Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor)

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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#721 » by freethedevil » Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:33 am

Odinn21 wrote:In Garnett's case, he was a unique case. His personality made him not underrated. Many people had him over Duncan and Nowitzki for many years simply due to his personality. But his game was underrated. It was such an odd case at the time.

Huh?

I thought the argument was based on his effect on winning over a large sample size in every conceivable context. Where did personality come into it?
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#722 » by AdagioPace » Wed Feb 17, 2021 7:15 am

freethedevil wrote:
Odinn21 wrote:In Garnett's case, he was a unique case. His personality made him not underrated. Many people had him over Duncan and Nowitzki for many years simply due to his personality. But his game was underrated. It was such an odd case at the time.

Huh?

I thought the argument was based on his effect on winning over a large sample size in every conceivable context. Where did personality come into it?



KG took part in several commercials, he was also selling lots of shirts.
He was more hyped than a random KAT and more than Davis in NOLA, despite being in similar not-winning situations.
I think Odinn has a point. He was quite revered in average fan circles.
For example in 2003 he was selling more shirts than back-to-back MVP Duncan (who was below Jalen Rose lol). Both outside the top 10 though.
Trash talk, chest pounding and loudness definitely pay off in the NBA if you are a star, at least in comparison to quiteness and benedictine monk-like execution. KG probably became underrated (only in an all-time context though, not within the epoch) because fans don't quite understand his defensive prowess and his offensive versatility that allow him to be compared with untouchables like Magic and Bird
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#723 » by freethedevil » Wed Feb 17, 2021 9:56 am

AdagioPace wrote:
freethedevil wrote:
Odinn21 wrote:In Garnett's case, he was a unique case. His personality made him not underrated. Many people had him over Duncan and Nowitzki for many years simply due to his personality. But his game was underrated. It was such an odd case at the time.

Huh?

I thought the argument was based on his effect on winning over a large sample size in every conceivable context. Where did personality come into it?



KG took part in several commercials, he was also selling lots of shirts.
He was more hyped than a random KAT and more than Davis in NOLA, despite being in similar not-winning situations.
I think Odinn has a point. He was quite revered in average fan circles.
For example in 2003 he was selling more shirts than back-to-back MVP Duncan (who was below Jalen Rose lol). Both outside the top 10 though.
Trash talk, chest pounding and loudness definitely pay off in the NBA if you are a star, at least in comparison to quiteness and benedictine monk-like execution. KG probably became underrated (only in an all-time context though, not within the epoch) because fans don't quite understand his defensive prowess and his offensive versatility that allow him to be compared with untouchables like Magic and Bird

He's more hyped because he won 58 games in his not great situation and was conssitently measured to be the most or neat the most valuable player in the league as his situation changed demonstrating that his ability to impact winning basketball couldn't be chalked up to circumstance. AD's never been nearly as good in the regular season and until 2020 hadn't showed he could be like garnett in the postseason. KAT's made the playoffs once. And neither AD or KAT have shown the impact Garnett has.


He's comapred with bird because he's a better player, or at the minimum, there arepeople on this board who consider him a better player.

Whene people explicitly tell you why they like player a over player b, pop psych analysis becomes a red herring.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#724 » by AdagioPace » Wed Feb 17, 2021 12:27 pm

freethedevil wrote:
AdagioPace wrote:
freethedevil wrote:Huh?

I thought the argument was based on his effect on winning over a large sample size in every conceivable context. Where did personality come into it?



