OFFICIAL G.O.A.T Peak Rankings - #12

[VCaintdead17]

I'll keep saying it every time. Just because someone played on a great team does not diminish their greatness. If we put rookie Michael Jordan on the Warriors with Curry-Klay-Draymond-KD then does that mean MJ wouldn't have been the GOAT? Serious question.



Doesn't having a rim protector also help good perimeter defenders?



He led the league in PER and win shares and was the best player on the best team. He was their top scorer, rebounder, and rim protector. What was he missing? What he didn't he do that you wanted him to do to earn it as much as others?



I'd be very interested to hear who you would have put at #10. Bill Russell and D-Wade were the next two in votes at the time. I would take Moses over both of them to win 1 game.

1. Bobby Jones is an all time great defender period. Play by play data only goes back to '97, however Harvey Pollack manually tracked play by play data for the Sixers are far back as the 70s and Bobby Jones was consistently the defensive engine of those Sixer teams. PER and Win Shares are some of the worst metrics around, and don't account for defense in any sort of meaningful way. They're literally just a cocktail of box score numbers. (This is part of a larger problem with current historical player evaluation, where fans will check a player's accolades, quickly check whatever "advanced" stats bball-reference spits out, and draw their conclusions from there, but I digress).

2. There's generally limited evidence that Moses was actually an MVP level impact player, however it's generally well known that late 70s/early 80s NBA was a low point talent wise. Moses joined a squad that was in the finals two seasons before, and after adding Moses rose from a 56 win pace to a 60 win pace, which is good, but not all time good. And going back to Pollack's play by play data, we can see that from '83-'85 Moses's actual on the court impact hovers around All NBA level, as opposed to MVP level or actual best player in the league level. I'd love for you to break down in detail to me how you're able to isolate Moses's "greatness" or at least, on the floor impact on that superb 83 Sixers team relative to his teammates, beyond sorting by whatever basketball reference metrics you can find. And then after making this distinction, how you're able to contextualize his on the court impact versus other all time greats vying for that 10 to 12 position, especially in a modern era context. Are you just looking at per game stats? How are you accounting for his defense not scaling well? What about his lack of passing? How is that accounted for?

3. In regards to my top 20 peaks, it looks something like this:


MJ
LBJ
Shaq
Hakeem
Kareem
KG
Wilt
Steph
Duncan
Russell

Bird
Robinson
Magic
Walton
West
Oscar
Wade
Kobe
Durant
Dirk/Nash/CP3

[VCaintdead17]

The Moses conundrum is essentially

- Received MVPs he didnt deserve/Weak MVPs
- People afterwards realize he's overrated and then don't talk about him much
Next Generation:
- This guy has MVPs and isnt talked about, must be underrated

[KnicksorBust]

1. Bobby Jones is an all time great defender period. Play by play data only goes back to '97, however Harvey Pollack manually tracked play by play data for the Sixers are far back as the 70s and Bobby Jones was consistently the defensive engine of those Sixer teams.

Would love to read about this. Do you have a link?

PER and Win Shares are some of the worst metrics around, and don't account for defense in any sort of meaningful way.

Worst metrics for measuring defense? Yes.
Worst metrics for measuring positive impact? No.
They are among the best. That's why you consistently see the greatest players of all-time at the top of them and very rarely find frauds out of place.

2. There's generally limited evidence that Moses was actually an MVP level impact player, however it's generally well known that late 70s/early 80s NBA was a low point talent wise. Moses joined a squad that was in the finals two seasons before, and after adding Moses rose from a 56 win pace to a 60 win pace, which is good, but not all time good. And going back to Pollack's play by play data, we can see that from '83-'85 Moses's actual on the court impact hovers around All NBA level, as opposed to MVP level or actual best player in the league level.

They won 65 games with Moses. How many games does he have to win? Marc Iavaroni was his starting PF, Dr. J missed 9 games, and your boy Bobby Jones was only playing 23.6 minutes per game in 74 games. 65-17 isn't good enough?

I'd love for you to break down in detail to me how you're able to isolate Moses's "greatness" or at least, on the floor impact on that superb 83 Sixers team relative to his teammates, beyond sorting by whatever basketball reference metrics you can find. And then after making this distinction, how you're able to contextualize his on the court impact versus other all time greats vying for that 10 to 12 position, especially in a modern era context. Are you just looking at per game stats? How are you accounting for his defense not scaling well? What about his lack of passing? How is that accounted for?

I'd be happy to talk about all of that after you answer my initial question that you deflected the first time.

"If we put rookie MJ on the Warriors with Curry-Klay-Draymond-KD, then would Michael Jordan still have been the GOAT?"

3. In regards to my top 20 peaks, it looks something like this:


MJ
LBJ
Shaq
Hakeem
Kareem
KG
Wilt
Steph
Duncan
Russell

Bird
Robinson
Magic
Walton
West
Oscar
Wade
Kobe
Durant
Dirk/Nash/CP3

Any concerns about KG's repeated playoff failures during his peak in Minnesota? Or do you like Boston KG better?

