Pelton:Ranking MJ, LeBron, Magic, Bird and the 40 best NBA players ever
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:29 pm    Post subject: Pelton:Ranking MJ, LeBron, Magic, Bird and the 40 best NBA players ever

Separate from the "All-Time NBA Rank" - Pelton did an INsider article about what he considers the top 40 which is posted on Reddit

Only copied in part of it to avoid copyright questions

"Over the seven decades the NBA has existed, a lot has changed -- including even the name of the league, which originally incorporated as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). Differences in style of play, level of competition, rules and the addition of the 3-point line make it difficult for us to compare across eras for projects like ESPN's ongoing effort to pick the best NBA players of all-time using #NBArank voting.

One thing hasn't changed: the championship trophy for which all teams are competing. (OK, technically, that too has changed styles and names, but the concept is the same.) So in seeking to rank every player in NBA history statistically, my north star was how much they helped teams win championships.

The result is a metric, championships added, that incorporates both performance during the regular season and the postseason (using Basketball-Reference.com's win shares) and gives true stars more credit for their contributions than players who merely hung around. I also came up with the idea of valuing subjective honors such as All-Star appearances, All-NBA picks and MVP voting based on how well they translate to winning championships.

For more on the details, including what I found about how performance translates to championships, I wrote up a full description. If you just want the results, read on to find out how I've ranked the 40 best players in NBA history.

1. Michael Jordan
Championships added: 4.38
Regular season: 2.3 (2nd)
Playoffs: 1.7 (1st)
Awards: 3.0 (1st)

Evaluating the consensus GOAT (greatest of all time) is a good example of why I prefer rating players in terms of championships rather than simply career win shares. Because of his two retirements, Jordan ranks fourth in career win shares behind players with more games. But Jordan's best seasons gave the Chicago Bulls an overwhelming chance of winning a championship (as, of course, they did six times). So Jordan moves up to second strictly in the regular season, is tops in the playoffs and blows away the field with his five MVPs in a highly competitive era.

2. Wilt Chamberlain
Championships added: 4.16
Regular season: 3.1 (1st)
Playoffs: 1.6 (3rd)
Awards: 2.0 (6th)

Chamberlain's teams won only twice, but this method at the very least suggests Chamberlain should have gotten more trophies. Part of the issue, certainly, is that Chamberlain wasn't nearly as dominant in the playoffs as in the regular season, and a method that puts more weight on postseason success might have him lower.

3. LeBron James
Championships added: 3.86
Regular season: 1.9 (4th)
Playoffs: 1.6 (2nd)
Awards: 2.7 (3rd)

Just 10th in career win shares, James also comes out better in a method that gives more weight to his best seasons. Despite his teams winning fewer championships than this metric suggests they should have, James' playoff performance hasn't disappointed. Too often, as in the 2015 NBA Finals, he has been the best player on the court in a series his team lost because of limited contributions from teammates.

4. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Championships added: 3.85
Regular season: 2.2 (3rd)
Playoffs: 1.4 (5th)
Awards: 2.7 (2nd)

No. 1 by a wide margin in career win shares, Abdul-Jabbar doesn't benefit quite as much from the length of his career here. Since he was a secondary figure in most of the Showtime Lakers' championship runs, his playoff performance also doesn't quite match up to how he did in the regular season. Still, Abdul-Jabbar was third all-time before James passed him last season.

5. Bill Russell
Championships added: 2.98
Regular season: 1.1 (15th)
Playoffs: 1.6 (4th)
Awards: 1.7 (11th)

Russell never led the league in win shares during the regular season, so his rating there lags a bit. Of course, Russell wasn't playing for the regular season. He peaked in the playoffs, leading Boston to 11 championships -- or eight more than this method suggests his career would produce on average.

The Russell-Chamberlain comparison illustrates some of the limitations of this method, which is only as good as the underlying stats. As we know from the advent of SportVU data and metrics like ESPN's real plus-minus that incorporate how teams perform with players on and off the court, the box score misses much of the game. That's doubly true before the 1970s, when turnovers, blocked shots and steals weren't tracked.

Basketball-Reference.com has done a good job using what stats were available to estimate player value, and Russell appropriately comes out as the league's best defender by win shares in 11 of his 13 seasons. Still, it's tough to get a full picture of how those players rate, making championships added a starting point for discussion rather than a definitive ranking.

6. Tim Duncan
Championships added: 2.78
Regular season: 1.3 (10th)
Playoffs: 1.2 (6th)
Awards: 1.9 (7th)

Still a valuable part of one of the league's best teams at age 39, Duncan has an outside shot at surpassing Russell and moving into the all-time top five before he calls it a career.

