Wade/Tmac/Kobe

[NYKalltheway]

I understand your points, because you keep repeating them:

Modern basketball sucks
LeBron isn’t that good
Stats are useless

All bad points. And it’s not a faction of hive minds, we don’t all believe the same thing. You want to lump everyone who uses stats in the same category when in reality the only thing they have in common is they are not luddites like you that ignore stats to maintain your hatred of modern basketball

That is very inaccurate. Apart from Lebron not being that good. That is true. Lebron is "not that good" when you claim he's GOAT or anywhere near the top 5. That's fact. He's the best player of the 2010s, but he's not the best player since the turn of the millennium with Duncan, Shaq and Kobe being above him.

Anyway, I'll let you discuss with MoreThanMost, explaining to him why you cannot only use stats why the "eye test" doesn't suck balls.

[NYKalltheway]

I just found out from PSK that NYK told him he doesn’t even watch basketball anymore. So the guy who preaches about the eye test doesn’t even use it

I don't watch day to day anymore. I catch an occasional game and watch several playoff series.

I do have more access to games these days but it just doesn't drive me to spend 3.5 hours at morning hours for something I perceive as an equivalence to WWE basketball which is the exteeme majority of Regular Season for the past 15 years, with exceptions being made on some close 4th quarters or some heated games that are a handful every month.

I even have more access to teams as I know two people who own franchises (we're not best buds, but if I email them that I'll be in town, I'll have tickets that I didn't ask for), players and people in coaching staff. Something I didn't have in the previous decades that I "glorified". Most of them sorta agree with me on things NBA, old vs new.

So, good attempt, but "I don't like NBA and don't watch it anymore" does not mean "I completely stopped watching everything and have no clue about what is going on".

[More-Than-Most]

I just found out from PSK that NYK told him he doesn’t even watch basketball anymore. So the guy who preaches about the eye test doesn’t even use it

the eye test never mattered to him and it was stupid to begin with because he doesnt care about basketball from like 1998 on... the dude is a boomer troll that has his mind made up from the start.... he speaks of eye test but gave up on the sport and people still argue with this guy lmfao.

stats-------->eye test--------------------> ignorance----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> dude that argues eye test because he is 60 but hasnt watched games

[More-Than-Most]

I don't watch day to day anymore. I catch an occasional game and watch several playoff series.

I do have more access to games these days but it just doesn't drive me to spend 3.5 hours at morning hours for something I perceive as an equivalence to WWE basketball which is the exteeme majority of Regular Season for the past 15 years, with exceptions being made on some close 4th quarters or some heated games that are a handful every month.

I even have more access to teams as I know two people who own franchises (we're not best buds, but if I email them that I'll be in town, I'll have tickets that I didn't ask for), players and people in coaching staff. Something I didn't have in the previous decades that I "glorified". Most of them sorta agree with me on things NBA, old vs new.

So, good attempt, but "I don't like NBA and don't watch it anymore" does not mean "I completely stopped watching everything and have no clue about what is going on".

then stfu... you are clueless and ignorant... just stfu... take the stats because your argument is void at this point. You love eye test but barely watch the sport

holy **** just admit you hate bron and move on and stfu


this is what i mean about certain people on this site that spew hypocritical bs


the dude that catches an occasional game which means basically a tnt game once a month while tuning in to any lebron series where he is down 3-1 has an opinion of the ****ing eye test lmfao.... my ****ing god

[More-Than-Most]

]I don't watch day to day anymore. I catch an occasional game and watch several playoff series. [/B]

I do have more access to games these days but it just doesn't drive me to spend 3.5 hours at morning hours for something I perceive as an equivalence to WWE basketball which is the exteeme majority of Regular Season for the past 15 years, with exceptions being made on some close 4th quarters or some heated games that are a handful every month.

I even have more access to teams as I know two people who own franchises (we're not best buds, but if I email them that I'll be in town, I'll have tickets that I didn't ask for), players and people in coaching staff. Something I didn't have in the previous decades that I "glorified". Most of them sorta agree with me on things NBA, old vs new.

So, good attempt, but "I don't like NBA and don't watch it anymore" does not mean "I completely stopped watching everything and have no clue about what is going on".

eye test



eye test when i watch bron and then compare him to the 70s/80s and look at his win loss record and have no understanding of basketball


eye test is a sham and this dude just proved my ****ing point... all the dudes that speak of the ****ing eye test either only watch 1 player on their home team or are boomers that hate the sport now and just come in to try and **** on current players but hate stats because they show superiority and thus rely on eye test but dont watch the ****ing sport

[Big Moves03]

yet numbers say lebron james is better than steve kerr....Number say Giannis is having some of the best seasons ever... numbers say everything and just because you dont understand TS/PER/VORP and so very many other stats or advanced stats and thus dismiss them doesnt mean they dont show a conclusion... it just means you are ignorant because you cant comprehend or are so lazy you just refuse to do the work and instead would rather be ignorant.

or you just have such a hard on for kobe being a laker fan and love the rings argument and thus because every statistical measure in the universe of basketball has lebron over kobe and thus you shun stats..... I am banking on it being all 3 in all honesty

The numbers literally say nothing other representing numerical entities. You are drawing conclusions from those numbers. Sure, the numbers say LBJ is better than Kerr and we can trust that. The reason is that there is a massive, massive difference. When using numbers to distinguish players of the same class though, that's not really going to work because the differences are basically minuscule.