[VCaintdead17]

Would love to read about this. Do you have a link?



Worst metrics for measuring defense? Yes.
Worst metrics for measuring positive impact? No.
They are among the best. That's why you consistently see the greatest players of all-time at the top of them and very rarely find frauds out of place.



They won 65 games with Moses. How many games does he have to win? Marc Iavaroni was his starting PF, Dr. J missed 9 games, and your boy Bobby Jones was only playing 23.6 minutes per game in 74 games. 65-17 isn't good enough?



I'd be happy to talk about all of that after you answer my initial question that you deflected the first time.

"If we put rookie MJ on the Warriors with Curry-Klay-Draymond-KD, then would Michael Jordan still have been the GOAT?"



Any concerns about KG's repeated playoff failures during his peak in Minnesota? Or do you like Boston KG better?

1. Lol no, win shares and any accumulative stat (e.g. VORP) where it's literally impossible to have a negative number is garbage. There are much, much better metrics to reference, however, they're not referenced as often because they're not on basketball reference. PER and Win Shares are especially bad not only because neither integrates line up data or accounts for defense in any way, but because they also favor volume for volume sake, rebounding, scoring, assists or otherwise. That's why guys like Andre Drummond consistently rate out quality in PER. If you think these are good metrics you aren't looking hard enough, or aren't understanding what you're looking at. Win Shares saying Michael Jordan and Kareem are the best doesn't mean it's a good stat, all metrics have commonalities that they value and so guys like MJ and Kareem will always grade out well.

2. You're still missing the point. It ultimately isn't super important what their exact win total is. What matters is their SRS, which is derived from strength of schedule and margin of victory. They were beating teams at 56 win pace the year before, and a 60 win pace in '83.

"65-17 isn't good enough"

What exactly does this mean? You frame it as if Philly's team record is a reflection of Moses's individual impact. How do you derive this?

3. If we put rookie MJ on the Warriors then his development would be different. I don't see what your point is here. I'm saying that an already in prime Moses joined an already great team, and made them better, but did not have an all time impact, as shown by their win pace, and +/- data variations.

4. Bobby Jones still played more total minutes than Iveroni, and had the fifth highest minutes played in the postseason as well. You realize it's possible to be needle moving on 23 mpg right?

5. KG's repeated failures are more related to team circumstance than anything else, he literally had an all time bad supporting cast most years and just made the best of it. For reference the 2007 Timberwolves played at a 6 win pace with KG off the floor (roughly 20 games worth of minutes), and played at a 37ish win pace with him on the floor. His scoring dipped come postseason, but good thing scoring isn't the only way to maintain an impact. His playmaking and defensive influence stayed steady.

[VCaintdead17]

Also here's the scaled APM data that integrates Harvey Pollack's data for 70s and 80s Sixers players:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1409868412

[Chronz]

The Moses conundrum is essentially

- Received MVPs he didnt deserve/Weak MVPs
- People afterwards realize he's overrated and then don't talk about him much
Next Generation:
- This guy has MVPs and isnt talked about, must be underrated

That's a reservation of mine with bigs who don't space the floor, don't playmake much, aren't demonstrably great defensively and have to grab offensive rebounds to truly shine. Even then it could've been an early sign of this in terms of impact metrics. But that 1 year was special, I voted but I could've gone russ too. Just the parameters of the game means we kind of discount old school skills

[VCaintdead17]

That's a reservation of mine with bigs who don't space the floor, don't playmake much, aren't demonstrably great defensively and have to grab offensive rebounds to truly shine. Even then it could've been an early sign of this in terms of impact metrics. But that 1 year was special, I voted but I could've gone russ too. Just the parameters of the game means we kind of discount old school skills

I mean i'm also not a fan of the framing of the question itself. 1 game? In what era? With what teammates? Against what opponent? If we don't have these answers then we should immediately look at the all time greats with the most scalable skill set, which, Moses is basically the antithesis of.

[Chronz]

I mean i'm also not a fan of the framing of the question itself. 1 game? In what era? With what teammates? Against what opponent? If we don't have these answers then we should immediately look at the all time greats with the most scalable skill set, which, Moses is basically the antithesis of.

Lol I was telling kob that it appears like he wants 2 way guys with few weaknesses over demonstrably dominant players you can build around. I made that argument for Russell, independent of everything else, you've got the best player at a multitude scalable aspects.

[Saddletramp]

Wonder what you have to say about Lebron at #2.

Man, give it a ****ing rest.

[KnicksorBust]

1. Lol no, win shares and any accumulative stat (e.g. VORP) where it's literally impossible to have a negative number is garbage. There are much, much better metrics to reference, however, they're not referenced as often because they're not on basketball reference. PER and Win Shares are especially bad not only because neither integrates line up data or accounts for defense in any way, but because they also favor volume for volume sake, rebounding, scoring, assists or otherwise. That's why guys like Andre Drummond consistently rate out quality in PER. If you think these are good metrics you aren't looking hard enough, or aren't understanding what you're looking at. Win Shares saying Michael Jordan and Kareem are the best doesn't mean it's a good stat, all metrics have commonalities that they value and so guys like MJ and Kareem will always grade out well.

