah, well, you said compared to Demar, right?

I didn't say he's a negative compared to DeMar overall, just that he was to the Spurs and Raptors in the regular season and that their postseason offense was nothing special but there's a big issue here not being mentioned. Kawhi has the worst offensive on/off of the starting 5 minus Serge and the offense had an estimated 116.2 ORTG in their games without him (and a 111.2 ORTG in their games with him). Makes it seem like the players he was in lineups with carried his offensive on/off.

Yes, Danny Green carried Kawhi's offence.

I never made the case he was their most impactful regular season offensive player. The point is that Demar was demonstrably not as impactful, and the fact he did not miss a quarter of the season to show it should not be the difference there. I am aware the Raptors were good enough to catch a couple of decent teams off-guard and beat up on good teams without Kawhi. In the regular season. Again, the bulk of my focus is on the postseason, but you have not been honest or fair in your portrayals of Kawhi's regular season impact, for the Raptors or for the Spurs. And you have never bothered to acknowledge that all of his impact was when he was playing at pretty marginal effort levels.

Demar 2018 regular season, playing 69% (nice) of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.7 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 111.4 (+2.8), net team offensive difference of +4.3. His defence was a massive negative, so overall net difference was -1.5.

Demar had the highest on court rating on the team though. Well over the others. Kawhi didn't.

Wow, sounds like Kawhi makes his teammates a lot better after all.

Why does that not apply to the 2017 Spurs, where Kawhi's regular season offensive impact dwarfed the rest, more than doubling the next on the list? Demar leads with a +4.3 over a couple of +2 players and that is good, but Kawhi leads with a +10 over a +4.7 player and oooh, that is bad.

So in a season where Kawhi coasted throughout the regular season, he led the offence to the same relative level as Demar (since that is the metric you love) and was overall a bigger offensive difference maker. Gee, I thought the Raptors were so much better with Demar in the regular season?

Okay, what about prior Kawhi years, where he was such a more willing passer?

Kawhi 2017 regular season, playing 62% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.3 (+6.5), off-court team offensive rating of 105.3 (-3.5), net team offensive difference of +10.0. Defence slid a lot, so overall net difference was an abysmal +1.6 (we can come back to this).

Umm... I've already discussed this. We've already discussed this. Why is this being rehashed? TL;DR: Kawhi didn't play the offense leaving them out of rhythm when he was off the court and leaving his 2nd best player out of rhythm. The Spurs offense recovered the second they added Demar and they looked great without him in 2016 and great on paper. Even in 2017 without Kawhi totally and with no replacement they were only a -0.7 offense which is a big drop, but not one you'd expect to see from missing a player like Kawhi.

They were a +6.5 offence with Kawhi in 2017 and a +5.1 offence with Kawhi in 2016. They were demonstrably better on offence with his 2017 self, and the notion of him being at fault for their inability to properly handle his absence is total inanity which could be hypothetically applied to any player. Every player had a better effective field goal percentage playing next to Kawhi, so I guess he should have coached them to make more of their shots without him, right?

And you want to claim they improved the second they added Demar? They were +2.2 with Demar! He did next to nothing, and their offence was actively better when he was off the court. Again, you keep attributing the overall team result to the star, which is absolutely nonsensical. You penalise Kawhi for his team being bad without him and praise Demar for the team being worse with him.

Wow, that is quite the offensive impact. Kawhi sure must have been spectacular the prior year, since he was so much worse here, right?

Kawhi 2016 regular season, playing 60% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 111.5 (+5.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.0 (+2.6), net team offensive difference of +2.5. Defence was great, so overall net difference was +7.1.

Remember when I told you that case for Kawhi's defensive decline being more impactful than his offensive improvement was substantially more coherent than saying his offence itself declined?

Cool, I've made that case too, I don't know why you keep pretending my first post about 2017 Kawhi wasn't about his defense.

Probably has to do with you claiming that Kawhi made the offence worse in 2017, even though the numbers show that when he was on the court it and every player was notably better.

And just for fun:

Demar 2019 regular season, playing 68% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.6 (+2.2), off-court team offensive rating of 115.4 (+5.0), net team offensive difference of -2.8. Defence was typically bad, so overall net difference was -5.1.

Now, who was it who said San Antonio was just as good with Demar's offence replacing Kawhi's offence?

Umm... But they were... Again they had a higher rORTG. I never said Kawhi wasn't better I said the offense improved. This doesn't disprove that.

Really? +2.2 with Demar is just as good? Framing it like that is framing it to suggest they were better off offensively without Kawhi, when, again, every indication is that Kawhi was a massive positive. It is just slimy.

Again, why is this your angle. Why are you going, "See, their bench was awesome this year; good riddance, Kawhi!" Christ, Raptors fans were proud of our Bench Mob peak, but we were not seriously saying that we would rather have it than our starters. "Woah, a bunch of players performed better one year to the next. That must all be on the player who left!"