[Big Moves03]

You and I completely agree on this. But if you and I are comparing similar players, like Kobe and Wade for example, and I have the opinion that Kobe is the better perimeter shooter, why can't I just use their career 3pt percentages as a part of my argument? It's a simple statistic. Sure. I concede that. I also concede that is possible for someone to have a higher percentage than someone who is actually a better shooter. The degree of difficulty on Steve Kerr's 3pt shots was significantly easier than Stephen Curry for example. That is why people rate Curry as the greatest shooter of all-time and not Kerr.

The raw 3pt% also doesn't factor in that Kobe played with Fisher at one point while Wade was playing with Chalmers or if there was a waxing moon and 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter or any crap like that but what the hell? They took thousands of shots from the same spots on the floor and Kobe made a bunch more of them. Doesn't that help my argument? Can't I talk about that even though they were similar players? It's a part of the argument.

Sure, I think that we can use numbers in this way to get a rough estimate of these sorts of things, but I think we need to factor in a lot of other things as well and I think that's where it gets tricky, because a lot of the things that we would have to factor in are probably the things that you are only going to be aware of if you watched them play. For instance, Kobe was an excellent shooter and an elite shot maker and because of this, defenses would fight tooth and nail to keep him from getting good looks. It resulted in him taking tougher shots than probably any player in this history of the game and his fg% is going to reflect that. People who are being honest and watched him play know this, but someone from 20 years ago who didnt watch him play might not know to factor in something like that and might simply go off of his raw number because they don't have that additional context.

[Big Moves03]

There’s no one stat that is going to definitively state a player is superior to another, the fact you keep harping on that as an excuse to dismiss all statistics and the value they can bring, especially for a scientist, is troubling.

Stats can tell us who is more impactful at specific skills, in specific situations, and who provides more impact in specific situations.

If a player is consistently superior at providing impact for certain skills and in situations, we can then conclude that he’s superior (at the very least superior at providing impact if not outright better).

It’s like how we can tell that there are celestial bodies in specific areas of the cosmos without being able directly observe it. There’s not stat that can directly observe whose better, but there are a number of stats that can let us know who is with a string degree of certainty.

Well I'm not saying that stats should be entirely dismissed, but you have to keep in mind what my position is on this, which is that the things that truly matter in basketball (e.g., how much a player warps the floor, how many defensive sources an offensive player requires, how a player can control the tempo and rhythm of the game) are not measured at the moment...and that the way the game is looked at presently is very linear, which does not capture the true impact a player is having (imo). With celestial bodies, that's coming from a science that's been around for many centuries and there are hundreds of years of principles that have been refined over and over again during that time. With basketball analytics, it's a relatively new field that is in it's very early stages of development. I do think eventually the metrics will include the things that I think are most important for analyzing basketball. There are actually a small number recent papers (in scientific journals) out there that are proposing that basketball should be analyzed using a dynamic systems approach, which is what I've been advocating for a while. So it's not that I don't think stats can be useful, it's that I don't think the present metrics capture what we need to be looking at.

[KnicksorBust]

Sure, I think that we can use numbers in this way to get a rough estimate of these sorts of things, but I think we need to factor in a lot of other things as well and I think that's where it gets tricky, because a lot of the things that we would have to factor in are probably the things that you are only going to be aware of if you watched them play. For instance, Kobe was an excellent shooter and an elite shot maker and because of this, defenses would fight tooth and nail to keep him from getting good looks. It resulted in him taking tougher shots than probably any player in this history of the game and his fg% is going to reflect that. People who are being honest and watched him play know this, but someone from 20 years ago who didnt watch him play might not know to factor in something like that and might simply go off of his raw number because they don't have that additional context.

I agree. To me that is what makes for the best debates when the numbers and context (like you described from the eye test) are mixed together and are both used as arguments. I THINK we've reached a consensus. A respectful agreement on an internet sports forum. History has been made. Let's throw a party.

[Big Moves03]

I agree. To me that is what makes for the best debates when the numbers and context (like you described from the eye test) are mixed together and are both used as arguments. I THINK we've reached a consensus. A respectful agreement on an internet sports forum. History has been made. Let's throw a party.

hahaha, no kidding!

[Chronz]

I don't watch day to day anymore. I catch an occasional game and watch several playoff series.

