Most surprising RAPM results

[sp6r=underrated]

Why didn't the Jazz win a title? Answer: Bad Luck. Answer #2: Bad Supporting Casts. Answer #3: Extremely tough opposition in the West

Who said I was simply talking about winning a title? 7 years when ATGs are in the middle of their prime and they look like a fringe title contender at best save 1 season.

SRS Rank
1988: 9
1989: 7
1990: 5
1991: 8
1992: 3
1993: 10
1994: 7


It took them 7 years to even become a championship level squad based on RS data. The performance during the years below are fine and I agree the ball bounces their way slightly differently (better FT shooting in 97/refs not screwing up shot clock in 1998) they win a title
1995: 2
1996: 3
1997: 2
1998: 5
1999: 3

But on the whole taking 7 years to enter the championship level zone when you have ATGs, who are complimentary, never get hurt ever, with a good coach, is highly, highly unusual. I don't think I can find another similar example.

And if it was a bad supporting cast as you contend.
Why were the Jazz okay before Stockton/Malone started getting going (86/87)?
Why was management, which was fair stable in Utah, able to retool so quickly after they left?

Not saying it isn't impossible the Jazz 3-12 were just catasthrophically bad 3-12 from 88-94 but I'll need to see more.

From 1990 to 1995 they essentially lose to every top team they face (90 suns, 92 blazers, 93 sonics, 94 and 95 rockets) and only beat the robinson spurs who are a bit overwhelmed by playoffs themselves eith their robinson absolute dependance

In 96 they make a big leap even if they still lost to a elite seattle team (than they outscored) is it a coincidence this was the year they got stock and malone good help?

From 96-98 the last grasps of their star duo primes + talented players alongside them they finally start beating strong teams like the 97 rockets

I cannot help but imagine that if they had hornacek earlier they may have gone for a ring in the earlier 90's during stockton and malone peaks

Malone Stockton missed a combined 7 games (Holy ****) from 88-94. The Jazz average SRS is 3.79 (4th). Their best single season for SRS was 5.7 which is good for 22nd best single season over that time span. 9 Franchises have an SRS better than the Jazz during that span. This is odd.

And again I'm not opposed to saying it was just a terrible roster 3-12 but if that was the case it really bottomed out almost right when they arrived. The Jazz from 85 to 87 were not awful clubs. They were middle tier clubs.

So the roster bottomed out for 7 years 3-12. Not saying it was impossible. I'm not even certain I know what happened.

But I do know this the Jazz success from 88 to 94 is not in line with what you would expect given the reputation of Malone, Stockton, Sloan.

[sp6r=underrated]

And just to be clear years ago I thought it was all on Stockton. I don't think that anymore. Rather I just can't reconcile the team point differential that scream non-contender to fringe contender, which goes on for a very long time span, featuring ATGs whose games are complimentary, with a coach who was skilled (if inflexible).

[giberish]

And just to be clear years ago I thought it was all on Stockton. I don't think that anymore. Rather I just can't reconcile the team point differential that scream non-contender to fringe contender, which goes on for a very long time span, featuring ATGs whose games are complimentary, with a coach who was skilled (if inflexible).

I've long felt that the Jazz 3-12 during those years really was catastrophic. Jeff Malone was a bad defender who worked hard to take a bunch of mid-range jumpers. Not making 3's nor drawing fouls so even with a decent-looking fg% he was really an inefficient chucker with bad defense (and I'd expect horrible +/- based stats if they were available from that era). Sure he was a good enough shooter that he could have taken 3's and been more effective, but he didn't (Sloan was very behind the curve on taking 3's which also hurt Utah's offense).

Their SF (forgot his name) mostly relied on post-ups for offense. Which might have been useful for some teams but just got in the way of Karl Malone for Utah, also hurting the offense. He was at least mediocre on defense so not as bad overall as Jeff Malone but not helping.

Eaton gets a lot of credit on defense and he certainly has impressive blocked shot totals (just from existing in the lane while huge). I'm somewhat skeptical of how much real impact he did have on defense overall though due to his limited quickness. Maybe that's just a modern bias (he'd be a defensive liability now). He was also very bad on offense. Despite his size he wasn't even a useful catch and finish 5th option on offense as he struggled with both the catch and finish. This overrode any defensive value he did have.

In their time they were considered quality players because they started on a regular playoff team, but IMO they were liabilities being dragged into the playoffs by Stockton/Malone. Even with Stockton/Malone aging past their prime, just put a decent but hardly overwhelming 3-5 in the starting lineup with them and they're title contenders. That Utah failed to do that for a bunch of years through their primes is a major franchise black-mark.