But here is the part I care about:

Kawhi 2016 postseason, playing 71% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.0 (+5.6), off-court team offensive rating of 108.2 (+1.8), net team offensive difference of +3.8. Defensive impact was poor, so overall net difference was -0.6.
Kawhi 2017 postseason, playing 55% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 121.4 (+12.6), off-court team offensive rating of 105.1 (-3.7), net team offensive difference of +16.3. Oh, and he picked up his defensive effort, so his overall net difference was +22.2.
Kawhi 2019 postseason, playing 81% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 114.3 (+3.9), off-court team offensive rating of 95.6 (-14.8), net team offensive difference of +18.7 . Not really doing this by series, but guessing his negative defensive impact stemmed in large part from the Finals; his overall net difference was +16.8.

Kawhi's on court rating each of those 3 postseasons was still about the same. +9.8 in 16, +11.1 in 17, +8.7 in 19. Off court samples in the playoffs are extremely small and unreliable for single seasons. Maybe if it's for a 35-40+ game sample I can take it into account but otherwise? And all that's before we add in the fact Kawhi missed most of the series against the GOAT team in 2017 so his on/off is extremely inflated. Seriously if single season postseason on/off splits is the backbone of your argument I'll accept that but I'll have to disagree.

What? The number is right there: Kawhi had a negative overall postseason impact in 2016 because he was correlated with improved opponent offensive performance. Are you looking at team results again? I agree his 2017 on/off is inflated in totality, but that should not radically change the offensive impact. And then you talk about off-court samples being small, but when it becomes large it is a problem too! So you just basically never want to use a pretty key impact tool in the playoffs, even though they quite obviously seem to correlate well with eye-test and other impact measurements. Convenient. Much more sensible to just look at the end product and say the star deserves sole responsibility for whatever it was. In an era where stars frequently conserve themselves during the regular season, you want to pretend that in any way is properly representative of what they do in the postseason.

But hey, good job gambling that it would take me several threads before I became concerned enough that anyone else might buy your bull to feel obliged to correct you with some real impact data. Really excited to see how you attempt to wave away the bounty of fabrications you have been spewing for the past week simply because the Raptors had some big names. It is a garbage point with the barest minimum amount of "evidence" which I treated as the absolutely joke it was, but do go on about how much time and effort you put into "research".

Totally. You're using on/off over the quarter season sample for Raptors games without Kawhi to gauge his regular season impact because that's sound analysis and not cherry picking to win an argument. There's no better tell for how a team will play without him than a 22 game sample of missed games all from different parts of the season. What kept him well rested is why we know the Raptors are great without him.

Yes, looking at the postseason to judge, gasp, the postseason, is deeply cherrypicked. Backing up what anyone who watched the series could see with numbers is so profoundly unfair.

You know what is the best way to judge how a team plays in the postseason? How they play in the postseason. Not how they performed in some meaningless regular season games specifically chosen to be good rest targets.

[trex_8063]

1. Per 100 comparisons only make sense if their playing time is similar. McAdoo played 43 mpg. Davis played 36 mpg, it's not the same producing in 36 mpg as compared to 43. Same for Barkley a 39 mpg and Karl's 38.

A.) Acknowledged that. B.) For the people who value higher minute performances outright, fine, but most of us are not giving a boost just because players used to have heavier minute loads.

I wouldn't be too quick to speak for everyone else. I actually think it's VERY important to list mpg along with any rate metrics for this comparison (and pts/100 poss is a rate metric). Now if you're comparing a guy who averaged 37 mpg to a guy who averaged 38 mpg, it's not essential (as that's a pretty negligible difference). But if you're comparing a guy who averaged 36 mpg to a guy who averaged 43 mpg, that's a pretty significant difference in playing time. And it's totally fair to assume that the guy playing 43 mpg is spending a larger proportion of his minutes on the court playing while fatigued and/or pacing himself [to avoid fatigue]. He may or may not spend more on-court time in foul trouble, too.

And these factors would naturally reduce his per-minute production and/or efficiency. So it's reasonable to assume that McAdoo's numbers or efficiency might be marginally better if his minute-load were controlled a little more, for example (or alternately: that the 36 mpg guy's numbers would be worse if forced to play 43 mpg).

And if we're going to "correct" per game numbers for pace by using per 100 numbers, it's only fair and reasonable to use rTS% instead of raw (at least if comparing to an era where there's a notable difference), as there are a variety of factors that influence league-wide efficiency---->e.g. presence or absence of 3pt line, spacing, officiating [perhaps especially as it pertains to ball-handling], conventional "wisdom" on good shot selection in the era in question, conventionally coached skillsets, etc.

You can't adjust for ONE era difference (the difference in pace), and not adjust for others.


That said, you're 100% correct that McAdoo being further ahead of his 1975 peers than Anthony Davis was ahead of his 2018 peers does NOT necessarily mean he was a better player than AD.
Everyone needs to make his own "era adjustment" or weighting based on perceived strength of era, which is obviously a very subjective business, and we get wildly differing opinions pertaining to that.

[E-Balla]

You want proof of impact? How about we actually look at Kawhi's proof of impact, rather than extrapolating from what the team at large was doing in a regular season nobody took seriously.

Kawhi 2019 regular season, playing 51% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 117.5 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.8 (-0.6), net team offensive difference of +7.7. His defence was a general negative, so overall net difference was +5.3.