KG took part in several commercials, he was also selling lots of shirts.
He was more hyped than a random KAT and more than Davis in NOLA, despite being in similar not-winning situations.
I think Odinn has a point. He was quite revered in average fan circles.
For example in 2003 he was selling more shirts than back-to-back MVP Duncan (who was below Jalen Rose lol). Both outside the top 10 though.
Trash talk, chest pounding and loudness definitely pay off in the NBA if you are a star, at least in comparison to quiteness and benedictine monk-like execution. KG probably became underrated (only in an all-time context though, not within the epoch) because fans don't quite understand his defensive prowess and his offensive versatility that allow him to be compared with untouchables like Magic and Bird

He's more hyped because he won 58 games in his not great situation and was conssitently measured to be the most or neat the most valuable player in the league as his situation changed demonstrating that his ability to impact winning basketball couldn't be chalked up to circumstance. AD's never been nearly as good in the regular season and until 2020 hadn't showed he could be like garnett in the postseason. KAT's made the playoffs once. And neither AD or KAT have shown the impact Garnett has.


He's comapred with bird because he's a better player, or at the minimum, there arepeople on this board who consider him a better player.

Whene people explicitly tell you why they like player a over player b, pop psych analysis becomes a red herring.


people outside of realgm (and other few communities) have no idea of what impact is. You're talking with a scientific mind, not considering the average joe's horizon (especially in early 2000 where even PER was considered too progressive and alienating). I doubt most of the fans considered Garnett near to the most valuable player in the league but he was still liked and gathered a lot of attention also for the reasons stated above (despite playing in Minny).
Also, I don't agree with ignoring or minimizing population-psychology. That fact that it cannot be easily quantified doesn't mean that aesthetical-phenomenological attributes are not appreciated, especially when people still don't have the tools to assess how good a player is. Also, the fact that Garnett was, in the end, as good as Duncan or close (as we only know NOW) doesn't leave out the possibility that even KG's demeanour contributed in part to the early appreciation; basically a form of overrating for wrong reasons. This is what Odinn underlined in different words.
In any case both Duncan and KG were not close to Kobe-level of "rating-by-acclamation" luckily and nor they suffered from bias against boring big men given they were (espec. Ducnan) at the top of the western conference and all-stars selections. For me the most underrated will always be Dirk and Nash in the '00.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#725 » by freethedevil » Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:29 pm

AdagioPace wrote:
freethedevil wrote:
AdagioPace wrote:

KG took part in several commercials, he was also selling lots of shirts.
He was more hyped than a random KAT and more than Davis in NOLA, despite being in similar not-winning situations.
I think Odinn has a point. He was quite revered in average fan circles.
For example in 2003 he was selling more shirts than back-to-back MVP Duncan (who was below Jalen Rose lol). Both outside the top 10 though.
Trash talk, chest pounding and loudness definitely pay off in the NBA if you are a star, at least in comparison to quiteness and benedictine monk-like execution. KG probably became underrated (only in an all-time context though, not within the epoch) because fans don't quite understand his defensive prowess and his offensive versatility that allow him to be compared with untouchables like Magic and Bird

He's more hyped because he won 58 games in his not great situation and was conssitently measured to be the most or neat the most valuable player in the league as his situation changed demonstrating that his ability to impact winning basketball couldn't be chalked up to circumstance. AD's never been nearly as good in the regular season and until 2020 hadn't showed he could be like garnett in the postseason. KAT's made the playoffs once. And neither AD or KAT have shown the impact Garnett has.


He's comapred with bird because he's a better player, or at the minimum, there arepeople on this board who consider him a better player.

Whene people explicitly tell you why they like player a over player b, pop psych analysis becomes a red herring.


people outside of realgm (and other few communities) have no idea of what impact is. You're talking with a scientific mind, not considering the average joe's horizon (especially in early 2000 where even PER was considered too progressive and alienating). I doubt most of the fans considered Garnett near to the most valuable player in the league but he was still liked and gathered a lot of attention also for the reasons stated above (despite playing in Minny).
Also, I don't agree with ignoring or minimizing population-psychology. That fact that it cannot be easily quantified doesn't mean that aesthetical-phenomenological attributes are not appreciated, especially when people still don't have the tools to assess how good a player is. Also, the fact that Garnett was, in the end, as good as Duncan or close (as we only know NOW) doesn't leave out the possibility that even KG's demeanour contributed in part to the early appreciation; basically a form of overrating for wrong reasons. This is what Odinn underlined in different words.
In any case both Duncan and KG were not close to Kobe-level of "rating-by-acclamation" luckily but neither they suffered from bias against boring big men given they were (espec. Ducnan) at the top of the western conference and all-stars selections. For me the most underrated will always be Dirk and Nash in the '00.