[colts18]

Why didn't the Jazz win a title? Answer: Bad Luck. Answer #2: Bad Supporting Casts. Answer #3: Extremely tough opposition in the West

Who said I was simply talking about winning a title? 7 years when ATGs are in the middle of their prime and they look like a fringe title contender at best save 1 season.

SRS Rank
1988: 9
1989: 7
1990: 5
1991: 8
1992: 3
1993: 10
1994: 7


It took them 7 years to even become a championship level squad based on RS data. The performance during the years below are fine and I agree the ball bounces their way slightly differently (better FT shooting in 97/refs not screwing up shot clock in 1998) they win a title
1995: 2
1996: 3
1997: 2
1998: 5
1999: 3

But on the whole taking 7 years to enter the championship level zone when you have ATGs, who are complimentary, never get hurt ever, with a good coach, is highly, highly unusual. I don't think I can find another similar example.

And if it was a bad supporting cast as you contend.
Why were the Jazz okay before Stockton/Malone started getting going (86/87)?
Why was management, which was fair stable in Utah, able to retool so quickly after they left?

Not saying it isn't impossible the Jazz 3-12 were just catasthrophically bad 3-12 from 88-94 but I'll need to see more.

1986/1987 vs 1988
The 88 vs 86/87 is not a fair comparison. You have to remember that Stockton/Malone were already on the roster in 86/87 so it's not like they were new pieces. The 86 roster had Adrian Dantley so it can't be compared to 88. In 1987, Malone/Stockton still had a big role on the Jazz. 35 MPG and 23 MPG respectively. That went up in 1988 to 39 MPG and 35 MPG. That's a combined extra 16 MPG between them in 1988. 16 MPG and improvement from both of those young players is enough to explain going from 0 SRS to 3 SRS.

Teammates
I cannot downplay just how bad Mark Eaton was on offense. It was worse because he was a high minute player too. Here is the list of worst points per 100 possession scoring numbers for a center who played 2,000+ minutes in a season. Mark Eaton has 6 of the 12 worst. 5 of those 6 seasons came in the 1988-1992 span with Stockton/Malone. He was playing 31 MPG and missed just 3 games in that time so he was constant drag on the Jazz offense.



Eaton was one of the all-time worst offensive players in history. Teams would leave him wide open to double Stockton/Malone. If you have never seen run Eaton run in slow motion from the 3 point line to the basket after his man left him for a double team, its a sight to behold


The Jazz Offense 88-94 vs 95-98

I can't emphasize how different the Jazz cast was post-Hornacek than Pre-Hornacek. Below the TS ADD totals for Stockton and Malone combined. The 2nd column is the TS ADD of the other players. The 2nd table is during the Hornacek era. You can see that the role Player TS ADD was much higher even when you remove Hornacek's totals too.

Code: Select all

JS+KM   Others
1987-88   319   -175
1988-89   413   -195
1989-90   519   -6
1990-91   409   -16
1991-92   384   8
1992-93   376   -163
1993-94   246   -151
Total   2666   -698


Code: Select all

   JS+KM   Others   JH
1994-95   375   284   165
1995-96   309   42   155
1996-97   458   187   120
1997-98   397   264   124
Total   1539   777   610


Stockton/Malone averaged a combined 381 TS Added points per season from 88-94 then averaged 385 TS Added in 95-98. Practically the same. The big difference was the rest of the roster. They went from averaging -100 TS points per season to +194 points per season with Hornacek accounting for 153 out of the 194 points. The 294 Point difference in role players is worth +3.6 Points per Game. From 88-94, the Jazz had a 3.79 SRS compared to 6.93 SRS, a gap of 3.14 SRS. The whole gap in SRS can be accounted from those extra 3.6 Points per game in efficiency by role players.

Role Players and Jerry Sloan

As I said in the previous section, the role players for the Jazz were significantly improved in 1995-1998 compared to the earlier period. The Jazz from 1988-1990 were a bad fit team which is why their offenses were bad. They had 6' 11 Thurl Bailey starting at SF, 6' 9" Karl Malone at PF, and 7' 4" Mark Eaton at Center. As I established earlier, Eaton was terrible. Having Bailey at SF meant the Jazz had no spacing. See the image below on how having 3 big men clogging the paint is not good for an offense. The offense got better in 1991 when Jeff Malone came in then took off after Jeff Hornacek came in 1994.