Wow, that sure does not look like a negative (although he did indeed disrupt the motion aspect of the offence). Ah, well, you said compared to Demar, right?

I didn't say he's a negative compared to DeMar overall, just that he was to the Spurs and Raptors in the regular season and that their postseason offense was nothing special but there's a big issue here not being mentioned. Kawhi has the worst offensive on/off of the starting 5 minus Serge and the offense had an estimated 116.2 ORTG in their games without him (and a 111.2 ORTG in their games with him). Makes it seem like the players he was in lineups with carried his offensive on/off.

Yes, Danny Green carried Kawhi's offence.

I never made the case he was their most impactful regular season offensive player. The point is that Demar was demonstrably not as impactful, and the fact he did not miss a quarter of the season to show it should not be the difference there. I am aware the Raptors were good enough to catch a couple of decent teams off-guard and beat up on good teams without Kawhi. In the regular. season. Again, the bulk of my focus is on the postseason, but you have not been honest or fair in your portrayals of Kawhi's regular season impact, for the Raptors or for the Spurs. And you have never bothered to acknowledge that all of his impact was when he was playing at pretty marginal effort levels.

Demar 2018 regular season, playing 69% (nice) of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.7 (+7.1), off-court team offensive rating of 111.4 (+2.8), net team offensive difference of +4.3. His defence was a massive negative, so overall net difference was -1.5.

Demar had the highest on court rating on the team though. Well over the others. Kawhi didn't.

Wow, sounds like Kawhi makes his teammates a lot better after all.

Why does that not apply to the 2017 Spurs, where Kawhi's regular season offensive impact dwarfed the rest, more than doubling the next on the list? Demar leads with a +4.3 over a couple of +2 players and that is good, but Kawhi leads with a +10 over a +4.7 player and oooh, that is bad.

So in a season where Kawhi coasted throughout the regular season, he led the offence to the same relative level as Demar (since that is the metric you love) and was overall a bigger offensive difference maker. Gee, I thought the Raptors were so much better with Demar in the regular season?

Okay, what about prior Kawhi years, where he was such a more willing passer?

Kawhi 2017 regular season, playing 62% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 115.3 (+6.5), off-court team offensive rating of 105.3 (-3.5), net team offensive difference of +10.0. Defence slid a lot, so overall net difference was an abysmal +1.6 (we can come back to this).

Umm... I've already discussed this. We've already discussed this. Why is this being rehashed? TL;DR: Kawhi didn't play the offense leaving them out of rhythm when he was off the court and leaving his 2nd best player out of rhythm. The Spurs offense recovered the second they added Demar and they looked great without him in 2016 and great on paper. Even in 2017 without Kawhi totally and with no replacement they were only a -0.7 offense which is a big drop, but not one you'd expect to see from missing a player like Kawhi.

They were a +6.5 offence with Kawhi in 2017 and a +5.1 offence with Kawhi in 2016. They were demonstrably better on offence with his 2017 self, and the notion of him being at fault for their inability to properly handle his absence is total inanity which could be hypothetically applied to any player. Every player had a better effective field goal percentage playing next to Kawhi, so I guess he should have coached them to make more of their shots without him, right?

And you want to claim they improved the second they added Demar? They were +2.2 with Demar! He did next to nothing, and their offence was actively better when he was off the court. Again, you keep attributing the overall team result to the star, which is absolutely nonsensical. You penalise Kawhi for his team being bad without him and praise Demar for the team being worse with him.

Wow, that is quite the offensive impact. Kawhi sure must have been spectacular the prior year, since he was so much worse here, right?

Kawhi 2016 regular season, playing 60% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 111.5 (+5.1), off-court team offensive rating of 109.0 (+2.6), net team offensive difference of +2.5. Defence was great, so overall net difference was +7.1.

Remember when I told you that case for Kawhi's defensive decline being more impactful than his offensive improvement was substantially more coherent than saying his offence itself declined?

Cool, I've made that case too, I don't know why you keep pretending my first post about 2017 Kawhi wasn't about his defense.

Probably has to do with you claiming that Kawhi made the offence worse in 2017, even though the numbers show that when he was on the court it and every player was notably better.

And just for fun:

Demar 2019 regular season, playing 68% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.6 (+2.2), off-court team offensive rating of 115.4 (+5.0), net team offensive difference of -2.8. Defence was typically bad, so overall net difference was -5.1.

Now, who was it who said San Antonio was just as good with Demar's offence replacing Kawhi's offence?

Umm... But they were... Again they had a higher rORTG. I never said Kawhi wasn't better I said the offense improved. This doesn't disprove that.

Really? +2.2 with Demar is just as good? Framing it like that is framing it to suggest they were better off with Kawhi, when, again, every indication is that Kawhi was a massive positive. It is just slimy.

Again, why is this your angle. Why are you going, "See, their bench was awesome this year; good riddance, Kawhi!" Christ, Raptors fans were proud of our Bench Mob peak, but we were not seriously saying that we would rather have it than our starters. "Woah, a bunch of players performed better one year to the next. That must all be on the player who left!"