Oh, I misinterpeted what you were saying. My bad. Yeah, that makes sense. KG's personaility was perfect for being hyped provided he was in a situation where he could win. I wouldn't be shocked if people started talking about him(for the time at least) like shaq if the Wolves win a title in 2004.

KG essentially was a most extreme version of jordan as far as "bully your teamamtes into being good" goes(not saying that's what actually happened, but it is the perception). I agree fully that if you have garnett and you have duncan winning the same accolades kg would be rated higher. That's actually been proven more or less with kobe. Kobe as far as resume is clearly discount duncan and even gets muked by duncan in the box compsoites fans consider valuable barometers of basketball play, and yet people will make absurd claims like "duncan could never carry a team like kobe" to justify ranking kobe higher.


Actually pretty identical to what we get with bird and magic. Bird is "tough" so the fact that magic has demonstrated he can carry **** teams in a way bird hasn't(post kareem lakers) and has a signifcantly better resume won't stop people from saying bird was better peak and they're "Impossible to decide between" as far as careers are concerned.

Really I think if we're looking at general pop.. biases, the order goes something like this:

1. Rangz (Jordan>Lebron, Kobe>>>KG, Russell>Wilt, Duncan>>>Garnett, Durant>>>Harden, Westbrook, Giannis, Magic>Hakeem, Bird>Hakeem)
2. Box Stats favoring smaller players (Jordan>Lebron even just on defense apparently, 08 Kobe>>>08 KG, Durant>>Giannis in the playoffs)
3. Scoring (88-90 Jordan>09-10 Lebron and >>>15 Lebron, 08 Kobe>>>08 KG, 2017 Durant> 2017 Curry, 2019 Durant>>2019 Curry, Kobe=Duncan, Kyrie>Lowry, Melo>Lowry)
4. Maschismo(Jordan and Bird and Kobe have intangibles Lebron don't have, Kobe=Duncan, Iverson>Nash)
5. Volume over effiency (Not doing enough is treated as a way worse choke than shooting your team out of a series. Is winning a tight series vs the 50 win 92 knicks really a worse showing than losing a tight series to a mavs team that was eating 57 win teams for breakfast? Was tragic johnson's series really worse than kobe ineffecient chucking in 2010? KD was better than Kawhi before he got hurt because he scored more even though kawhi was signifcantly more effecient)


Players like Jordan, Bird and Kobe score well on basically everything here, so their repuation far exceeds what you would get if you took the "lets isolate their impact" approach. There's nothing hsitorically unprecedented about winning 45-50 games with a bleh team, but people will routinely cite the regular seasons as the greatest ever. Bird had a loaded team that didn't suffer all that much when he went out, but people will get shocked if you say that KG winning 58 games was more impressive. Kobe's team was very good without him but 35 ppg and all nba defense(becuase you know, that means so much for a shootign guard) so he wins mvp even though kg's more valuable to a better team.

In the next tier you have your KD's and Iverson's. The former set of players are 'soft' but all the box stats and they score alot so whooo! And then with iverson their winning is wholly unimpressive but they scored alot and they exmplified "toughness".

A player like Lebron and Curry are middle of the pack. They're undderrated realtive to older players because they're extrodinary creator with curry's creation not showing up in the box score. lebron is massively undersold on defense due to being better at non-man aspects, and curry is potrayed as a negative defensively because he's better off-ball than on. On the other hand they get overrated realtive to players like Giannis, Davis, because they've "proved it" and "won rings" and happen to be better scorers and have better box numbers in the playoffs.

KG has the personality for sure but he basically lacks everything else.