"Lol" yes. Rate stats with positives and negatives are helpful but being present on the court is valuable too. Also, PER has an average so essentially it has positive and negative values. Naming a player whose actual on court production is less valuable than his statistics say doesn't prove that a statistic is useless it just shows that sometimes there is more to the story. Feel free to post the far superior statistics that I'm missing that perfectly rank the best players in the league. I'm happy to look at them.

2. You're still missing the point. It ultimately isn't super important what their exact win total is. What matters is their SRS, which is derived from strength of schedule and margin of victory. They were beating teams at 56 win pace the year before, and a 60 win pace in '83.

"65-17 isn't good enough"

What exactly does this mean? You frame it as if Philly's team record is a reflection of Moses's individual impact. How do you derive this?

I want to start by saying that I agree with you. SRS is great and I've read it is more predictive of playoff success than seeding. However, at any point can we just give credit for the production? I'm a basketball coach myself and I've had some teams that would crumble in close games and some teams that knew how to pull out tough wins. There is a value in that as well. If the Sixers were only expected to win 60 and they won 65 isn't that impressive that they overachieved by 5 games? don't see how you can twist that into a negative.

3. If we put rookie MJ on the Warriors then his development would be different. I don't see what your point is here. I'm saying that an already in prime Moses joined an already great team, and made them better, but did not have an all time impact, as shown by their win pace, and +/- data variations.

To be honest my point would be clear by now if you ever answer the question. I'm disappointed that you deflected this question twice now. Just answer it. We can change the team if the era is throwing you off. What if the Lakers had traded James Worthy and drafted Michael Jordan and he played his career with Magic and Kareem, would MJ have still been the GOAT?

4. Bobby Jones still played more total minutes than Iveroni, and had the fifth highest minutes played in the postseason as well. You realize it's possible to be needle moving on 23 mpg right?

Needle moving? Sure. But his raw and per 36 numbers were at or near career lows across the board. He wasn't an all-star anymore. Was he the "engine" of the team? No. That was Moses.
Bobby wasn't a starter and only played about half the game and averaged 9 points per game. It's amazing that you are trying to throw THAT player in my face as part of your proof why Moses Malone is overrated here. "How can Moses Malone be one of the greatest players of all-time in 1983, when he had Bobby Jones who played the 5th highest minutes on the team in that postseason! He moved the needle on 23 mpg during the regular season too!"

5. KG's repeated failures are more related to team circumstance than anything else, he literally had an all time bad supporting cast most years and just made the best of it. For reference the 2007 Timberwolves played at a 6 win pace with KG off the floor (roughly 20 games worth of minutes), and played at a 37ish win pace with him on the floor. His scoring dipped come postseason, but good thing scoring isn't the only way to maintain an impact. His playmaking and defensive influence stayed steady.

I'd love to see where you get those numbers. That's some interesting stuff. How old are you?
You seem to know what you are talking about with the 80s Sixers but anyone who defends KG's playoff runs on the T-Wolves didn't watch him play. That **** was ugly.

[VCaintdead17]

"Lol" yes. Rate stats with positives and negatives are helpful but being present on the court is valuable too. Also, PER has an average so essentially it has positive and negative values. Naming a player whose actual on court production is less valuable than his statistics say doesn't prove that a statistic is useless it just shows that sometimes there is more to the story. Feel free to post the far superior statistics that I'm missing that perfectly rank the best players in the league. I'm happy to look at them.



I want to start by saying that I agree with you. SRS is great and I've read it is more predictive of playoff success than seeding. However, at any point can we just give credit for the production? I'm a basketball coach myself and I've had some teams that would crumble in close games and some teams that knew how to pull out tough wins. There is a value in that as well. If the Sixers were only expected to win 60 and they won 65 isn't that impressive that they overachieved by 5 games? don't see how you can twist that into a negative.



To be honest my point would be clear by now if you ever answer the question. I'm disappointed that you deflected this question twice now. Just answer it. We can change the team if the era is throwing you off. What if the Lakers had traded James Worthy and drafted Michael Jordan and he played his career with Magic and Kareem, would MJ have still been the GOAT?



Needle moving? Sure. But his raw and per 36 numbers were at or near career lows across the board. He wasn't an all-star anymore. Was he the "engine" of the team? No. That was Moses.
Bobby wasn't a starter and only played about half the game and averaged 9 points per game. It's amazing that you are trying to throw THAT player in my face as part of your proof why Moses Malone is overrated here. "How can Moses Malone be one of the greatest players of all-time in 1983, when he had Bobby Jones who played the 5th highest minutes on the team in that postseason! He moved the needle on 23 mpg during the regular season too!"



