#28 - GOAT peaks project (2019)

[trex_8063]

Playoffs 2016 2nd round for Kawhi: Was not his teams leading scorer
Playoffs 2017 2nd round for Kawhi: Did not play in closeout game
Playoffs 2019 2nd round for Kawhi: 41 PPG in 3\4 wins and was the only player to score in about half the 4th quarter of game 7

I see a huge gap there and than taking in consideration what he did to the MVP Giannis and eliminating Curry\Klay\Dray. It's easily 2019.

Hmm......it's almost like for some of us there was the whole rest of the season [like 86-100(ish) other games] besides the 2nd-round series.

EDIT: I'd also add that I see a flukey injury that resulted from a kind of dirty play [by Pachulia] as "less punitive" to Kawhi than an entire season of extensive load-management [which they obviously felt was necessary to ensure him fresh at playoff time, and which was only luxury afforded only thru the quality of the team that he was lucky enough to be a part of, btw].
EDIT2: Though I just realized Houston was the 2nd-round series in '17. At any rate, that type of rest/recuperation-requirement is the kind of thing that may have been needed in the '19 playoffs if he hadn't been given damn near 30% of the rs off for rest. Sort of exactly what I'm talking about.

[liamliam1234]

Right, but in the same sense I acknowledge many / most of you say Kawhi’s 2019 regular season is majorly prohibitive to their voting, it should be at least equally easy for you to recognise that missing the end games of a postseason is prohibitive to anyone who thinks those games are worth more than the regular season. That is not recency bias or obsession with team results. If Kawhi had played as well as he had all playoffs in a six-game loss to the Warriors, he would probably have been in at slot #21 or something. Just like if Kawhi has played his 2019 regular season the way he did this past postseason, he probably would have received enough additional support to put him in at like #23.

And to your edit, again, some of us think missing playoff games to a fluke injury is far more damaging to a team than managing the after-effects of that same injury during the regular season in order to go at full(-ish) effort in the postseason. Which, I reiterate, is easy to understand and does not deserve to be dismissed as “recency bias / team quality”. Stick the 2017 Spurs in place of the 2019 Raptors, and we get the same end result.

[freethedevil]

Playoffs 2016 2nd round for Kawhi: Was not his teams leading scorer
Playoffs 2017 2nd round for Kawhi: Did not play in closeout game
Playoffs 2019 2nd round for Kawhi: 41 PPG in 3\4 wins and was the only player to score in about half the 4th quarter of game 7

I see a huge gap there and than taking in consideration what he did to the MVP Giannis and eliminating Curry\Klay\Dray. It's easily 2019.

Hmm......it's almost like for some of us there was the whole rest of the season [like 86-100(ish) other games] besides the 2nd-round series.

EDIT: I'd also add that I see a flukey injury that resulted from a kind of dirty play [by Pachulia] as "less punitive" to Kawhi than an entire season of extensive load-management [which they obviously felt was necessary to ensure him fresh at playoff time, and which was only luxury afforded only thru the quality of the team that he was lucky enough to be a part of, btw].

Injury was not a fluke. We saw kawhi get injured the round before and the injury vs the dubs built on that.

[liamliam1234]

I would be interested if you would talk about your valuations of Gilmore as they compare to some other older players / star centres. I think Reed is the easiest one, but anything beyond that is good too. I read through the past project to see if I could get a feel for why people voted for him, but the past project became exceedingly vague quite early on. And I know the ABA makes numerical comparisons challenging, and Gilmore does himself no favours by failing to exhibit have a statistically clear no-brainer best postseason, but that is why I think talking about his skill/physical/film advantages relative to other players is important (and borderline essential).

(Also, it would be nice to see you vote, with your unique expertise on older players, but I guess I understand the concern over being flamed for taking someone like Gilmore over Mourning.)

[LA Bird]

1. 2015 Chris Paul
Paul's offensive style has changed over time but I think the bigger difference comes on the defensive end. Even though he had higher steal numbers early on, +/- metrics suggest Paul's defense peaked during his later Clippers years. 2015 is the only season of him around that time frame not missing a lot of RS minutes (though he did two miss playoff games). The advanced stats don't really stand out compared to his other seasons but the team performance of the 2015 Clippers was incredible. They had a +12.5 offense with Paul on-court, which is on par with the Warriors' +12.6 offense with 2016 Curry during his insane regular season. I think (correct me if I am wrong) Paul's +19.5 offensive on/off is still the highest yet recorded and he is the only player left besides 2016 Draymond to have a +20 or above overall on/off. On top of the elite offense, Paul was also one of the top defensive point guards in the league. He had a pretty good playoffs performance though his missed games probably cost them the series (then again, they most likely would have advanced if the Rockets hadn't magically pulled out a 40 point 4th quarter comeback without Harden out of nowhere).