7. Shaquille O'Neal
Championships added: 2.65
Regular season: 1.1 (13th)
Playoffs: 1.0 (10th)
Awards: 2.1 (5th)

Though O'Neal won just one MVP trophy, he gets credited here for finishing runner-up twice and third two other seasons. In hindsight, he probably deserved the trophy in both 2000-01 (when it went to Allen Iverson, with Duncan second) and 2004-05 (Steve Nash).

8. Magic Johnson
Championships added: 2.53
Regular season: 1.0 (18th)
Playoffs: 1.2 (7th)
Awards: 1.8 (10th)

While this method does a good job of emphasizing peak play, Johnson would certainly still rank higher had HIV not forced him into retirement. In his last full season, 1990-91, Magic added an estimated 0.23 championships -- the second-best season of his career by this measure.

9. Larry Bird
Championships added: 2.36
Regular season: 0.9 (23rd)
Playoffs: 0.8 (13th)
Awards: 2.3 (4th)

It's only fitting for Magic and Larry to finish next to each other on the all-time list. They got there in slightly different ways, however, with Bird deriving more benefit from the three times he won MVP -- and four others he finished second.

10. Karl Malone
Championships added: 2.33
Regular season: 1.7 (6th)
Playoffs: 0.5 (23rd)
Awards: 1.9 (8th)

Only Abdul-Jabbar racked up more career win shares than Malone did in his 19-year career, but because his best seasons weren't as good as those of other stars -- and especially because he tended not to come through in the same level during the postseason -- Malone slips to 10th on this list.

No. 11-15
11. Kobe Bryant (2.33 championships added)
12. George Mikan (2.25 championships added)
13. Jerry West (2.25 championships added)
14. Julius Erving (2.11 championships added)
15. Dirk Nowitzki (1.95 championships added)

(I originally introduced a version of this metric to evaluate Bryant's career when he announced his retirement. At that point, playoff performance and awards weren't factored in, and both benefit Bryant. As a result, he has moved up to 11th -- though still outside the top 10.)

Mikan is probably the most challenging player to rank. Despite adjusting for level of competition, he's fifth in championships added, and would rank in the top 10 if not for the fact that he never won MVP (because they didn't introduce it until after he retired). Still, given how quickly Mikan's play declined as the league improved in quality, this feels too high.

No. 16-20
16. Oscar Robertson (1.90 championships added)
17. David Robinson (1.77 championships added)
18. Kevin Garnett (1.70 championships added)
19. Hakeem Olajuwon (1.68 championships added)
20. Charles Barkley (1.65 championships added)
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:38 pm    Post subject:

LeBron at 3.

Hakeem at 19.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:41 pm    Post subject:

non-player zealot wrote:
LeBron at 3.

Hakeem at 19.



That pretty much sums it up.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 11:07 pm    Post subject:

kikanga wrote:
non-player zealot wrote:
LeBron at 3.

Hakeem at 19.



That pretty much sums it up.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 6:33 am    Post subject:

Pelton also gets too hung up on numbers without common sense. For example, he was dead set on arguing that Kevin Love must be an all-star this year. The eye test def says no, just like Hakeem at #19.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 7:33 am    Post subject:

Players getting hypothetical credit for championships they didn't win seems a bridge too far.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:42 am    Post subject:

I don't agree with everything but it's not a terrible list. The two things everyone will focus on is Lebron being 3, and Hakeem 19. But other than them, I don't find any of the placements unreasonable.

For me, it's interesting to see someone with a firm methodology on how they make their choices.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 1:05 pm    Post subject:

Putting lebron ahead of Kareem is blasphemous and should be reason enough to have your site banned from the internet!
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:04 pm    Post subject:

Malone at 10 is curious and I actually like him. In some ways -- passing and man D and physicality -- I prefer him over Duncan (who is soft by comparison and who rests selected games compared to a guy who missed 10 gms in 18 yrs), but I wouldn't RANK Malone over him.