I'd love to see where you get those numbers. That's some interesting stuff. How old are you?
You seem to know what you are talking about with the 80s Sixers but anyone who defends KG's playoff runs on the T-Wolves didn't watch him play. That **** was ugly.

"Lol" yes. Rate stats with positives and negatives are helpful but being present on the court is valuable too. Also, PER has an average so essentially it has positive and negative values. Naming a player whose actual on court production is less valuable than his statistics say doesn't prove that a statistic is useless it just shows that sometimes there is more to the story. Feel free to post the far superior statistics that I'm missing that perfectly rank the best players in the league. I'm happy to look at them.

Alright so cumulative stats like win shares and VORP are essentially a minutes played award. They have no methodology to actually pin point a player's direct impact on the court, isolated from teammate influence. It's literally - the more you play the more value you add, regardless of what kind of value that is. I can tell you that the analytics community has entirely rejected win shares and PER from any kind of integration into player evaluation. I've already detailed exactly where their methodology fails and what their blind spots are. Any sort of metric that outright rejects play by play data and line-up data does nothing to try and actually individualize player impact. Again, it is quite literally just a cocktail of box score numbers. I've already linked the scaled APM study, and you can look at PIPM estimates, game level WOWRY studies, and in this particular instance, because the roster turnover is so minimal from '82 to '83, win pace changes season to season. These are much more refined approaches to actually estimating player impact derived from actual lineup and play by play data (shout out Harvey Pollack once again).

Because you've referenced none of the tools I've just mentioned, I'd still like a response to this question:

"I'd love for you to break down in detail to me how you're able to isolate Moses's "greatness" or at least, on the floor impact on that superb 83 Sixers team relative to his teammates, beyond sorting by whatever basketball reference metrics you can find. And then after making this distinction, how you're able to contextualize his on the court impact versus other all time greats vying for that 10 to 12 position, especially in a modern era context. Are you just looking at per game stats? How are you accounting for his defense not scaling well? How are you accounting for/measuring his defense in genera;? What about his lack of passing? How is that accounted for?"

I want to start by saying that I agree with you. SRS is great and I've read it is more predictive of playoff success than seeding. However, at any point can we just give credit for the production? I'm a basketball coach myself and I've had some teams that would crumble in close games and some teams that knew how to pull out tough wins. There is a value in that as well. If the Sixers were only expected to win 60 and they won 65 isn't that impressive that they overachieved by 5 games? don't see how you can twist that into a negative.

I'm going to outright reject the premise of your question here because I've never at any point denied that Moses had a large positive impact on the court. The question is trying to ball park what that impact was exactly. Of course we can give him some credit for their accomplishments, it's just a matter of trying to contextualize his impact on an already successful team. Me saying that he doesn't have (anywhere near) the tenth highest peak of all time is not the same as me saying he didn't have an MVP level peak. Your coaching anecdote is fine, but how does it relate specifically to Moses? And I'm definitely not "twisting" them outplaying their win pace as a negative lol, but I'm more attributing those 5 extra wins to variance/noise. However if you can relate those 5 extra wins to Moses's impact specifically I'm all ears.

To be honest my point would be clear by now if you ever answer the question. I'm disappointed that you deflected this question twice now. Just answer it. We can change the team if the era is throwing you off. What if the Lakers had traded James Worthy and drafted Michael Jordan and he played his career with Magic and Kareem, would MJ have still been the GOAT?

Alright, I'll ignore any and all existential ramifications and just take it at face value. If MJ played with the 80s Lakers to start his career he'd still most likely go down as the GOAT. Would his early years see the raw scoring volume that they saw on the Bulls? Probably not, but perhaps that conserved energy would further elevate his defense. In the midst of having two all time great players next to him, we'd still have approaches to isolate and extrapolate the value that he added, which, by his prime, it would be super apparent that he's the GOAT.

Needle moving? Sure. But his raw and per 36 numbers were at or near career lows across the board. He wasn't an all-star anymore. Was he the "engine" of the team? No. That was Moses.
Bobby wasn't a starter and only played about half the game and averaged 9 points per game. It's amazing that you are trying to throw THAT player in my face as part of your proof why Moses Malone is overrated here. "How can Moses Malone be one of the greatest players of all-time in 1983, when he had Bobby Jones who played the 5th highest minutes on the team in that postseason! He moved the needle on 23 mpg during the regular season too!"

There's nothing in raw or per 36 numbers that's going to reflect Bobby Jones' pivotal nail defense, all time great help defense, insane motor and just general quarterbacking of the D that he displayed, so what you're looking at to derive his value is a moot point altogether. I never claimed he was the engine of the team itself, but he was very much the Dray type swiss army knife piece that fully unlocked the defense. And once again, we can say that Moses was the best player on that team, even that he had an MVP level impact, but not all MVP level seasons are equal, just like how not all title winning teams are equal. My initial Bobby Jones point was that his style of defense(and to an extent, Cheek's POA defense as well) is what allowed Moses to fully do his thing.