2. 2005 Steve Nash
2007 has a case as Nash's best season since he had career highs in assists per game, TS%, box ORtg and OBPM and had the best postseason in ElGee's playmaking metric. However, I think arguments for Nash should be more based on his impact on team offenses than individual statistics in which case 2005 is pretty tough to beat. In the regular season, 05 Nash had an on-court rORtg of +14.2, highest ever just ahead of 18 Curry. In the playoffs is where the Suns offense really exploded. By series, the 2005 Suns offense was +21.9 vs Grizzlies, +14.8 vs Mavs, +15.2 vs Spurs for an overall +17 in the postseason. It is the single most dominant playoff run on either ends of the floor in ElGee's spreadsheets, topping even Bill Russell (-14.1 defense in 1964). Magic's best postseason offense (1987) was a +10.7 for comparison. In 2007, the Suns postseason offense was only +6.7 vs Lakers and +7.9 vs Spurs for an overall +7.6. The 07 Suns did have a better defense than in 05 and were comparable overall in both the regular season and playoffs SRS but with Nash being a heavily offense-only player, I give him less credit for the better team defense in 07 than the better team offense in 05. All else being equal, I also value extreme one-end dominance more than comparable two-way play which gives 05 Nash the edge here over his 07 version (might expand upon this idea more in a later post).

3. 2009 Chris Paul
Could be persuaded to change this into 08 Paul but this is currently the highest season left in my seasonal ratings. The playoffs performance was indeed awful but it's only 1 series. Curry in the 2016 Finals wasn't much better and he was voted in a long time ago based on his regular season performance. Personally, I don't penalize guys like 94 Robinson, 07 Dirk or 09 Paul too much for 1 round of poor playoffs performance after they put up incredible regular season performances for ~80 games. Before 2016 Curry came along, 09 Paul's advanced stats and on/off were basically the gold standard for point guards. Some of his stats have since been overshadowed by Curry and Westbrook but this was still an incredible regular season. Defense was better than in 08, which gives it a slight edge even after penalizing for the playoffs.

I wouldn't mind seeing 49 Mikan voted here either, even though I personally don't rank seasons that early.

[liamliam1234]

^ That is the most convincing argument for 2005 Nash over 2007 Nash I have seen. Not sure it is enough to make me swap votes, but it is something I will consider.

Do you happen to be able to share those spreadsheets? If it is a strictly PayPal thing, I understand not wanting to post them in a public forum.

[LA Bird]

Do you happen to be able to share those spreadsheets? If it is a strictly PayPal thing, I understand not wanting to post them in a public forum.

Relative PS Off-Def Ratings 1952-2014

SideshowBob added some newer figures for 2015~17 in the second sheet in the link.

[liamliam1234]

That is a phenomenal resource, thank you.

Couple of things I notice glancing through it:

• The 1996 Jazz were stunningly good. I know there were a lot of factors to that, but maybe I need to take a second look at Malone for that year. It does have his best postseason BPM, for whatever that is worth, and maybe I have been underestimating his passing/defence during that specific postseason. I mean, a large part of it is likely a matter of them simply missing out on a Bulls match-up, but still.

• The 2010 Magic were also exemplary, and that actually ties into something I came across while looking at 2009 and 2011 Howard: in terms of impact (likely defensive), 2010 has a strong case as his actual peak.

• The 2009 Nuggets are stand-outs, which correlates well with what I have been coming across in research tangentially applying to Billups. Still too early now, but maybe at #40 I might consider throwing him a bone as the closest approximation to Lowry. It is not like that is a fluke either; for all the talk about Isiah the playoff killer, Billups has a pretty fair case of his own.

• The exceptional offensive performance of the 1972-73 Knicks is a (likely) testament to Frazier’s excellence.

• The offensive rating of the 2008 Pelicans is some decent Paul support [although nowhere near the 2005 Suns — which, for the record, can certainly be explained in part by the aforementioned phenomenon of Amar’e’ scoring at will on the Spurs (not that I am saying that alone is the reason, or necessarily even the primary reason, for the absurd gap between them and everyone else, of course)].

• Not a lot of peak Reggie on the offence side of this list.

• 1994 Bulls rating lends some credence to HBK’s Pippen vote.

• The pre-Barkley Suns were good. I wanted to spend more time hammering him, but I kept getting side-tracked...

• 1975 Warriors getting most of their value on an especially strong defence, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

• Obviously sample size is an issue, given some of the year-to-year vacillations; the 1969 and 1970 Knicks are interesting.

• Defensive rating of the 1990 Knicks sure sticks out...