But here is the part I care about:

Kawhi 2016 postseason, playing 71% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 112.0 (+5.6), off-court team offensive rating of 108.2 (+1.8), net team offensive difference of +3.8. Defensive impact was poor, so overall net difference was -0.6.
Kawhi 2017 postseason, playing 55% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 121.4 (+12.6), off-court team offensive rating of 105.1 (-3.7), net team offensive difference of +16.3. Oh, and he picked up his defensive effort, so his overall net difference was +22.2.
Kawhi 2019 postseason, playing 81% of available minutes: On-court team offensive rating of 114.3 (+3.9), off-court team offensive rating of 95.6 (-14.8), net team offensive difference of +18.7 . Not really doing this by series, but guessing his negative defensive impact stemmed in large part from the Finals; his overall net difference was +16.8.

Kawhi's on court rating each of those 3 postseasons was still about the same. +9.8 in 16, +11.1 in 17, +8.7 in 19. Off court samples in the playoffs are extremely small and unreliable for single seasons. Maybe if it's for a 35-40+ game sample I can take it into account but otherwise? And all that's before we add in the fact Kawhi missed most of the series against the GOAT team in 2017 so his on/off is extremely inflated. Seriously if single season postseason on/off splits is the backbone of your argument I'll accept that but I'll have to disagree.

What? The number is right there: Kawhi had a negative overall postseason impact in 2016 because he was correlated with improved opponent offensive performance. Are you looking at team results again? I agree his 2017 on/off is inflated in totality, but that should not radically change the offensive impact. And then you talk about off-court samples being small, but when it becomes large it is a problem too! So you just basically never want to use a pretty key impact tool in the playoffs, even though they quite obviously seem to correlate well with eye-test and other impact measurements. Convenient. Much more sensible to just look at the end product and say the star deserves sole responsibility for whatever it was. In an era where stars frequently conserve themselves during the regular season, you want to pretend that in any way is properly representative of what they do in the postseason.

But hey, good job gambling that it would take me several threads before I became concerned enough that anyone else might buy your bull to feel obliged to correct you with some real impact data. Really excited to see how you attempt to wave away the bounty of fabrications you have been spewing for the past week simply because the Raptors had some big names. It is a garbage point with the barest minimum amount of "evidence" which I treated as the absolutely joke it was, but do go on about how much time and effort you put into "research".

Totally. You're using on/off over the quarter season sample for Raptors games without Kawhi to gauge his regular season impact because that's sound analysis and not cherry picking to win an argument. There's no better tell for how a team will play without him than a 22 game sample of missed games all from different parts of the season. What kept him well rested is why we know the Raptors are great without him.

Yes, looking at the postseason to judge, gasp, the postseason, is deeply cherrypicked. Backing up what anyone who watched the series could see with numbers is so profoundly unfair.

You know what is the best way to judge how a team plays in the postseason? How they play in the postseason. Not how they performed in some meaningless regular season games specifically chosen to be good rest targets.

Instead of going piece by piece I'll just state this again:

Seriously if single season postseason on/off splits is the backbone of your argument I'll accept that but I'll have to disagree.

I'm taking a career worth of data telling me how good his supporting cast is over a small sub 300 minute off court samples in the playoffs. It just comes down to that. I don't know how anyone watches that team and thinks those numbers reflect what their level of play without Kawhi would be.

If you wanna talk playoffs again, these guys are experienced veteran postseason performers (and Lowry who doesn't particularly "perform" all the time). We know how good they are without Kawhi.

[liamliam1234]

Again, as someone who has watched this team for the past five or six years, while I would be surprised if that -14 offence was their set operating level, them being a clear negative against the trio of eastern conference opponents is pretty much exactly what I and many Raptors had/have come to expect. It would be akin to taking Donovan Mitchell off the Jazz, or Giannis off the Bucks: the guys left may be nice players on paper, but no one reasonably capable of giving the offensive support needed in a series against a tough defence. Especially with the 2019 iterations of Marc and Lowry. Think 1992 Jazz: yeah, Stockton and Eaton are good players to have, and they impact the game, but without Malone they are not seriously threatening anyone. And Siakam is a decent second option, but his limitations were pretty apparent in his first real playoff challenge; similar thing happened to Middleton and Bledsoe for the Bucks.

Playoffs are simply different, and you know that. And you also know that not all regular season performances are equally applicable to the postseason (Hakeem and Reggie come to mind, as do David Robinson and the Jazz duo). So why pretend otherwise when it comes to the most blatant “I am only here for the playoffs” season since Shaq?

[E-Balla]

Again, as someone who has watched this team for the past five or six years, while I would be surprised if that -14 offence was their set operating level, them being a clear negative against the trio of eastern conference opponents is pretty much exactly what I and many Raptors had/have come to expect.

They only had a +1.1 ORTG against that trio. I'm saying that's not much better than I would expect. Like I said in 4 of their 7 series leading up to 2019 they reached a +1.1 DRTG or over and they've done it against teams better than Philly and Orlando (not Milwaukee though, and I'll say that series is probably better than I'd expect from them with Demar in place of Kawhi+Danny, just not as much better as I'd expect).

You keep throwing these strawmen out. No one denies Kawhi's abilities, I'm denying their effects based on what I see as extremely weak results.