I'd love to see where you get those numbers. That's some interesting stuff. How old are you?
You seem to know what you are talking about with the 80s Sixers but anyone who defends KG's playoff runs on the T-Wolves didn't watch him play. That **** was ugly.

Yeah sure. Play by play data allows us to estimate win pace with and without a player, which you can check out here: https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos...&PlayerIds=708

Wolves had a staggering -14 net rtg without KG, which is roughly a 6 game win pace, on about 20 games worth of minutes. And I definitely have watched him play. I player track and post film studies all the time. It sounds like you're still viewing through the lens of scoring when evaluating his playoff performances, and if you feel you're not, I'd love to hear your approach to measuring his playoff impact. This is another discussion entirely though.

[KnicksorBust]

Alright so cumulative stats like win shares and VORP are essentially a minutes played award.

What's wrong with that? If we are talking about a good player on a winning team who is contributing points/rebounds/assists/etc. then aren't the more minutes played the more valuable they are? Why can't we reward that?

They have no methodology to actually pin point a player's direct impact on the court, isolated from teammate influence. It's literally - the more you play the more value you add, regardless of what kind of value that is. I can tell you that the analytics community has entirely rejected win shares and PER from any kind of integration into player evaluation. I've already detailed exactly where their methodology fails and what their blind spots are. Any sort of metric that outright rejects play by play data and line-up data does nothing to try and actually individualize player impact. Again, it is quite literally just a cocktail of box score numbers. I've already linked the scaled APM study, and you can look at PIPM estimates, game level WOWRY studies, and in this particular instance, because the roster turnover is so minimal from '82 to '83, win pace changes season to season. These are much more refined approaches to actually estimating player impact derived from actual lineup and play by play data (shout out Harvey Pollack once again).

I looked at the Historical APM Grid. In 1993-1994, the first year I was able to sort with a significant amount of players, it told me that Nate McMillan had the 3rd best APM in the NBA and rated better than Hakeem Olajuwon. He must have been the engine of those Sonic's teams. Coincidentally, Nate also came off the bench and played about half the game. Reminds me of someone.

Steve Kerr is rated higher than Zo Mourning.

etc. etc.

It also has consistently graded Draymond Green above LeBron James. Jae Crowder graded above Kevin Durant in 2017 (the most recent season on there). Congratulations you have found a statistic that greatly exaggerates defensive impact. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. I sorted a lot of years out of curiosity. I think it adds a lot of important information and fills in some blanks but clearly has a more fraudulent ranking than PER. I feel very confident if we used an APM ranking on a particular year and a PER ranking on a particular year that the latter would be a better reflection of the most productive players in the NBA that season.

Because you've referenced none of the tools I've just mentioned, I'd still like a response to this question:

"I'd love for you to break down in detail to me how you're able to isolate Moses's "greatness" or at least, on the floor impact on that superb 83 Sixers team relative to his teammates, beyond sorting by whatever basketball reference metrics you can find. And then after making this distinction, how you're able to contextualize his on the court impact versus other all time greats vying for that 10 to 12 position, especially in a modern era context. Are you just looking at per game stats? How are you accounting for his defense not scaling well? How are you accounting for/measuring his defense in genera;? What about his lack of passing? How is that accounted for?"

I am enjoying this back and forth so I don't want you to take this the wrong way but what an outlandish ask when you have done minimal on your end to refute my points or present a counter-argument. Are you voting for Garnett? Are we arguing Garnett vs. Moses?

I'm going to outright reject the premise of your question here because I've never at any point denied that Moses had a large positive impact on the court. The question is trying to ball park what that impact was exactly. Of course we can give him some credit for their accomplishments, it's just a matter of trying to contextualize his impact on an already successful team. Me saying that he doesn't have (anywhere near) the tenth highest peak of all time is not the same as me saying he didn't have an MVP level peak. Your coaching anecdote is fine, but how does it relate specifically to Moses? And I'm definitely not "twisting" them outplaying their win pace as a negative lol, but I'm more attributing those 5 extra wins to variance/noise. However if you can relate those 5 extra wins to Moses's impact specifically I'm all ears.

Do you think he was their best player? I know you do.
Do you think he played at an MVP level peak? I know you do.
He played about 500 minutes more than anyone else on the team that season.
So, how can you prove how those 5 wins were variance/noise and not the impact of the best player on the team playing at an MVP level of play for 500 more minutes than anyone else on the team?

Alright, I'll ignore any and all existential ramifications and just take it at face value. If MJ played with the 80s Lakers to start his career he'd still most likely go down as the GOAT. Would his early years see the raw scoring volume that they saw on the Bulls? Probably not, but perhaps that conserved energy would further elevate his defense. In the midst of having two all time great players next to him, we'd still have approaches to isolate and extrapolate the value that he added, which, by his prime, it would be super apparent that he's the GOAT.

