Right back at you then. Where did Jordan suddenly gain this magical power to get credit for a career year, when he's not playing? Based on what, did Scottie get better BECAUSE of Jordan. It is clear he progressed playing with Jordan, but also without Jordan. So that's a huge hole in your idea. If for example Chris Paul leaves the Hornets, and his teammates get worse. That is telling. If vice-versa occurs you would think he held them back a little, or that they finally entered their prime. Remember Scottie had a late growth spurt in his career, and entered the league late. Everything about him screams late bloomer, and he did everything by himself when he won 55 games. Jordan barely got out of the first round, for the first time, at 25. Jordan lost in 5 games in the second round when he was LeBron's age. Then why did you try to say he was the "under 25 GOAT", if he clearly isn't? It matters because LeBron clearly has the best career up to this stage. Uh-uh don't bring up the old era, the figures are incomplete and the era much less integrated. This debate isn't about opinions, which is what I like about objective and sophisticated basketball analysis. He's played 7 seasons, a couple in his teens. He's not supposed to be GOAT yet. Lol @ Walton.
So I suppose you calculate the games in 88-89 for the 3 months when MJ was under 26. Somehow I doubt it. Actually, the president of apbr.org has stated that claims of objectivity of using stats are misplaced and the choice of which stats to use in a ranking system & how to weight them is a totally subjective decision. Maybe the problem is all the links to random stats that you have posted. Like the Inner Circle. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, if you can't take the time to repost, we are done here.
Sure, why not? But it won't make a difference. I'll do it if you insist. There are certain factors one must use in statistics. Pace, League Average, durability are always components of them. How one weighs them is how Hollinger came to that decision, with intelligent regression analysis. Hah see? You need to read more carefully. 100% of best season, 95% of second best season, 90% of third best season, eventually this eliminates terrible "I'm hanging on or am sub-par" years.This accounts for a lot of it, and I account for playoff stats as well. This is for long careers, and to appreciate high peak players.
Hollinger used subjectivity to figure out some of the factors. This is the point. This artificially favors the best year. Lots of statistically theory throws out outliers on both side: high and low. Who else supports this practice?
For defense, and after applying various barometers. What I like about Win Shares is that they are a predictive system, based on regression. "Does This Work? Because this metric is designed to estimate a player's contribution in terms of wins, it makes sense to see if the sum of player Win Shares for a particular team closely matches the team win total. For the 2008-09 Cavaliers the sum of player Win Shares is 67.9, while the team win total is 66, an error of 66 - 67.9 = -1.9 wins. For the 1964-65 Royals the sum of player Win Shares is 43.5, while the team total is 48, an error of 48 - 43.5 = 4.5 wins. These errors are actually close to the "typical" error; looking at all NBA teams since the 1962-63 season (the last season we have complete player splits), the average absolute error is 2.74 wins and the root mean squared error is 3.41 wins." http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html Chase Stewart uses it frequently on pro-football-reference, and basketball-reference analysis. Various people over at APBRmetrics too. For example, why should I rank one great player over another, if they had 3 extra barely all-star level seasons, and ended up with a few more win shares. BBR did a blog about the value of high peak versus consistency, and WS being equal you want the higher peak player. I'm sure you've heard of value above replacement players, it is a similar concept.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=4388 Here is a nice article about high peak versus consistency. In it we have two players with exactly 112 win shares for their careers. Player One has 16, 14 ,14, 11 ,11 win shares in their prime and then falls off the map. The other is much more consistent throughout 20 seasons and has 9 Win Shares in his prime. Simulating 10,000 careers, player 1 has 2337 careers with multiple titles. Player 2 has 1613 careers with multiple titles. "Dominant players with ridiculous peaks own the Larry O'Brien Trophy, with all but 5 of the past 58 NBA champions being led by a player with double-digit Win Shares (one was Tim Duncan in '99, a season shortened to 50 games; had he played all 82, he was on pace for 14.3), more than half being led by 13+ win players, and a quarter being carried by stars with 15.8 or more WS. Given that the same six franchises (Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, LA Lakers, and San Antonio) have controlled 28 of the past 30 NBA crowns, it also makes sense that it takes a truly epic peak performance to break through and capture a championship."
The younger fans may have a hard time grasping your very true statement. How can we ever say Lebron is the GOAT? That is sacrilege! Truth is he is very good! He is top five among players playing today. That being said, there was a time years ago in the nba where every team had some type of lebron player. The Big O averaged a triple double!! Many teams had players that matched or exceeded Lebrons stats! Many years ago, every player could shoot! I am not dissing James. He has many years left to try and make the case for being the GOAT. He isnt there yet.
Pretty much! And add to this that very same 55 win team was .500 the next season until Jordan came back. The Jordan mystic was starting to ware off.