Magic is not the 8th best player in league history. BS. The explanation that guy gave implies that he didn't have enough years to cover the 5 spots between he and Bron. It neither passes the eye test or the brain test. Earv did more in his career than Bron will in 18-20 yrs, book it. People hem and haw about Mikan being on these lists because of era conflicts, but Russell started his career in the 50s league. If Mikan gets points deducted for being mysterious, how is Bill Russell's career so well-known besides the obvious? His physique is more starkly contrasted to the contemporary bigs on the list than West's is compared to Jordan and the other guards. Russ feels like a square peg pounded into a round hole when compared to Chamberlain or Jabbar. With Wilt, you have a reasonable expectation that he would be a superstar in any era. I don't know how true that is for Russ, that's especially so considering the current push to downgrade Larry Bird because of his body/mediocre athleticism.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:12 pm    Post subject:

Total crap list ... they totally screwed Kobe at 11 w/their BS data just so he won't be top 10.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:16 pm    Post subject:

KobeRe-Loaded wrote:
Total crap list ... they totally screwed Kobe at 11 w/their BS data just so he won't be top 10.


He had to make room for the two guys that weren't able to 1A their way to a title for The Lake and The Land. Imagine being Dreamshake. His head exploded Scanners style when he saw 19. I'm pissed at 8.

Bron... Guh. The King...
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:22 pm    Post subject:

non-player zealot wrote:
People hem and haw about Mikan being on these lists because of era conflicts, but Russell started his career in the 50s league.


Russell began a new era. The NBA (or NBL) that Mikan played in was significantly different than the one Russell played in. Mikan was a king in the early and mid 50s, but even if he had stayed healthy I think he would have declined significantly by the late 50s because of the improvement in competition.

non-player zealot wrote:
If Mikan gets points deducted for being mysterious, how is Bill Russell's career so well-known besides the obvious?


Mikan wasn't downgraded for being "mysterious." He played in an era before they gave out MVP awards. He undoubtedly would have won a few of them, which would have helped him in this ranking system. So if they had the MVp award back then Mikan would have made the top 10.

non-player zealot wrote:
Russ feels like a square peg pounded into a round hole when compared to Chamberlain or Jabbar. With Wilt, you have a reasonable expectation that he would be a superstar in any era. I don't know how true that is for Russ, that's especially so considering the current push to downgrade Larry Bird because of his body/mediocre athleticism.


I haven't seen any push to downgrade Bird myself. I typically see him rated about 5th or 6th best of all time. Anyway, people have been arguing about how good Russell would be in latter eras forever.

That said, this particular list doesn't try to play the time machine game. It evaluates players based on how they played in their era.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:32 pm    Post subject:

Mikan once dropped 30, in the playoffs, with a broken leg. Literally. A broken leg.

Quote:

For the first time since Mikan had begun playing professional basketball, his team did not win a championship. Minneapolis fell to Rochester in the Western Division Finals, three games to one, largely because Mikan hobbled through the series with a fractured leg. "The doctors taped a plate on it for the playoffs," Mikan told Newsday in 1990. "I played all right, scored in the 20s. I couldn't run, sort of hopped down the court."


The level of competition was not the same. The context has to matter even if it is difficult to capture objectively.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:35 pm    Post subject:

L4L wrote:
Mikan once dropped 30, in the playoffs, with a broken leg. Literally. A broken leg.

Quote:

For the first time since Mikan had begun playing professional basketball, his team did not win a championship. Minneapolis fell to Rochester in the Western Division Finals, three games to one, largely because Mikan hobbled through the series with a fractured leg. "The doctors taped a plate on it for the playoffs," Mikan told Newsday in 1990. "I played all right, scored in the 20s. I couldn't run, sort of hopped down the court."


The level of competition was not the same. The context has to matter even if it is difficult to capture objectively.


That's part of the point. Some people feel you should only rank players based on how they did against players in their era. Some people think you should imagine putting everyone in a giant time machine and guessing how they would do against one another.

Neither approach is inherently better or worse. I think, in reality, a lot of people use both approaches in their rankings, even if they don't realize they're doing it.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:38 pm    Post subject:

Yeah, it's very difficult to nail down a consistent, objective way of matting out penalties and bonuses for playing in certain eras, but I have very little doubt that the overall quality of play in the league was substantially higher from the '80s on. If for nothing else then because the incentives were much higher at that time. When you pay your athletes more, you get better athletes choosing to play that particular sport over other potential options.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:59 pm    Post subject:

non-player zealot wrote:
Malone at 10 is curious and I actually like him. In some ways -- passing and man D and physicality -- I prefer him over Duncan (who is soft by comparison and who rests selected games compared to a guy who missed 10 gms in 18 yrs), but I wouldn't RANK Malone over him.