I do have more access to games these days but it just doesn't drive me to spend 3.5 hours at morning hours for something I perceive as an equivalence to WWE basketball which is the exteeme majority of Regular Season for the past 15 years, with exceptions being made on some close 4th quarters or some heated games that are a handful every month.

I even have more access to teams as I know two people who own franchises (we're not best buds, but if I email them that I'll be in town, I'll have tickets that I didn't ask for), players and people in coaching staff. Something I didn't have in the previous decades that I "glorified". Most of them sorta agree with me on things NBA, old vs new.

So, good attempt, but "I don't like NBA and don't watch it anymore" does not mean "I completely stopped watching everything and have no clue about what is going on".

I didn't even watch last night so I feel you abit on this

[valade16]

Well I'm not saying that stats should be entirely dismissed, but you have to keep in mind what my position is on this, which is that the things that truly matter in basketball (e.g., how much a player warps the floor, how many defensive sources an offensive player requires, how a player can control the tempo and rhythm of the game) are not measured at the moment...and that the way the game is looked at presently is very linear, which does not capture the true impact a player is having (imo). With celestial bodies, that's coming from a science that's been around for many centuries and there are hundreds of years of principles that have been refined over and over again during that time. With basketball analytics, it's a relatively new field that is in it's very early stages of development. I do think eventually the metrics will include the things that I think are most important for analyzing basketball. There are actually a small number recent papers (in scientific journals) out there that are proposing that basketball should be analyzed using a dynamic systems approach, which is what I've been advocating for a while. So it's not that I don't think stats can be useful, it's that I don't think the present metrics capture what we need to be looking at.

Actually, they do have stats that measure those (obviously they are not perfect). I think the problem is you simply don’t know how far basketball statistics have come.

I also disagree on you saying you don’t entirely dismiss stats: you do. You dismissed any attempt to use any statistics in the discussion of Kobe v LeBron. You repeatedly affirmed that you don’t use stats and they shouldn’t be used.

[valade16]

That is very inaccurate. Apart from Lebron not being that good. That is true. Lebron is "not that good" when you claim he's GOAT or anywhere near the top 5. That's fact. He's the best player of the 2010s, but he's not the best player since the turn of the millennium with Duncan, Shaq and Kobe being above him.

Anyway, I'll let you discuss with MoreThanMost, explaining to him why you cannot only use stats why the "eye test" doesn't suck balls.

In the post below this you called the NBA WWE Basketball, and when I asked you to name a single thing about today’s NBA better than the 89’s/90’s you did not. So yes, you think the modern NBA Sucks

I asked you which stats you use specifically (twice now) and you have not answered: so yes, you think stats are useless.

At least you agree you think LeBron is not that good. You don’t think he’s as good as Nique, which is just a ludicrous notion. Calling him the best player of an era you believe sucks and is inferior in every way to the 80’s and 90’s isn’t a compliment. You are lower on LeBron than every single person on earth.

[Big Moves03]

Actually, they do have stats that measure those (obviously they are not perfect). I think the problem is you simply don’t know how far basketball statistics have come.

I also disagree on you saying you don’t entirely dismiss stats: you do. You dismissed any attempt to use any statistics in the discussion of Kobe v LeBron. You repeatedly affirmed that you don’t use stats and they shouldn’t be used.

It's certainly possible that there are metrics out there that address some of the things I'm more interested in. What are the metrics that measure some of the the things I mentioned (e.g., how much an offensive player warps the floor, how well a player control the tempo of the game, how many defensive resources a player takes up)?

With the Kobe vs. LBJ debate, and similar debates, I'm simply not convinced that those metrics are designed for distinguishing between players of the same class, but that doesn't mean that I think that stats are completely useless.

[valade16]

It's certainly possible that there are metrics out there that address some of the things I'm more interested in. What are the metrics that measure some of the the things I mentioned (e.g., how much an offensive player warps the floor, how well a player control the tempo of the game, how many defensive resources a player takes up)?

With the Kobe vs. LBJ debate, and similar debates, I'm simply not convinced that those metrics are designed for distinguishing between players of the same class, but that doesn't mean that I think that stats are completely useless.

Well they actually do have data on how often players are double teamed:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/soaring...st-season/amp/

But it’s hard to come by.

But other stats you can use are gravity (which measures how much a player pulls defenders on the floor):

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...ity-basketball

And another good stat is box creation, which measures how much a players combination of passing and scoring creates opportunities for teammates:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yoLgSWA7n6g&t=604s

Another stat that is good to use but is harder to come by his how much your teammates shooting efficiency increases or decreases with you off the floor:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.giv...warriors%3famp


So if you’re providing a lot of gravity and drawing defenders, if your facing a lot of double teams, if you’re creating a lot of opportunities for your teammates, and your teammates shooting efficiency is demonstrably better with you on the floor, that speaks to your ability to warp the floor and to take up defensive resources.