If you want to see the difference Hornacek makes and not having Eaton on the court makes, look at the two gifs below. In the first one, the Stockton/Malone Pick and Roll gets completely blown up by Mark Eaton's man. The spacing is pretty bad in that gif. Stockton/Malone were forced to create everything in that era.

In the 2nd one, Hornacek has the ball and is able to create a pass to Stockton in the paint who dishes it out to the cutting Ostertag. Even though Ostertag was a stiff, he was faster and more skilled than Mark Eaton. Eaton would never have been able to complete that cut on time and finish.

The Jerry Sloan offense in the late 90s was not the same offense as the early 90s. The Early 90s version does not resemble the offense people remember. The Pick and Rolls and cutting action did not occur often in the early 90s. By the mid 90s, the offense was developed and Jerry Sloan started to understand the importance of spacing. Granted, the Jazz still never took 3 pointers but at least they had players standing behind the 3 point line. Because of Malone's improved passing in the late 90's and Hornacek's playmaking, the Jazz were able to add John Stockton cuts to the basket to the offense which never happened in the late 80s/early 90s. That added another dimension to the offense.

[Warriors Analyst]

First name that comes to mind is Baron Davis.

Davis is a guy with major tendencies toward low shooting efficiency with high shooting volume as a point guard. Between that, the way he bounced around from team to team without buzz, and his weight issues, it was easy to conclude that he had likely been overrated during his prime.

Now, as I say that, Davis did show clear signs of being able to raise his play in the playoffs by means of a clear way in which this happens: He put more energy into to getting to the cup rather than settling for jumpers. That was enough to believe that his playoff successes weren't just flukes, and that's no small thing, but the perception of his meh impact in the regular season baseline still cast something of a dim light on how impressive we should find anything he did.

And then I saw the RAPM (along with other such data), and ever since then I've generally looked at Davis as a guy whose impact I might not grasp that well. Certainly, he was strong and effective on defense, but the data seems to indicate that he's considerably more valuable offensively even when he's chucking than I'd expect.

Baron was so physically dominant when he was right. He was great at getting to the lane and throwing interior passes in tight spaces from unusual angles, he was a rare PG who could back down defenders in the post, and when he wanted to he could be a great defender. I've always wondered what he looks like if he never has knee problems.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm surprised how good Sabonis looks defensively by that metrics. I always felt he was impactful defender within limited role, but this puts his defense to another perspective. Yao Ming having negative ORAPM also is a bit surprising, though maybe it's caused by data sample.

Sabonis has some +/- indicators as the used up old man we saw in the NBA that imply he might have GOAT level had he been able to reach prime age before the injuries began.

One example:

In that '99-00 playoff series between the Blazers and Lakers, which the Lakers very nearly lost, Sabonis had a +/- of +33. For perspective, this wasn't just the highest number any Laker opponent achieved against the Lakers in their 3-peat...

it was the highest number of any player in the series. Shaq had a +13 and Kobe had a -1. Had the 35-year-old Sabonis been able to play more minutes (he played 31.2 MPG), the series may well have ended the Laker 3-peat before it began. Was not expecting that when this data became available.

[andyhop]

Rubio having superstar level impact whilst being continually moved on by teams looking for something better is certainly interesting

[Bad Gatorade]

Reviving this – had a nasty bout of food poisoning, and I’ve only just recovered enough energy to respond

Steven Adams being good

I’m not surprised that he’s good, but rather, how good he is, even in comparison to other high offensive rebounding guys (who are often positive, but not hugely so). I suppose that Adams actually doubles as being the best of these guys rebounding wise and a better passer than them.

From what I’ve seen, there are definitely benefits to a centre having an assist/turnover ratio exceeding 1, so an incredible offensive rebounder with a strong assist/turnover ratio (and an elite screener on top) is doing a lot of things to keep team offence flowing nicely. Something to keep in mind. In fact, I’ll revisit this a bit more later.

Kobe Bryant in the playoffs

What’s surprising to me is that even though playoff plus minus indicators are quite spotty, the indicators that we have (shadow’s playoff RAPM from apbrmetrics, jalengreen’s RAPM) don’t actually paint Kobe as a particularly notable playoff increaser (nor the converse, for what it’s worth). I recall looking at team DRTG once and didn’t really notice anything noteworthy either (and bear in mind that he played alongside Shaq, arguably the poster boy for “playing his way into shape”).

Perhaps these samples are hampered by some inconsistency (for example, he seemed better on defence in his championship years than the years in between, affecting the regression algorithms) but it’s stunning how universal these poor defensive results seem to be. Perhaps he’s just not as good defensively as even the RealGM convention states? Offensively, he does look superb though.