Exactly. He would be the best player on the team. Just like Durant was the best player on those Warriors teams. Just like Moses was the best players on those Sixers teams. If an MVP caliber player is playing 35-40 minutes on a loaded team, they will never get the credit they deserve. LeBron on Miami is another example. To me, it was clear as day that he had finally hacked the system and could do anything he wanted out on the court. He was unstoppable. However, from a legacy perspective his title in Cleveland probably helped him more. When I point out that Moses led the Sixers to 65 wins and arguably the most impressive post-season run ever you want to discredit him by naming his teammates. No kidding he had great teammates. Every historic team is loaded. You are setting an unrealistic bar.

If they won 70 games, would that have been more impressive?
What if they went undefeated instead of 12-1?

There's nothing in raw or per 36 numbers that's going to reflect Bobby Jones' pivotal nail defense, all time great help defense, insane motor and just general quarterbacking of the D that he displayed, so what you're looking at to derive his value is a moot point altogether. I never claimed he was the engine of the team itself, but he was very much the Dray type swiss army knife piece that fully unlocked the defense. And once again, we can say that Moses was the best player on that team, even that he had an MVP level impact, but not all MVP level seasons are equal, just like how not all title winning teams are equal. My initial Bobby Jones point was that his style of defense(and to an extent, Cheek's POA defense as well) is what allowed Moses to fully do his thing.

What did you want Moses to do defensively that he didn't do?

Yeah sure. Play by play data allows us to estimate win pace with and without a player, which you can check out here: https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos...&PlayerIds=708

Wolves had a staggering -14 net rtg without KG, which is roughly a 6 game win pace, on about 20 games worth of minutes. And I definitely have watched him play. I player track and post film studies all the time. It sounds like you're still viewing through the lens of scoring when evaluating his playoff performances, and if you feel you're not, I'd love to hear your approach to measuring his playoff impact. This is another discussion entirely though.

Thanks. I will check out that link later.

[VCaintdead17]

What's wrong with that? If we are talking about a good player on a winning team who is contributing points/rebounds/assists/etc. then aren't the more minutes played the more valuable they are? Why can't we reward that?



I looked at the Historical APM Grid. In 1993-1994, the first year I was able to sort with a significant amount of players, it told me that Nate McMillan had the 3rd best APM in the NBA and rated better than Hakeem Olajuwon. He must have been the engine of those Sonic's teams. Coincidentally, Nate also came off the bench and played about half the game. Reminds me of someone.

Steve Kerr is rated higher than Zo Mourning.

etc. etc.

It also has consistently graded Draymond Green above LeBron James. Jae Crowder graded above Kevin Durant in 2017 (the most recent season on there). Congratulations you have found a statistic that greatly exaggerates defensive impact. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. I sorted a lot of years out of curiosity. I think it adds a lot of important information and fills in some blanks but clearly has a more fraudulent ranking than PER. I feel very confident if we used an APM ranking on a particular year and a PER ranking on a particular year that the latter would be a better reflection of the most productive players in the NBA that season.



I am enjoying this back and forth so I don't want you to take this the wrong way but what an outlandish ask when you have done minimal on your end to refute my points or present a counter-argument. Are you voting for Garnett? Are we arguing Garnett vs. Moses?



Do you think he was their best player? I know you do.
Do you think he played at an MVP level peak? I know you do.
He played about 500 minutes more than anyone else on the team that season.
So, how can you prove how those 5 wins were variance/noise and not the impact of the best player on the team playing at an MVP level of play for 500 more minutes than anyone else on the team?



Exactly. He would be the best player on the team. Just like Durant was the best player on those Warriors teams. Just like Moses was the best players on those Sixers teams. If an MVP caliber player is playing 35-40 minutes on a loaded team, they will never get the credit they deserve. LeBron on Miami is another example. To me, it was clear as day that he had finally hacked the system and could do anything he wanted out on the court. He was unstoppable. However, from a legacy perspective his title in Cleveland probably helped him more. When I point out that Moses led the Sixers to 65 wins and arguably the most impressive post-season run ever you want to discredit him by naming his teammates. No kidding he had great teammates. Every historic team is loaded. You are setting an unrealistic bar.

If they won 70 games, would that have been more impressive?
What if they went undefeated instead of 12-1?



What did you want Moses to do defensively that he didn't do?



Thanks. I will check out that link later.

What's wrong with that? If we are talking about a good player on a winning team who is contributing points/rebounds/assists/etc. then aren't the more minutes played the more valuable they are? Why can't we reward that?



No lol. Minutes played are not in any way directly correlated with how much better a player makes their team, especially in these specific terms where we're attempting to evaluate MVP level impact vs MVP level impact. Accumulative stats make it literally impossible for a player to have any kind of negative interaction on the court. Don't you think that's sort of a massive, glaring flaw? Why do you think the analytics community rejects these statistical methods? At the very least we should be reference WS/48, which is more analogous to looking at things per possession.