The one thing that I don't understand is how kawhi gets rated under durant. Kawhi's won as much, is less 'soft', and has a scoring centric game.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#726 » by Ryoga Hibiki » Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:14 am

Like 20 years ago I commented somewhere that Garnett was actually a 6 inches taller Doug Christie.
Somehow I still think this is true...

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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#727 » by DQuinn1575 » Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:30 pm

freethedevil wrote:[ Bird had a loaded team


Bird joined an aging team that won 29 games the year before, 3 of the 4 other starters were 31 - so not really improving. And yes
Cornbread Maxwell was a good player. And yes, Nate Archibald had a good comeback year.
Get tired of people thinking Bird joined the Celtics and they were a good team so he didnt have much impact.
He didnt join a team like the 57 Celtics, 80 Lakers or 2010 Heat that had a real good team in place.
The 78 and 79 Celtics weren't good at all.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#728 » by Texas Chuck » Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:56 pm

DQuinn1575 wrote:
freethedevil wrote:[ Bird had a loaded team


Bird joined an aging team that won 29 games the year before, 3 of the 4 other starters were 31 - so not really improving. And yes
Cornbread Maxwell was a good player. And yes, Nate Archibald had a good comeback year.
Get tired of people thinking Bird joined the Celtics and they were a good team so he didnt have much impact.
He didnt join a team like the 57 Celtics, 80 Lakers or 2010 Heat that had a real good team in place.
The 78 and 79 Celtics weren't good at all.


I'm confused about the 2010 Heat inclusion. They completely blew that team up to add Lebron/Bosh. And while to their credit they did win 47 games, I'm not sure a team relying on Beasley, Jermaine O'Neal at that point, Quinton Richardson, and Rafer Alston was going places. Did any of those guys do anything of note after that season?
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#729 » by PistolPeteJR » Fri Feb 19, 2021 1:33 am

Texas Chuck wrote:
DQuinn1575 wrote:
freethedevil wrote:[ Bird had a loaded team


Bird joined an aging team that won 29 games the year before, 3 of the 4 other starters were 31 - so not really improving. And yes
Cornbread Maxwell was a good player. And yes, Nate Archibald had a good comeback year.
Get tired of people thinking Bird joined the Celtics and they were a good team so he didnt have much impact.
He didnt join a team like the 57 Celtics, 80 Lakers or 2010 Heat that had a real good team in place.
The 78 and 79 Celtics weren't good at all.


I'm confused about the 2010 Heat inclusion. They completely blew that team up to add Lebron/Bosh. And while to their credit they did win 47 games, I'm not sure a team relying on Beasley, Jermaine O'Neal at that point, Quinton Richardson, and Rafer Alston was going places. Did any of those guys do anything of note after that season?


Yeah I don’t know what DQuinn is getting at putting the ‘10 Heat in that boat. My sentiments exactly.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#730 » by DQuinn1575 » Fri Feb 19, 2021 4:09 am

PistolPeteJR wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:
DQuinn1575 wrote:
Bird joined an aging team that won 29 games the year before, 3 of the 4 other starters were 31 - so not really improving. And yes
Cornbread Maxwell was a good player. And yes, Nate Archibald had a good comeback year.
Get tired of people thinking Bird joined the Celtics and they were a good team so he didnt have much impact.
He didnt join a team like the 57 Celtics, 80 Lakers or 2010 Heat that had a real good team in place.
The 78 and 79 Celtics weren't good at all.


I'm confused about the 2010 Heat inclusion. They completely blew that team up to add Lebron/Bosh. And while to their credit they did win 47 games, I'm not sure a team relying on Beasley, Jermaine O'Neal at that point, Quinton Richardson, and Rafer Alston was going places. Did any of those guys do anything of note after that season?


Yeah I don’t know what DQuinn is getting at putting the ‘10 Heat in that boat. My sentiments exactly.