It would be akin to taking Donovan Mitchell off the Jazz, or Giannis off the Bucks: the guys left may be nice players on paper, but no one reasonably capable of giving the offensive support needed in a series against a tough defence. Especially with the 2019 iterations of Marc and Lowry. Think 1992 Jazz: yeah, Stockton and Eaton are good players to have, and they impact the game, but without Malone they are not seriously threatening anyone. And Siakam is a decent second option, but his limitations were pretty apparent in his first real playoff challenge; similar thing happened to Middleton and Bledsoe for the Bucks.

Siakam performed amicably in his first challenge. He averaged 19 ppg on 53 TS% against Philly and had a 20 PER. If you meant Milwaukee I agree he was bad against them.

I think without Mitchell the Jazz score just fine, without Giannis the Bucks don't suffer nearly as much as you'd assume offensively (especially in the playoffs the way they played him), and Karl Malone is an interesting one because I think that offense really overachieved in 92 so I don't see that happening without Malone. Eaton was horrid offensively. I do still think they're a 45-50ish win team without Malone but not a WCF, +8 postseason team. Stock was arguably top of his position, they had another 20 point scoring Malone, and Eaton was old but still a great defender.

Playoffs are simply different, and you know that. And you also know that not all regular season performances are equally applicable to the postseason (Hakeem and Reggie come to mind, as do David Robinson and the Jazz duo). So why pretend otherwise when it comes to the most blatant “I am only here for the playoffs” season since Shaq?

I do which is why I keep mentioning the play of the Raptors in the playoffs prior to Kawhi and I've mentioned Marc's career of playoff success. These guys are also proven in the postseason, not just the regular season.

[liamliam1234]

Again, as someone who has watched this team for the past five or six years, while I would be surprised if that -14 offence was their set operating level, them being a clear negative against the trio of eastern conference opponents is pretty much exactly what I and many Raptors had/have come to expect.

They only had a +1.1 ORTG against that trio. I'm saying that's not much better than I would expect. Like I said in 4 of their 7 series leading up to 2019 they reached a +1.1 DRTG or over and they've done it against teams better than Philly and Orlando (not Milwaukee though, and I'll say that series is probably better than I'd expect from them with Demar in place of Kawhi+Danny, just not as much better as I'd expect).

You keep throwing these strawmen out. No one denies Kawhi's abilities, I'm denying their effects based on what I see as extremely weak results.

The weak results are not because of him.

That is your operating premise: the offensive rating was bad, so that is Kawhi's fault. But there is no evidence for that. The offence was -14 without him. You baselessly speculate that it was a question of "rhythm" but ignore that these players shot better (alright, technically Marc and VanVleet were incredibly slim negatives, so we can say neutral impact for them) and avoided turnovers muuuch better with Kawhi on the floor. And that is just using postseason sample. If you want to use the regular season, total coast sample, every player shot notably better with Kawhi on the floor except for Anunoby and Delon Wright. And during the regular season, he was not even necessarily a ball stopper: his presence overall was correlated with a slight passing decline, but the bulk of that was concentrated in the bench pieces and Serge Ibaka; next to Lowry or Gasol, the ball moved at a fine pace. And that is not a quirk of the Raptors: despite your claims, he was a net positive to the ball movement of the 2017 Spurs as well during the regular season, albeit less so than in 2016.

How does that look in contrast to Russell Westbrook, known lifter of bad offensive talent? Well, Russell's overall impact on his teammate's shooting was effectively neutral (technically a marginal negative). Now, Russell of course helped his team shoot more overall, but there is no strong indication he was creating these amazing looks or this amazing space. And because he monopolises the ball so completely, everyone else's passing, except for Oladipo, was worse with him in the lineup. (Different in the playoffs, but if we are going to complain about small samples...)

Oh, and then apparently we need to talk about how prior Raptors teams performed. Tell me, who was a major rotation piece leftover from 2016? Literally just Lowry (playing at his peak), and that was when they faced the bulk of their defensive opposition (who, by the way, no, were not bigger defensive threats than the 2019 76ers; again, major difference between regular season and postseason, which we already know because the Toronto defence was also substantially better in the postseason). 2017? Lowry, Ibaka, and kiiiiind-of Norman Powell (eighth man in 2019); Siakam and VanVleet were on the roster, but they had next to no playing time in the playoffs. Those two enter the rotation in 2018, but in limited minutes, and as a significantly worse player in Siakam's case. Ibaka has been in general decline since 2016. Marc has also been in decline. And you want to talk about some incredible performing history of this 2019 roster?

It would be akin to taking Donovan Mitchell off the Jazz, or Giannis off the Bucks: the guys left may be nice players on paper, but no one reasonably capable of giving the offensive support needed in a series against a tough defence. Especially with the 2019 iterations of Marc and Lowry. Think 1992 Jazz: yeah, Stockton and Eaton are good players to have, and they impact the game, but without Malone they are not seriously threatening anyone. And Siakam is a decent second option, but his limitations were pretty apparent in his first real playoff challenge; similar thing happened to Middleton and Bledsoe for the Bucks.
Siakam performed amicably in his first challenge. He averaged 19 ppg on 53 TS% against Philly and had a 20 PER. If you meant Milwaukee I agree he was bad against them.