I looked at the Historical APM Grid. In 1993-1994, the first year I was able to sort with a significant amount of players, it told me that Nate McMillan had the 3rd best APM in the NBA and rated better than Hakeem Olajuwon. He must have been the engine of those Sonic's teams. Coincidentally, Nate also came off the bench and played about half the game. Reminds me of someone.

Steve Kerr is rated higher than Zo Mourning.

etc. etc.

It also has consistently graded Draymond Green above LeBron James. Jae Crowder graded above Kevin Durant in 2017 (the most recent season on there). Congratulations you have found a statistic that greatly exaggerates defensive impact. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. I sorted a lot of years out of curiosity. I think it adds a lot of important information and fills in some blanks but clearly has a more fraudulent ranking than PER. I feel very confident if we used an APM ranking on a particular year and a PER ranking on a particular year that the latter would be a better reflection of the most productive players in the NBA that season.

And here you ultimately show your hand. You're wanting the stats or metrics to make the argument for you, instead of contextualizing the metrics that you're looking at. Steve Kerr and Nate McMillan are perfect examples. Both were low minute players who spent the majority of their playing time with a star player on the court, which will influence their per possession valuations quite a bit. What do you mean by "rated" higher? Do you think these are player ratings? I'm not sure you know what you're looking at.


If you really want I can dive into Draymond, Crowder's and whoever else's numbers as well and tell you why they are the way they are and what they ultimately mean. There's not going be an all in one metric that you can just press "sort" on and have it spit out the best players without any noise. The best metrics to look at however break things down to a per possession basis, which of course can lead to funky outliers for low minute guys, aggressive 5 man rotational tactics, lineup dependencies, etc. It's your job to provide context to those outliers. The fact that you used the term "ranking" is super telling. I'm not meaning to insult you but it feels like you're not entirely familiar with analytics and how to use them for player evaluation. Again, happy to answer any questions you have.

I am enjoying this back and forth so I don't want you to take this the wrong way but what an outlandish ask when you have done minimal on your end to refute my points or present a counter-argument. Are you voting for Garnett? Are we arguing Garnett vs. Moses?

I've literally cited reference after reference as to why Moses's peak isn't anywhere near top 10. Scaled APM studies, PIPM estimates, WOWRY game level studies. You can even take a more film based approach and reference Backpick's CORP valuations: https://backpicks.com/2018/01/08/bac...-moses-malone/
(this is for his career, not his peak FYI, can give you more specific data on peak seasons for him if you'd like)

And yes, KG's peak is all time great, while Moses had an MVP level peak, but not in the all time discussion at all.

Do you think he was their best player? I know you do.
Do you think he played at an MVP level peak? I know you do.
He played about 500 minutes more than anyone else on the team that season.
So, how can you prove how those 5 wins were variance/noise and not the impact of the best player on the team playing at an MVP level of play for 500 more minutes than anyone else on the team

Huh? I'm not the one with the burden of proof here lol. We have their win pace estimates, and over an 82 game sample it's expected to have some noise. What approach are you taking to credit Moses specifically for those 5 extra wins? Why not Dr. J? Because of minutes played? Does Michael Finley get the bulk of the credit on the 03 Mavs (highest rOrtg in NBA history) because he had the most minutes played?

Exactly. He would be the best player on the team. Just like Durant was the best player on those Warriors teams. Just like Moses was the best players on those Sixers teams. If an MVP caliber player is playing 35-40 minutes on a loaded team, they will never get the credit they deserve. LeBron on Miami is another example. To me, it was clear as day that he had finally hacked the system and could do anything he wanted out on the court. He was unstoppable. However, from a legacy perspective his title in Cleveland probably helped him more. When I point out that Moses led the Sixers to 65 wins and arguably the most impressive post-season run ever you want to discredit him by naming his teammates. No kidding he had great teammates. Every historic team is loaded. You are setting an unrealistic bar.

Yeah you're still just missing the point entirely. I'll repeat - not all MVP caliber seasons are equal in value, and every team context is different. And your LeBron is really really terrible, because the types of metrics I'm referencing for Moses falling way short in this convo will also show you that LeBron is far and away the best player on those Heat teams and were all time great seasons.

Your entire approach so far has been making these macro, non-contextual arguments. "He was the best player on the best team." Okay?? How much better was he than their second best player? How much worse was Philly with him off the floor? How does him being the best on the '83 Sixers stack up against KG on the 04 Wolves. Who ultimately made their team better? How are you deriving this? You still just keep utterly shirking this question, whereas these are the exact questions I'm attempting to answer. Formulate a level of analysis that can't be summarized by hitting "sort" on basketball reference and then double checking his Wikipedia accolades please.

Also KD being the most impactful player on those Warriors teams is a very, very, bad and incorrect take lol.

[KnicksorBust]

Minutes played are not in any way directly correlated with how much better a player makes their team,

I never said they were?