Magic is not the 8th best player in league history. BS. The explanation that guy gave implies that he didn't have enough years to cover the 5 spots between he and Bron. It neither passes the eye test or the brain test. Earv did more in his career than Bron will in 18-20 yrs, book it. People hem and haw about Mikan being on these lists because of era conflicts, but Russell started his career in the 50s league. If Mikan gets points deducted for being mysterious, how is Bill Russell's career so well-known besides the obvious? His physique is more starkly contrasted to the contemporary bigs on the list than West's is compared to Jordan and the other guards. Russ feels like a square peg pounded into a round hole when compared to Chamberlain or Jabbar. With Wilt, you have a reasonable expectation that he would be a superstar in any era. I don't know how true that is for Russ, that's especially so considering the current push to downgrade Larry Bird because of his body/mediocre athleticism.

Yea, so many great points here. So much goes under the radar in these analyses...the difference in the way players played back then in the sense of things they CAN'T do vs things they WON'T do. Oscar talked about how small players didn't dunk and stuff back then because of certain unspoken rules, it was considered showboating and not advised. So they CAN, but they didn't. Stuff like that.
All people know about bill russell is the 11 championships. that's it.
frankly, I'm not sure people know much about MJ either, from what i'm reading. 6 championships.
Mikan, nobody knows anything really.
Magic is known as a passer. Larry is not. In reality, Larry is a hell of a lot closer to Magic in terms of passing than lebron is.
Players now almost assuredly play for statistics as much as to win. Not so earlier. it was somewhat true in the 80s, IIRC, but not anything like today.
Wilt and Kareem almost stand alone to me. And at the top. Russell is not there at all, nor is anyone else really.
People don't know anything about 70s ball.
heck, most laker fans would have trouble with any memories prior to 1986-ish.

and then, my pet peeve...scoring vs other things. In debates, there is this annoying effort to paint scoring as this negative thing, selfish, etc...and paint the other stuff as being better or more positive. i hate that, and it's prevalent today. scoring is the best, it will always be. the best scorer is not the most selfish...he is just the best. if there are two players and one is a better scorer, that is the better player all things being equal. you win on points. not assists. or steals. defense doesn't win championships, the team that scores the most points does. and there also isn't this tradeoff where "well, he's not the best at scoring but he's a better defender and rebounder etc" nonsense. dwight is not a great rebounder and defender by sacrificing his scoring. he's a good rebounder and defender because he sucks at scoring and if he wasn't good at the easier parts of the game, he would be useless.
lebron is not the best scorer. but he's so well rounded and great at everything, jack of all? nope. he's not the best at anything, except hype. he's the best at hype.
Kobe..kobe is the best scorer possibly. that makes him the best. wilt and mj are there too, the best scorers. wilt, kobe, mj might be the best individual basketball players ever.

Magic stands out as a singular, weird example of something. There was nobody like him before, there's been nobody like him since. it's just weird. he's the only person that can add a wrinkle to my scoring thing above. he's special...but I will probably still pick wilt, kobe, mj over him in a life/death situation. with magic, you need the right horses to make it work...and that's because he's not the best at scoring. if you're the best at scoring, the horses don't matter.

such a stupid list. this idiotic quantifying of things is really annoying me to no end.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 4:18 pm    Post subject:

LeBron at 3, Magic at 8, Malone at 10, Kobe at 11, Dirk at 15, Hakeem at 19. All of these are insane.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 4:39 pm    Post subject:

If you bear in mind that this list is primarily based on Win Shares, which are a box score based stat, these results are not surprising. Lebron is a box score machine. It's a little surprising that Hakeem rated so low, though.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 4:51 pm    Post subject:

Malone: 2.33 championships added

Malone's actual number of championships: 0
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 6:03 pm    Post subject:

He lost me with Malone at 10.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 6:06 pm    Post subject:

This is what happens when literally anyone can make a list.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 8:00 pm    Post subject:

CandyCanes wrote:
Malone: 2.33 championships added

Malone's actual number of championships: 0

ok that one was LOL!!! lol!!

perfect example for how ridiculous this number stuff can get. sadly, this is not that different than the other numbers being thrown around in these threads like efficiency and such.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 3:34 am    Post subject:

I like this idea, because it agrees with a philosophy I've had about the game. If the object of the game is to win championships, then your value is determined by your "expected championship value", independent of circumstance. That said, I think WS is too shallow of an analysis.

I prefer to think about it as a more qualitative "value in constructing a contender" which can be supported by stats but not solely defined by it.

Let's take Duncan for instance. I'm not a fan of OBPM but here are some numbers:

Year USG OBPM Games
2008 28% -1 17
2009 29% +2.1 5
2010 26% -0.9 10
2011 21% -3.6 6
2012 25% +0.7 14
2013 26% -0.1 21
2014 22% +2.0 23
2015 21% +2.6 7

Duncan's OBPM generally varies inversely with his usage. 2009 is an outlier but with a sample size of 5 games against the 17th ranked Dallas defense. From 2011 to 2014 they diminished Duncan's role on offense more and more. Duncan put up better numbers benefitting more off of other players' shot creation/ having less offensive burden, and his OBPM got higher.