I think without Mitchell the Jazz score just fine, without Giannis the Bucks don't suffer nearly as much as you'd assume offensively (especially in the playoffs the way they played him), and Karl Malone is an interesting one because I think that offense really overachieved in 92 so I don't see that happening without Malone. Eaton was horrid offensively. I do still think they're a 45-50ish win team without Malone but not a WCF, +8 postseason team. Stock was arguably top of his position, they had another 20 point scoring Malone, and Eaton was old but still a great defender.

The Jazz without Mitchell, referring to last year, have no one who can create a shot and were functionally inept without him in the playoffs. Gee, starting to see a pattern here.

Without Giannis in the playoffs, that way the Raptors played him? Yeah, suddenly all that attention goes to everyone else. Middleton at least has that Klay profile where he can serve as a first option for stretches, but Bledsoe is not a first option, nor is Brook, nor is Brogdon, nor is Hill. To say nothing of how the ball movement would do, or how the spacing would do without Giannis opening up the arc for his teammates.

You seem to have this idea, and I saw it with Harden, that if you just take a bunch of good roleplayers they can function as this excellent playoff team. But that is not how it works. A team of Brogdon/Danny/Ingles/Tucker/Brook is a respectable lineup in isolation, but they are getting blown off the court against any decent team. In the playoffs, someone needs to create a shot for themselves. Someone needs to handle the scoring load. The 2014 Spurs are an anomaly for a reason... and even then, calling them a mere collection of "roleplayers" would be a gross insult.

Playoffs are simply different, and you know that. And you also know that not all regular season performances are equally applicable to the postseason (Hakeem and Reggie come to mind, as do David Robinson and the Jazz duo). So why pretend otherwise when it comes to the most blatant “I am only here for the playoffs” season since Shaq?

I do which is why I keep mentioning the play of the Raptors in the playoffs prior to Kawhi and I've mentioned Marc's career of playoff success. These guys are also proven in the postseason, not just the regular season.

None of that matters to 2019! Lowry has historically had shooting woes (in large part because of injury, but still), and his ability to score at volume declines every year. Siakam was untested and served as a very inefficient second option against Philadelphia, and you want to hang your hat on that? Ibaka has been in general decline and was never famous for his offensive impact anyway; he played well in what time he had, but he was still ultimately only covering twenty minutes per game. Danny famously goes cold for long stretches, and he did so here. VanVleet was in a horrid slump until his kid was born, nowhere near his 2018 level (and even then it is not like he was good in those playoffs); he could not get on the floor against the 76ers because of how comically undersized he was by comparison. And Marc straight up hates shooting now.

None of those guys are first option material. Depending on the series, their next best two were barely second option material (I would say neither truly were against the 76ers, and only Lowry was against the Bucks). Their defence is and was proven. And that was the calling card, and that was why they were able to get by with only one real offensive threat. But without Kawhi, they were not doing anything on offence. I love Kyle Lowry, but he is pretty far from a traditional second-best offensive piece on a championship roster.

If you want to attribute primary responsibility to stars for their team's offensive performance prior to the databall era, fine; that is something of a necessity, unless someone comes in with film analysis showing what happened when the star went to the bench. But we have on/off data for modern players. And we can see that against a stout defensive trio (Orlando was a top defensive team once they settled into the new scheme; Philadelphia was a top defensive team by talent which finally put it together against Toronto; and Milwaukee speaks for themselves), Kawhi led a +3.9 offence as the only true scoring threat, an offence which could not score at all when he was off the floor, and he led that team to a title. And given the status of their opposition relative to the other best performing playoff offences, I could probably make a case that his individual offensive lift would have qualified as the second or third best of the playoff bunch considering he was a locked on-court 114.3 offensive rating overall. Lillard's individual on-court rating was 112. Harden's was 114.1. Jokic was 115.8 against some abysmal defences. And even if you are irrationally high on the postseason offence of Toronto's other players, I think it would be hard to argue they were a better offensive cast than the casts of those three (with Lillard's being the most debatable). And that, of course, is reflected in their respective on/off offensive ratings. Those individual numbers also correlate reasonably well with their respective OWS/48, OBPMs, and box offensive ratings (for those who like those metrics).

Which is is all a very long-winded way of saying, no, I do not think it is remotely reasonable to say Kawhi was anything other than one of the highest-impact players in the entire league, and seeing as achieving that status should be relatively consistent year-to-year, I think coupling that with a title is more than enough to evidence a dominant postseason peak.

[E-Balla]

The weak results are not because of him.

That is your operating premise: the offensive rating was bad, so that is Kawhi's fault. But there is no evidence for that.

No there's plenty of evidence and it's been posted. You're dismissing it to instead focus on a 223 minute sample in the playoffs without Kawhi on the floor. A 223 minute sample in which he had equal on/off numbers with Lowry due to their overlapping minutes (Lowry without Kawhi had a -3.6 net rating and Kawhi without Lowry had a -2.7 net rating).

No one but you is trusting a 223 minute sample more than 22 games missed and decade long careers. Those players didn't magically suck when Kawhi want around, it's just a function of over reliance, and small sample size noise. Danny Green didn't forget to shoot when Kawhi was on the bench, he just didn't get enough shots to hit an equalibrium.