What I am saying, which is true, is that if two players are both equally productive than the player that plays more minutes is more impactful. That's not a stretch.

especially in these specific terms where we're attempting to evaluate MVP level impact vs MVP level impact. Accumulative stats make it literally impossible for a player to have any kind of negative interaction on the court. Don't you think that's sort of a massive, glaring flaw? Why do you think the analytics community rejects these statistical methods? At the very least we should be reference WS/48, which is more analogous to looking at things per possession.

In my opinion, sometimes it's okay to use raw data. Everything doesn't have to be a rate stat that is per 48 minutes or per 100 possessions. Like many people will claim Allen Iverson was overrated because his stats aren't as efficient as other players but I watched him and those Sixers teams needed him to put up that volume 30 points per game and kill himself playing 40 minutes per game. If he was a more efficient 24 mpg player then they would never have seen a finals. That, and I apologize if I'm wrong, is a place where we fundamentally disagree.

And here you ultimately show your hand. You're wanting the stats or metrics to make the argument for you, instead of contextualizing the metrics that you're looking at. Steve Kerr and Nate McMillan are perfect examples. Both were low minute players who spent the majority of their playing time with a star player on the court, which will influence their per possession valuations quite a bit. What do you mean by "rated" higher? Do you think these are player ratings? I'm not sure you know what you're looking at.


If you really want I can dive into Draymond, Crowder's and whoever else's numbers as well and tell you why they are the way they are and what they ultimately mean. There's not going be an all in one metric that you can just press "sort" on and have it spit out the best players without any noise. The best metrics to look at however break things down to a per possession basis, which of course can lead to funky outliers for low minute guys, aggressive 5 man rotational tactics, lineup dependencies, etc. It's your job to provide context to those outliers. The fact that you used the term "ranking" is super telling. I'm not meaning to insult you but it feels like you're not entirely familiar with analytics and how to use them for player evaluation. Again, happy to answer any questions you have.

It is actually the exact opposite. You straw man me again.

I've literally cited reference after reference as to why Moses's peak isn't anywhere near top 10. Scaled APM studies, PIPM estimates, WOWRY game level studies. You can even take a more film based approach and reference Backpick's CORP valuations: https://backpicks.com/2018/01/08/bac...-moses-malone/
(this is for his career, not his peak FYI, can give you more specific data on peak seasons for him if you'd like)

And yes, KG's peak is all time great, while Moses had an MVP level peak, but not in the all time discussion at all.

Your APM study didn't prove anything. You can't just link your way through an argument and claim you are doing work. Your broad generalizations and links don't prove anything. It is similar to how you wanted to use Andre Drummond to prove PER was flawed and then I used Nate MacMillan to use APM being flawed and then you claimed "YOU WANT STATS TO MAKE THE ARGUMENT!" I was just using your own logic against you.

Huh? I'm not the one with the burden of proof here lol. We have their win pace estimates, and over an 82 game sample it's expected to have some noise. What approach are you taking to credit Moses specifically for those 5 extra wins? Why not Dr. J? Because of minutes played? Does Michael Finley get the bulk of the credit on the 03 Mavs (highest rOrtg in NBA history) because he had the most minutes played?

Statistics have noise. I'm aware that is what I pointed out to you about APM but you repeated it 3x that it has proved something about Moses.

Yeah you're still just missing the point entirely. I'll repeat - not all MVP caliber seasons are equal in value, and every team context is different. And your LeBron is really really terrible, because the types of metrics I'm referencing for Moses falling way short in this convo will also show you that LeBron is far and away the best player on those Heat teams and were all time great seasons.

Your entire approach so far has been making these macro, non-contextual arguments. "He was the best player on the best team." Okay?? How much better was he than their second best player? How much worse was Philly with him off the floor? How does him being the best on the '83 Sixers stack up against KG on the 04 Wolves. Who ultimately made their team better? How are you deriving this? You still just keep utterly shirking this question, whereas these are the exact questions I'm attempting to answer. Formulate a level of analysis that can't be summarized by hitting "sort" on basketball reference and then double checking his Wikipedia accolades please.

Also KD being the most impactful player on those Warriors teams is a very, very, bad and incorrect take lol.

Again I didn't say KD was the "most impactful." Another straw man. Curry was the most impactful. I know the plus/minus and on/off court data for Curry is staggering and far superior to KD but KD was the best player on those teams in the Finals. Yet he gets no credit. That is my point.

If Jordan was on a loaded team I believe there are people that would never have called him the GOAT. To your credit, at least you admitted that in his prime we would have recognized his superior play. At those times both LeBron in Miami and Durant in GS almost weren't allowed by some people to be recognized for their greatness because they took easier paths to championships. That is fine from a legacy perspective but Durant was an assassin in the 2017 Finals and yet I feel like no one will ever get that performance credit. There was almost nothing he could do to impress people because he was on the Warriors. From a legacy perspective, I can understand it but from a talent perspective it is clear how great he was playing.

[Chronz]

Nate mcmillen was arguably a better defender than gp. Don't trash him