You can argue he's hurt them when they tried to build around him (2008-2011). 2012 onwards he's been essentially an elite role player: elite defensively (but not transformative IMHO), but a beneficiary of others offensively. In fact, by this analysis he's been similar to Danny Green, actually. BPM agrees.

So when I'm putting Duncan in an All-Time list, I see a guy who had about 10 years as a foundational "both teams game plan around/ for Duncan" force, and a guy who spent another 8-9 years as an elite role player. How does that compare to his nemesis Kobe, who had about 13 years (2000-2013) as a foundational (if not as dominant 2-way) guy, but not as many years as the same-caliber role player?

This analysis starts to look at these questions, just not in a satisfying way. (For me personally, the role player part pales in comparison to the part as a foundational piece, so I more or less push and have the two players equal, even though body of work suggests Duncan should get it after the Achilles robbed Kobe of his twilight years.)
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 3:41 am    Post subject:

tox wrote:
I like this idea, because it agrees with a philosophy I've had about the game. If the object of the game is to win championships, then your value is determined by your "expected championship value", independent of circumstance. That said, I think WS is too shallow of an analysis.

I prefer to think about it as a more qualitative "value in constructing a contender" which can be supported by stats but not solely defined by it.

Let's take Duncan for instance. I'm not a fan of OBPM but here are some numbers:

Year USG OBPM Games
2008 28% -1 17
2009 29% +2.1 5
2010 26% -0.9 10
2011 21% -3.6 6
2012 25% +0.7 14
2013 26% -0.1 21
2014 22% +2.0 23
2015 21% +2.6 7

Duncan's OBPM generally varies inversely with his usage. 2009 is an outlier but with a sample size of 5 games against the 17th ranked Dallas defense. From 2011 to 2014 they diminished Duncan's role on offense more and more. Duncan put up better numbers benefitting more off of other players' shot creation/ having less offensive burden, and his OBPM got higher.

You can argue he's hurt them when they tried to build around him (2008-2011). 2012 onwards he's been essentially an elite role player: elite defensively (but not transformative IMHO), but a beneficiary of others offensively. In fact, by this analysis he's been similar to Danny Green, actually. BPM agrees.

So when I'm putting Duncan in an All-Time list, I see a guy who had about 10 years as a foundational "both teams game plan around/ for Duncan" force, and a guy who spent another 8-9 years as an elite role player. How does that compare to his nemesis Kobe, who had about 13 years (2000-2013) as a foundational (if not as dominant 2-way) guy, but not as many years as the same-caliber role player?

This analysis starts to look at these questions, just not in a satisfying way. (For me personally, the role player part pales in comparison to the part as a foundational piece, so I more or less push and have the two players equal, even though body of work suggests Duncan should get it after the Achilles robbed Kobe of his twilight years.)


This is a grade A post!
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 8:12 am    Post subject:

non-player zealot wrote:
Malone at 10 is curious and I actually like him. In some ways -- passing and man D and physicality -- I prefer him over Duncan (who is soft by comparison and who rests selected games compared to a guy who missed 10 gms in 18 yrs), but I wouldn't RANK Malone over him.

Magic is not the 8th best player in league history. BS. The explanation that guy gave implies that he didn't have enough years to cover the 5 spots between he and Bron. It neither passes the eye test or the brain test. Earv did more in his career than Bron will in 18-20 yrs, book it. People hem and haw about Mikan being on these lists because of era conflicts, but Russell started his career in the 50s league. If Mikan gets points deducted for being mysterious, how is Bill Russell's career so well-known besides the obvious? His physique is more starkly contrasted to the contemporary bigs on the list than West's is compared to Jordan and the other guards. Russ feels like a square peg pounded into a round hole when compared to Chamberlain or Jabbar. With Wilt, you have a reasonable expectation that he would be a superstar in any era. I don't know how true that is for Russ, that's especially so considering the current push to downgrade Larry Bird because of his body/mediocre athleticism.


The relative and absolute placements of Karl Malone and Hakeem Olajuwon are bizarre.

Malone's early career head case problems (temper, foul troubles, bad team karma) made him of much, much, much lower value than the list suggests. He took years to learn how to play the team game, and IMO, that's what distinguishes good players from great players. He didn't defend his position particularly well. Not a top ten guy all-time, not at all.
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