• Feel like people overrated Walton’s Blazers a fair bit.

• “Shockingly” uncomplimentary to the offence of Kidd’s Nets.

• Lol at the 1967 Warriors (props to Thurmond’s defence, though).

Fun stuff.

[70sFan]

I would be interested if you would talk about your valuations of Gilmore as they compare to some other older players / star centres. I think Reed is the easiest one, but anything beyond that is good too. I read through the past project to see if I could get a feel for why people voted for him, but the past project became exceedingly vague quite early on. And I know the ABA makes numerical comparisons challenging, and Gilmore does himself no favours by failing to exhibit have a statistically clear no-brainer best postseason, but that is why I think talking about his skill/physical/film advantages relative to other players is important (and borderline essential).

(Also, it would be nice to see you vote, with your unique expertise on older players, but I guess I understand the concern over being flamed for taking someone like Gilmore over Mourning.)

I will try to post something about Gilmore when I have enough time. I will also make a point of two about Reed, Lanier and Mourning.

[WarriorGM]

Do you happen to be able to share those spreadsheets? If it is a strictly PayPal thing, I understand not wanting to post them in a public forum.

Relative PS Off-Def Ratings 1952-2014

SideshowBob added some newer figures for 2015~17 in the second sheet in the link.

The spreadsheet is missing some interesting teams such as the 2015 Warriors and the 2016 Spurs. What's the formula for playoffs relative offensive and defensive ratings? I assume it is just the difference of a team's offensive and defensive ratings from the playoffs average of the 16 qualifying teams? It shouldn't be too difficult to plug in the holes.

[HHera187]

Enzo Iacchetti

Sent from my CLT-L09 using RealGM mobile app

[ardee]

1. 2015 Chris Paul

He has a really solid case as the best player in the league that year. Blake missed a bunch of games but he still led the Clippers to a 6.8 SRS and the best offense in the league. At least regular season wise it's a feat comparable to 2008 Kobe. 19-5-10 on 49-40-90, 60% TS, 26 PER, numbers are definitely there. The Spurs series was masterful and it truly marked his ascenion to Point God. I can't really put the Rockets loss on him at all, now when we averaged 26-10 efficiently for the last 3 games. The one missed game, well, if 2016 Curry is already in with 7 missed Playoff games, then that is a moot point here.

The way he controlled games this year was unreal, his BBIQ was ludricious.

2. 2008 Chris Paul

Basically just as good in every way as 2015 but less experienced and a slightly worse shooter. Raw numbers are utterly absurd (even better in 2009, which is IMO the 2nd best regular season for a PG after 2016 Curry, but of course he was terrible in the Playoffs). Absurd Playoffs too, 30.7 PER for a PG is just wtf.

3. 1998 Karl Malone

Fairly impressive year honestly. Stockton was well past his prime, and also injured for once. For Malone to drag this team to 62 wins... it's very impressive. This time he kept up the performances on the big stage too, and his game 5 against the Bulls is honestly an ATG Finals performance. I think even if he didn't deserve the MVP this year, it was very close between him and Jordan.

[liamliam1234]

Two days since anyone last posted, but I believe as currently situated we are in a run-off between 2015 Chris Paul and 1949 Mikan.

[LA Bird]

A quick reminder that the voting deadline is in a few hours. Vote now if you haven't already.

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BTW, the following posters might want to edit their vote to include all 3 picks plus reasoning.

not sure who to vote for 3, i'll let other people sway jme.

Enzo Iacchetti

[Vladimir777]

I'm very tempted to weigh in and say Mikan, even if it's between the two, since I think someone as dominant as him should be on the list by now, but I haven't voted yet, so I will continue my pattern of abstaining! Hopefully people vote!

[LA Bird]

There is still a tie for first and with no new votes for almost four days now, I don't think we can keep on waiting forever for more votes to break the tie. I have quoted everybody several times already so as a last resort to keep this project moving, I will hereby change my votes to:

1. 2015 Chris Paul
2. 2008 Chris Paul
3. 2005 Steve Nash

Replaced 09 Paul with 08 Paul and moved him up to #2 to break the tie. Regular season was worse but he played much better in the playoffs. It's the most well-rounded season overall for a point guard ever in terms of box score statistics and he was healthy throughout the season. I have 05 Nash, 08 Paul and 09 Paul all roughly around the same level so switching the order around isn't a big deal to me.

And with that, we now can move on to the next round.

1) 08 Paul = 14.0 points
T2) 49 Mikan = 13.5 points
T2) 15 Paul = 13.5 points
4) 75 McAdoo = 12.0 points
5) 07 Nash = 8.5 points

08 Paul wins.