Patrick Beverley being better than other guys

Our previous discussion on this is actually what sparked this thread!

Jrue Holiday’s DRAPM

Truth be told, Jrue Holiday looks like a monster through impact stats. I feel like he has multiple “stolen” All Star berths in recent times. In the seasons in which he’s above average on TS%, he appears to be a monster on the offensive end too. Just an all around really, really good player.

Arvydas Sabonis’s DRAPM

Truth be told, I’ve been watching the NBA properly for around 20 years at this point, and I’m 32 years old, so there’s not too much I can contribute (even though I do remember watching Arvydas play, I was a kid AND a casual back then)! I have, however, taken note of just how good he looks even into his 30s, and seeing that a broken down Arvydas has Tim Duncan-esque box scores (albeit in a more limited role) whilst also looking great through impact stats gives credence to the possible greatness that the NBA lost by not having this man play until his 30s.

Or, perhaps I should just go back and watch some more videos!

Yao Ming’s ORAPM

Whilst I’m surprised that he often appears as a negative, I’m not actually that shocked that he doesn’t appear as an elite offensive force. Very talented scorer, certainly, but tsherkin already highlighted the key issue with Yao – his passing was just… not that good. Many of the key offensive bigs in league history (Duncan, Garnett, Shaq, Kareem, Olajuwon during the 3 peat) were not only good scorers, but also both more willing and more capable passers. Without watching him game-to-game in his prime, I wonder if Ewing also falls befoul to this quirk given the general mediocrity of the Knicks offence (anybody want to chime in here?). But yes, I watched Yao, and when we think about things a bit more, I think they become a bit clearer.

Now, I don’t think that this means his scoring is worthless, because being a very strong defensive player, his scoring has value regarding team building and matchup exploitation, especially if Yao were transferred to the modern day.

He’s almost the antithesis to 2022 Steven Adams, and I think that it does bring attention to the facets that “boost” a big man’s RAPM. I don’t think that RAPM, even in a similar role, is a definitive ranking or anything, but it’s worth looking at trends in data and seeing that perhaps even an elite scoring big that is a fairly woeful passer relative to others in his scoring realm might not have the impact that we might initially think.

This is an additional benefit to box score composites – whilst they might not provide the “answer” to player rankings, they might highlight weak points within players worth looking at in greater detail, and tsherkin has already noted that Yao doesn't actually appear to be anything noteworthy through those composites.

Malone/Stockton/Sloan

Fun discussion all around – I don’t have too much extra to add here (same caveat regarding Ewing/Sabonis that I mentioned earlier, although I do remember watching these guys a bit more).

Baron Davis

Baron Davis almost seems like a “best case” ballpark for inefficient scoring. Truth be told, seeing him shoot 2/9 from 3 on what seemed to be a regular occurrence can be a sight for sore eyes, but one thing Baron Davis was is an excellent creator. Inefficient as hell, but he was ridiculously athletic and probably one of the most unappreciated passers in league history. From memory, his ratio of “at the rim” passes to turnovers was incredible. Furthermore, I’d hazard a guess that shooting so many 3 pointers means that relative to his scoring efficiency, he could be inflating the offensive rebounding rate of his team (e.g. shooting 40% from 3 and 60% of 2 might be “equal” efficiencies, but the former gives the team a chance to rebound 60% of all shots).

Also, although the sample size isn’t immense, Davis was an outstanding playoff performer, which probably boost his numbers a bit relative to perception.

Honestly, is this all that dissimilar from what Westbrook provided in his prime? Davis was probably comparably efficient to Westbrook (worse in terms of scoring efficiency, better in terms of playmaking efficiency) and 15 year RAPM actually places them directly next to one another. Ditto for T-Mac – not particularly efficient, but voluminous and an excellent playmaker to boot, even if his tendencies leaned more towards the scoring side of things.

After all, whilst we might debate the merits of TS%, I think it’s highly valuable, but it’s also not the only way players can be valuable on offence – it’s more so that the best offensive guys in recent times (e.g. LeBron, Nash, Curry, CP3 etc) are great at scoring efficiently AND playmaking, and those guys generally rank ahead.

It’s some food for thought when we go back and try to assess how good other “inefficient” scorers were. That's actually one of the benefits of RAPM, IMO - we don't have extensive RAPM for the past, and whilst the league isn't apples-to-apples by any means, there's the possibility of being able to prescribe rough "bounds" for impact estimate over time.

Ricky Rubio

Question for anybody viewing – how big is the gap between Rubio and Kidd?