Outstanding post throughout! From Jordan and Pippen right down to greater and similar players to James. Some older Celtic players could also be added to the list. Russell, Hondo to mention two. Earl Monroe could be included imo. He played for the Bullets for years, but that is just my opinion. Comparing him to McAdoo and Wilkens is accurate. I would even add Gervin to the mix.
I am sorry, you cant have an arguement about the GOAT then tell Denny not to bring up the old era. That does nothing to make your case. The GOAT includes the old era. I mean come on! If it didnt the phrase would be GOME! (Greatest of the Modern Era) So any cred you had on your opinion just left. You cant have a real debate if you limit it to modern day players. You leave too much out.
The Big O also gave up a ton of points/assists/rebounds on Defense, so did all those old timers. And this is also a huge detriment to their team. To me it surprises me how much this fact can escape people. Sorry but raw numbers mean nothing, because of pace. LeBron plays in the slowest era meaning his numbers are underrated if anything. There are no players that match LeBron's numbers at this point in his career. Only Michael Jordan can say he came close and he played far longer so he is the GOAT. Wilt played in a league that was over 65% white (Neil Paine mentioned that), so no I don't think it was the same from an average player level. Segregation further tarnished the game in that era, unfortunately.
But the fact remains that a superstar was taken off a team, and they still won 55. Pippen continued to play well in 94-95. Horace Grant left in 1994-1995, which accounts for the drop. Later replaced by the great Rodman. Ok, already addressed. Russell, the guy was less efficient than Ben Wallace? Again, these guys were on great teams but they weren't all great two-way players.
That's a nice study. Of course, Jordan's WS characteristic doesn't look anything like either of the hypothetical players used in the study. Neither will Lebron unless his career ends early due to injury. Let's face it. Your extra twist to the WS methodology (100% of best year, 95% second best year) is random and very subjective. Why not take 1% or 10% off each year rather than 5%?
Win Shares uses Dean Oliver's work and Dean Oliver says "you can't use overall player ratings to say Who is the Greatest" p. 183 of Basketball on Paper. :> But carry on...
Your kidding me right? Russell, Wilt...pretty guys defensively. Detriment to their teams? How so? Those 65% of white players were pretty damn good.
No I am sorry it was not already addressed. Just saying they were a detriment to their teams is not enough. You never saw any of them play week end or week out for years like I did. Look, I can understand why you are excited with lebron and why you argue he is the best of all time. You cant compare him to the old time greats! I get that. But dont disregard their play by saying they were a detriment without actually seeing them play! I gave you one example, the Big O. He averaged 12.5 boards, 11.4 assists 30.8 pts a game and he was 6-5. So that hurt the team? Really? Honestly, it was not bad defense. People played with the basics! When they came into to the league they knew how to play already! There was no such word as "potential." All of them could shoot. Some better than others, and yes that includes the 65% of white players! They boxed out, played man to man defense. Some were good defensive players, but it didnt matter because night in and night out the guy you were guarding hit the jay consistantly! Similar to what James did against the Bulls. He was covered well in most of the games, but time after time he would hit the shot while being closely guarded! Now multiply that for players on each team! You get the drift! Players could play! It was not a matter of poor defense each and every night. Thanks to Spencer Haywood, all of that changed over time. Players came into the league not ready to play at both ends of the court. I am not saying Lebron is one of the guys with potential. Obviously he doesnt fit the mold.
I forgot to address the Russell, wallace comparison. Take Russell off of those Celtic teams and see what happens to all of the rings they won. I thought maybe you wanted to debate but clearly you dismiss, loosely dismiss people from years ago. That is not a real debate. You think you argue from a point of strength, when actually you are at a disadvatage for not having witnessed them first hand. Russell played both ends of the court. I am wasting my time with you, and please dont think you won an argument. If I dont reply anymore to you in this thread. I have better things to do than debate with someone that thinks Oscar was a detriment to his team and russell was not as good as wallace, and because the NBA was 65% white at one time meant they were not as good as todays teams....Geeesh! All of this being said. Lebron is good! As of right now he is not the best of all time. You can throw all of the stats at me you want, but you have been talking for the most part about the modern era, so any GOAT title is very misleading.
No I didn't "invent" the AV system (Chase Stewart, various others). And I provided a model that clearly favors high peaks. It won't affect the LeBron-Jordan debate (except with Washington, not that he has a lot of value there anyway), but it will affect another debate. Since you ask for "rankings", it is necessary to explain to you how I rank (or one of the methods I may use). A significant amount of extra titles was earned by Player 1 in the study, there are some careers that mimic that. Players that play into their late 30's and were never at the peak of Jordan. Jordan vs Stockton is a good example. Dean Oliver uses an extremely complex formula to base his opinions off them. He doesn't say "don't use advanced numbers because my favorite player wouldn't be GOAT."