Really (hopefully obviously) meant 2011 was debating to pick year before or year of, and mixed them up = point being that some (lots of ) people seem to think that Bird joined a loaded team, when in fact he joined a poor team that was picked to maybe make the playoffs, not unlike Jordan, LeBron in Cleveland, etc., but way different than what Russell, Magic, and LeBron going to Miami had -
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#731 » by 70sFan » Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:07 pm

I just watched Duncan video and it's probably my favorite one (guess why? :D). Seriously, the only thing I'd add is that Ben didn't focus enough on Duncan's rebounding but other than that it's almost perfect.

Everybody who still doubts that Duncan is top 5 ever candidate should watch this video!
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#732 » by PistolPeteJR » Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:40 pm

70sFan wrote:I just watched Duncan video and it's probably my favorite one (guess why? :D). Seriously, the only thing I'd add is that Ben didn't focus enough on Duncan's rebounding but other than that it's almost perfect.

Everybody who still doubts that Duncan is top 5 ever candidate should watch this video!


Biased footage provided by 70sFan to Ben for this video confirmed.

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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#733 » by Odinn21 » Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:17 am

70sFan wrote:I just watched Duncan video and it's probably my favorite one (guess why? :D). Seriously, the only thing I'd add is that Ben didn't focus enough on Duncan's rebounding but other than that it's almost perfect.

Everybody who still doubts that Duncan is top 5 ever candidate should watch this video!

Curious about your take on detail and nuance levels in Olajuwon, Robinson, O'Neal, Duncan and Garnett episodes.
I feel like Olajuwon episode was the most detailed and nuanced one and definitely my favourite among them.
Robinson's episode was the episode I almost did not enjoy TBH because it was more about career retrospective rather than to the point peak evaluation. That episode was full of interpolations from outside of Robinson's peak as "what could've happened".
Between O'Neal, Garnett and Duncan episodes, I think O'Neal episode takes the cake. For each player, I have certain angles that I hope Taylor would brought up. For O'Neal episode, it was O'Neal's insanely aggressive position battles for center of the lane and he did an awesome job on it.
I'm not particularly high on Duncan episode because my expectation was Taylor highlighting Duncan's scoring going up as the playoffs progressed. What he chose to show though didn't make much sense because his "changes from weak to strong defenses" graph failed to recognize that 3 of the 4 playoffs series he had in there were injury riddled. 2002 Lakers series, Robinson was injured. 2003 Nets series, all went well. 2005 Nuggets and Pistons series, Duncan was recovering from sprained ankle and he had limited mobility. His numbers on there also have regular season games but as for playoffs games, that's such a high variance making things unreliable a little bit. I'm sure the others on that list didn't have this high of a variance with injuries. Though things like Duncan jumping along with Robinson when they ran a play together was such a great thing to show. Haha.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#734 » by 70sFan » Sat Feb 20, 2021 9:19 am

Odinn21 wrote:Curious about your take on detail and nuance levels in Olajuwon, Robinson, O'Neal, Duncan and Garnett episodes.
I feel like Olajuwon episode was the most detailed and nuanced one and definitely my favourite among them.

Yeah, I find Olajuwon's episode excellent as well. I think that he could bring some additional facts about him (like strong preference of the left block or his high reliance on fadeaway shot) but these things interest me more than most as I'm a post game nerd :D

Robinson's episode was the episode I almost did not enjoy TBH because it was more about career retrospective rather than to the point peak evaluation. That episode was full of interpolations from outside of Robinson's peak as "what could've happened".

I can't tell that I didn't enjoy Robinson's episode, but I agree it was one of the weaker ones.

Between O'Neal, Garnett and Duncan episodes, I think O'Neal episode takes the cake. For each player, I have certain angles that I hope Taylor would brought up. For O'Neal episode, it was O'Neal's insanely aggressive position battles for center of the lane and he did an awesome job on it.