The offence was -14 without him. You baselessly speculate that it was a question of "rhythm" but ignore that these players shot better (alright, technically Marc and VanVleet were incredibly slim negatives, so we can say neutral impact for them) and avoided turnovers muuuch better with Kawhi on the floor. And that is just using postseason sample. If you want to use the regular season, total coast sample, every player shot notably better with Kawhi on the floor except for Anunoby and Delon Wright.

If you wanna talk regular season let's talk about their offensive rating being 5 points higher in the 22 games he missed. Here's your issue, you're ignoring better data for spotty days that supports your point. Regular season on/off is cool but when a player looks worse than everyone he plays minutes with it makes it seem like his impact was pulled up due to the fact you're always on the court with 4 other guys. We have a 22 game sample of the offense without him for the full game though, meaning we know how good they'd play if Kawhi was never around, and they were better. Why ignore data that good if it exists? Why ignore then winning 59 games and having a 7 SRS before he showed up? Why ignore then adding Marc Gasol? After they win 55 games next year, why ignore that?

I'm not picking and choosing data to craft a narrative. Include it all. If one piece of data runs contrary to everything else and it's a tiny sample (223 minutes) it's most likely noise. Not the most important piece of data just because you want it to be.

And during the regular season, he was not even necessarily a ball stopper: his presence overall was correlated with a slight passing decline, but the bulk of that was concentrated in the bench pieces and Serge Ibaka; next to Lowry or Gasol, the ball moved at a fine pace. And that is not a quirk of the Raptors: despite your claims, he was a net positive to the ball movement of the 2017 Spurs as well during the regular season, albeit less so than in 2016.

At this point I'm exhausted having to look up dates to contest your gish gallop. The 2017 Spurs had a -1.9 drop in AST% with Kawhi on the floor. The Raps had a -6.0 AST% drop with Kawhi on the floor. In 2016 (a year he didn't stop ball movement) the AST% went up 0.3 with him on the floor. Stop just saying things because you want them to be true. You might like it as a debate topic and it's 10 times faster to type a lie than to confirm it but it's not adding to the conversation at all, just muddying the waters. I've been telling you to stop doing this for weeks now.

How does that look in contrast to Russell Westbrook, known lifter of bad offensive talent? Well, Russell's overall impact on his teammate's shooting was effectively neutral (technically a marginal negative). Now, Russell of course helped his team shoot more overall, but there is no strong indication he was creating these amazing looks or this amazing space. And because he monopolises the ball so completely, everyone else's passing, except for Oladipo, was worse with him in the lineup. (Different in the playoffs, but if we are going to complain about small samples...)

Another blatant lie. Someone else could look this up and post the numbers, or maybe you can ( know that has a snowball's chance in hell because you won't even stop lying for a post). Not even worth responding to.

Oh, and then apparently we need to talk about how prior Raptors teams performed. Tell me, who was a major rotation piece leftover from 2016? Literally just Lowry (playing at his peak), and that was when they faced the bulk of their defensive opposition (who, by the way, no, were not bigger defensive threats than the 2019 76ers; again, major difference between regular season and postseason, which we already know because the Toronto defence was also substantially better in the postseason). 2017? Lowry, Ibaka, and kiiiiind-of Norman Powell (eighth man in 2019); Siakam and VanVleet were on the roster, but they had next to no playing time in the playoffs. Those two enter the rotation in 2018, but in limited minutes, and as a significantly worse player in Siakam's case. Ibaka has been in general decline since 2016. Marc has also been in decline. And you want to talk about some incredible performing history of this 2019 roster?

I noticed you skipped 2018 and that's because when I mentioned 2018 you wrote it off saying they didn't play anyone and it was only one year. So now I can't bring up old data at all. You just wrote off every piece of data we have on guys like Danny Green, and Marc Gasol as playoff performers. You wrote off everything we have on Toronto pre Kawhi. But a 223 minute off court sample? SIGN ME UP!

How's this for a off court sample, Toronto lost 2 games where Kawhi had a positive +/-. He had a +1 and a +4. They also won 2 games where he was a negative with him being -2 both times. His supporting cast clearly didn't hold him back at all.

The Jazz without Mitchell, referring to last year, have no one who can create a shot and were functionally inept without him in the playoffs. Gee, starting to see a pattern here.

Mitchell can't create a shot in the playoffs himself. He averaged 21.4 ppg on 42.3 TS% and the team offense was terrible. This is not making the point you think it is.

Without Giannis in the playoffs, that way the Raptors played him? Yeah, suddenly all that attention goes to everyone else. Middleton at least has that Klay profile where he can serve as a first option for stretches, but Bledsoe is not a first option, nor is Brook, nor is Brogdon, nor is Hill. To say nothing of how the ball movement would do, or how the spacing would do without Giannis opening up the arc for his teammates.

Well it's a good thing Bledsoe, Brook, Brogdon, and Hill don't have to be first options with Middleton around. And Giannis didn't open up the spacing, that was the story of the series. How bad his passing and shooting was and how it limited their offense because Bledsoe also couldn't buy a shot.