In contrary, I have Shaq's episode the lowest of these three. It was still amazing, but I think Ben should pay more attention to Shaq's defense, which is something that is very controversial. I love how he broke down Shaq's offensive game, but he could do more with his defense. I also don't love the fact that he punched some light jabs on Wilt in this episode, it wasn't necessary.

I'm not particularly high on Duncan episode because my expectation was Taylor highlighting Duncan's scoring going up as the playoffs progressed. What he chose to show though didn't make much sense because his "changes from weak to strong defenses" graph failed to recognize that 3 of the 4 playoffs series he had in there were injury riddled. 2002 Lakers series, Robinson was injured. 2003 Nets series, all went well. 2005 Nuggets and Pistons series, Duncan was recovering from sprained ankle and he had limited mobility. His numbers on there also have regular season games but as for playoffs games, that's such a high variance making things unreliable a little bit. I'm sure the others on that list didn't have this high of a variance with injuries.

I thought it was fair, Duncan was great postseason scorer but relative to the greatest he's not on the highest tier. You are right that Duncan had some unlucky moments and I'm not sure why he used 2005 playoffs when he clearly wasn't himself, but it's not a large issue in my opinion. I'd like him to do that with other players in fact.

Though things like Duncan jumping along with Robinson when they ran a play together was such a great thing to show. Haha.

Yeah, that was nice :D

I love Duncan's video because of how many of my observations Ben also showed. Things like Duncan's P&R defense (highly underappreciated), his low base strength, his outlet passes, low post defense... I love defensive part in general, it's a great summary of Tim's style.

He even mentioned that Duncan had very good handles, most people don't realize that it was very important part of his game. I'm also glad that he said Duncan's bankshot wasn't that critical and he didn't use it nearly as often as some people think.

Garnett's video is also fantastic and I also prefer it over Shaq's episode.

I also think that Kareem and Walton videos are highly underappreciated, especially Walton'a one.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#735 » by Odinn21 » Sat Feb 20, 2021 10:54 am

70sFan wrote:
Odinn21 wrote:Curious about your take on detail and nuance levels in Olajuwon, Robinson, O'Neal, Duncan and Garnett episodes.
I feel like Olajuwon episode was the most detailed and nuanced one and definitely my favourite among them.

Yeah, I find Olajuwon's episode excellent as well. I think that he could bring some additional facts about him (like strong preference of the left block or his high reliance on fadeaway shot) but these things interest me more than most as I'm a post game nerd :D

You and me brother, you and me. :D

I can't tell that I didn't enjoy Robinson's episode, but I agree it was one of the weaker ones.

I mean I didn't not enjoy the episode. I just kept thinking like "why Taylor is interpolating stuff about Robinson's greatness when there are specific seasons to talk about".

In contrary, I have Shaq's episode the lowest of these three. It was still amazing, but I think Ben should pay more attention to Shaq's defense, which is something that is very controversial. I love how he broke down Shaq's offensive game, but he could do more with his defense. I also don't love the fact that he punched some light jabs on Wilt in this episode, it wasn't necessary.

---

I thought it was fair, Duncan was great postseason scorer but relative to the greatest he's not on the highest tier. You are right that Duncan had some unlucky moments and I'm not sure why he used 2005 playoffs when he clearly wasn't himself, but it's not a large issue in my opinion. I'd like him to do that with other players in fact.

I think your expectation about O'Neal was something like my opinion about Duncan. Your expectation wasn't met and on its core, that was a disagreement. Taylor has O'Neal as a better / more valuable defender than you I think.

As for Duncan, it's obvious that Duncan wasn't on the highest tier of scorers. However, my point was about in terms of jump from the regular season self. Even if Taylor didn't want to go down that road, I think he could (and should) have mentioned Duncan being physically limited in some of those numbers.
And this to me is like what's O'Neal's defense was to you. :)

I love Duncan's video because of how many of my observations Ben also showed. Things like Duncan's P&R defense (highly underappreciated), his low base strength, his outlet passes, low post defense... I love defensive part in general, it's a great summary of Tim's style.