You seem to have this idea, and I saw it with Harden, that if you just take a bunch of good roleplayers they can function as this excellent playoff team.

You seem to have this idea the Raptors were an excellent playoff team. They had a +1.1 offense through the Eastern Conference. You telling me a bunch of great role players can't give you a +1.1 offense? Explain the Clippers last year?

On top of that my argument against Harden is defensive. I've said plenty of times he's the worst defensive SG ever and that's my argument against him.

But that is not how it works. A team of Brogdon/Danny/Ingles/Tucker/Brook is a respectable lineup in isolation, but they are getting blown off the court against any decent team. In the playoffs, someone needs to create a shot for themselves. Someone needs to handle the scoring load. The 2014 Spurs are an anomaly for a reason... and even then, calling them a mere collection of "roleplayers" would be a gross insult.

None of this applies to Toronto though. Toronto won with a historic defense ala the 04 Pistons. Not with their +1.1 offense. If their offense performed at a level we haven't regularly seen offenses without stars, including the Raptors, perform at I wouldn't be saying anything about Kawhi but as it is they only had a +1.1 ORTG before the Finals. Like we just saw the Celtics without Kyrie almost make the Finals, we know how this goes.

None of that matters to 2019! Lowry has historically had shooting woes (in large part because of injury, but still), and his ability to score at volume declines every year. Siakam was untested and served as a very inefficient second option against Philadelphia, and you want to hang your hat on that? Ibaka has been in general decline and was never famous for his offensive impact anyway; he played well in what time he had, but he was still ultimately only covering twenty minutes per game. Danny famously goes cold for long stretches, and he did so here. VanVleet was in a horrid slump until his kid was born, nowhere near his 2018 level (and even then it is not like he was good in those playoffs); he could not get on the floor against the 76ers because of how comically undersized he was by comparison. And Marc straight up hates shooting now.

You're right. These historically great performers just all happened to start sucking in 2019.

None of those guys are first option material. Depending on the series, their next best two were barely second option material (I would say neither truly were against the 76ers, and only Lowry was against the Bucks). Their defence is and was proven. And that was the calling card, and that was why they were able to get by with only one real offensive threat. But without Kawhi, they were not doing anything on offence. I love Kyle Lowry, but he is pretty far from a traditional second-best offensive piece on a championship roster.

If you want to attribute primary responsibility to stars for their team's offensive performance prior to the databall era, fine; that is something of a necessity, unless someone comes in with film analysis showing what happened when the star went to the bench. But we have on/off data for modern players.

Sure, and we also have a 22 game sample of Toronto's offense without Kawhi playing great. We have a full season long sample of Kawhi having a lower +/- offensively than everyone he shared most of his minutes with. You're ignoring that to focus on a 233 minute off court sample...

And we can see that against a stout defensive trio (Orlando was a top defensive team once they settled into the new scheme; Philadelphia was a top defensive team by talent which finally put it together against Toronto;

This again? Already proven false...

and Milwaukee speaks for themselves), Kawhi led a +3.9 offence as the only true scoring threat,

No he led a +1.1 offense. I've posted that plenty of times. That's not impressive.

an offence which could not score at all when he was off the floor, and he led that team to a title. And given the status of their opposition relative to the other best performing playoff offences, I could probably make a case that his individual offensive lift would have qualified as the second or third best of the playoff bunch considering he was a locked on-court 114.3 offensive rating overall. Lillard's individual on-court rating was 112. Harden's was 114.1. Jokic was 115.8 against some abysmal defences.

Removing the Finals from the calculation and using real ORTG from NBA.com Kawhi had a 110.8 ORTG in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The average DRTG of their opponents was 107.2. That +3.6 ORTG while Kawhi was on the floor wasn't at all strong. To compare to those other guys you mentioned Lillard had the Blazers playing at a +3.0 level while he was on the floor and Jokic had Denver playing at a +4.6 level while he was on the floor. Kawhi leading them to a +3.6 ORTG while he was on a floor and +1.1 overall isn't that impressive and is about on par with 2 borderline All-NBA guys.

And even if you are irrationally high on the postseason offence of Toronto's other players, I think it would be hard to argue they were a better offensive cast than the casts of those three (with Lillard's being the most debatable). And that, of course, is reflected in their respective on/off offensive ratings. Those individual numbers also correlate reasonably well with their respective OWS/48, OBPMs, and box offensive ratings (for those who like those metrics).

He clearly has better offensive support than Jokic and Jokic is clearly a better offensive player than Kawhi and probably was the best offensive player in the league last year.

Your whole post is basically just you admitting all data outside of the 233 minute off court sample in the 2019 playoffs is useless in determining how good Kawhi's supporting cast is. At that point you're standing on a hill no one else is going to die on because that's just crazy talk. A 233 minute sample means absolutely nothing by itself especially when it contradicts all other available data.

[LA Bird]

Final totals as at the deadline are:

1) 17 Westbrook = 20.0 points
2) 08 Paul = 11.0 points
3) 75 McAdoo = 10.5 points
T4) 49 Mikan = 9.0 points
T4) 93 Barkley = 9.0 points

17 Westbrook wins.