Yeah, I also loved how he showed how physically strong Duncan was, both on offense and defense.

He even mentioned that Duncan had very good handles, most people don't realize that it was very important part of his game. I'm also glad that he said Duncan's bankshot wasn't that critical and he didn't use it nearly as often as some people think.

Yeah, the bankshot was a niche move, not a go-to move. Duncan had a higher usage percent of bank shots but it really wasn't more than a niche selection.

Garnett's video is also fantastic and I also prefer it over Shaq's episode.

I think Garnett's episode is less controversial than O'Neal's episode. Defense section in O'Neal's episode is a harder agreement or disagreement than offense section in Garnett's episode.

I also think that Kareem and Walton videos are highly underappreciated, especially Walton'a one.

I didn't exclude them because the episodes were bad or anything. I asked about Olajuwon, Robinson, O'Neal, Duncan and Garnett because I thought about them as a single generation of bigs with similar playstyles at their peaks (O'Neal being a somewhat of an outlier though). Abdul-Jabbar and Walton played considerably different.
The issue with per75 numbers;
36pts on 27 fga/9 fta in 36 mins, does this mean he'd keep up the efficiency to get 48pts on 36fga/12fta in 48 mins?
The answer; NO. He's human, not a linearly working machine.
Per75 is efficiency rate, not actual production.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#736 » by 70sFan » Sat Feb 20, 2021 11:18 am

This project is so good that I'm starting to wish Ben made more players. James and Curry episodes will be great for sure, but I'm more into bigmen game (though 1980s stars videos were also fantastic). I understand how much work he had to put into this project of course, 15 episodes is already a lot.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#737 » by LukaTheGOAT » Mon Feb 22, 2021 4:52 pm

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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#738 » by Goudelock » Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:30 pm

So I guess Tim Duncan really did go his entire career without taking a shot with his left hand. What a legend.

I enjoyed that episode, although I do wonder if Taylor would agree that Duncan's defensive awareness and passing acumen were superior in the 2010s? Which was far outside of his peak.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#739 » by Odinn21 » Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:41 pm

Goudelock wrote:So I guess Tim Duncan really did go his entire career without taking a shot with his left hand. What a legend.

I enjoyed that episode, although I do wonder if Taylor would agree that Duncan's defensive awareness and passing acumen were superior in the 2010s? Which was far outside of his peak.

In his passer rating on backpicks, Taylor has 2009-10 season as Duncan's passing peak. I'd agree that his passing peaked around that time. Either 2008-09 season or 2009-10 season. I wouldn't bump his passing in 2013 or 2014 due to how well the Spurs executed on offense though. He was facilitating greatly but that applied to the whole team. The Spurs were less dependant on Duncan's passing to run a good play.

In terms of defensive awareness, he just adapted to the way the league was going. His defensive awareness reached that level in 2000-01 season and stayed on there until he retired. His PnR defense became more visible in the '10s because PnR plays were much more often and PnR in the '10s needed harder commitments to the ball handler. When you watch a game from 2002, you'd see that not only PnR plays were not that often, the ball handlers were less willing to leverage their ability to score. And at that time, with that reason, Duncan was also reluctant to commit to the ball handlers and wanted to get back on his man as soon as possible.
The issue with per75 numbers;
36pts on 27 fga/9 fta in 36 mins, does this mean he'd keep up the efficiency to get 48pts on 36fga/12fta in 48 mins?
The answer; NO. He's human, not a linearly working machine.
Per75 is efficiency rate, not actual production.
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Re: Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor) 

Post#740 » by PistolPeteJR » Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:54 pm

Really enjoyed the Duncan episode. I was specifically intrigued by the fact that his peak on/off in the playoffs was so vastly different that other nearby three-year stretches he had. Ben mentions an increased role for guys like Parker and Ginobili as a possible contributing factor to this, but it can’t be the main reason, can it? There’s got to be some focal reason surrounded by a number of other reasons. That’s one giant difference.

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