APBRmetrics

Here's another attempt to quantify Peak or Plateau performance.
If we would define an "elite" season by a player as one with PER > 24 and WS/48 > .215, there are just 41 players who have achieved it; and a total of 155 such player-seasons.

That may seem a bit broad for players in a Top 5 or 10 vote. We could set the cutoff at WS/48 > .290 and PER >30, and there are just 8 such player-seasons, by just 4 different players.

Since a player may just miss that ultra-elite cutoff, yet he may have several great seasons just below it, I've taken a multi-level view of it. The various PER and WS/48 are matched up such that just about equal # of players have met one level or the other.

The 3rd exclusive variable (not shown) is Win Shares, equal to the requisite WS/48 at 2500 minutes.Totals include those on the right.
Players are ranked here by their total (left to right) appearances in the list. This way, super-elite seasons are counted more than once. Thus Bird outranks Magic, 8 to 7.
Bill Russell is a no-show here. He had WS/48 over .215 on 3 occasions; his PER had topped around 23 a few years earlier.
Walton hit .215 exactly, and also got to 24.8 PER, but not in the same year.
http://bkref.com/tiny/5DJN6
Since b-r.com doesn't convert ABA numbers, no ABA player-seasons are included.

Need To Argue wrote:... Russell would be the best player in the game in any era.
... I had one spot and it was between Michael, Jerry and Oscar. Am I way off by going with Oscar? ...
The other one I am not getting is Kareem or Shaq over Wilt or Bill. Russell and Chamberlain are my one and two by far. ..

NtA, can you offer a theory or 2 about why players of the '50s-'60s were so much better than the players since then?

Tomorrow we'll be 2 weeks in, and there's still a logjam.
I'm inclined to declare Jordan #1; Wilt, Kareem, and LeBron #2-4. We can have a runoff between those 3, and/or move to the next 6 (#5 to #10)

The table above seems to support LeBron's case for Top 5. It doesn't include playoffs, and LeBron holds his own there.

Russell and Magic, while distinctly separated from the rest of the pack, seemingly owe their popularity to their success via their teams.
The purpose of the poll is to rank the player, not the team(s) they were on. There's obviously some interaction; but we're here in a stats forum, and player stats are available. We've seen no actual arguments that Magic or Russell were solely or primarily responsible for many championships. They were primary members of teams that had multiple star players. Let's get quantitative in the next round.

Mike G wrote:Bill Russell is a no-show here. He had WS/48 over .215 on 3 occasions; his PER had topped around 23 a few years earlier.
Walton hit .215 exactly, and also got to 24.8 PER, but not in the same year.
http://bkref.com/tiny/5DJN6
Since b-r.com doesn't convert ABA numbers, no ABA player-seasons are included.

Isn't that because most of Russell's value comes from his defense? PER doesn't factor in defense other than blocks and steals, and WS doesn't factor in defense aside from Dean Oliver's Defensive Rating, which sucks (especially for older players).

Mike G wrote:Russell and Magic, while distinctly separated from the rest of the pack, seemingly owe their popularity to their success via their teams. The purpose of the poll is to rank the player, not the team(s) they were on. There's obviously some interaction; but we're here in a stats forum, and player stats are available. We've seen no actual arguments that Magic or Russell were solely or primarily responsible for many championships. They were primary members of teams that had multiple star players. Let's get quantitative in the next round.

Ai yi yi yi yi yi! Mike, are you trolling your own poll?

No actual arguments that Russell might have had something significant to do with all those championships? Not sure about this particular string, but I have been posting them for years, decades, centuries, millennia! Inadvertently perhaps you have exposed the offensive bias in this whole exercise (what Philosopher alludes to).

With Russell, the primary evidence (discounting every story, the conventional wisdom, and the fact that defense was the only true calling card of the Celtics'/Russell dynasty) is the before and after: prior to him joining the Celtics, they were mediocre (slightly below average) on defense, and afterwards, they were the best in the NBA (an estimated swing of about 4.6 points per 100 possessions, compared to NBA average). Similarly, immediately after his retirement, the Celtics got a lot worse (4.4 worse on the same score - despite maintaining a couple, future HOFers on the roster).

We can go into greater detail here on this very question if you wish. We can identify the star (HOF) players who joined contemporaneously, only to see their net effect being a decrease in offensive productivity (the Celtics really were all about the defense). And all that might be interesting. But the argument that there is no argument that Russell was not solely or primarily responsible for many championships is rather amazing. (And Magic's is a related and not-dissimilar story).

schtevie wrote:...
No actual arguments that Russell might have had something significant to do with all those championships?

Well, that's a radical misreading. Of course he did.
As far as addressing "arguments that Magic or Russell were solely or primarily responsible for many championships.", these guys had so much help that it was almost absurd. While their teams were already pre-eminent, they'd pile on another Jones, a Havlicek or a Howell; a Worthy, McAdoo, Scott, or Thompson.

Kareem was "solely or primarily responsible" for a title in Milwaukee. Erving in the ABA. Walton. Jordan. Olajuwon. Shaq. Duncan. Wade.
These guys weren't added to contenders; they made their teams contenders and led them to titles, or at least one.

In Russell's 11 titling postseasons, he had some very outstanding performances. I don't know how many would rank among those I've named above, but he certainly had lots and lots of help.
This isn't to disparage Russell's unique set of skills and leadership. But if he'd won any title with as little help as some of those named above, he'd have a clearer path to the top 10.

I see no reason to think that Russell's career is greater than Olajuwon's. Both were exceptional playoff dominators. Hakeem had at most two allstar-level teammates through his career. Russell never had fewer than 3, and he played in a much smaller league. Of course he got more titles.

can you offer a theory or 2 about why players of the '50s-'60s were so much better than the players since then?

concerning robertson...

for the decade of 1960-61 to 1969-70 (nba), oscar robertson (his years with cincinnati):

- played 44 min/g, by far the most of any guard...
- scored the 2nd most total points among all players (only chamberlain scored more)...
- averaged the 2nd most total points, 29.3 pts/g (only chamberlain scored more)...
- at 6-5 shot better overall (55.8% ScFG%) than anyone in the league - not just better than all guards but better than all players. and he did this over an entire decade while getting very little rest...
- passed for more assists than anyone...
- grabbed the most rebounds among all guards, the most reb/min among all guards with 13000 minutes played, and the 3rd most reb/min among all guards that played at least 7000 minutes those 10 years...

at any time in any 10 year stretch in nba league history can you name another guard who was both the league's best SG and best PG? the best scoring, best shooting, and best passing guard?...

in 39 career playoff games with the royals he averages 47 min/g, 29.7 pts/g, a 55.1% ScFG% (best overall shooting by any guard in the playoffs those 10 years with 20+ playoff games), with 9+ reb/g and 9+ ast/g...

this guard who absolutely dominated the league for a decade then gets traded to milwaukee (in 70-71) and finally gets to play alongside another stud player in 23 year old lew alcindor and the bucks go 66-16 (2nd best record in league history at the time, only the 68-13 philadelphia warriors of 1966-67 were better) and win the title, with robertson playing 39 min/g at the age of 31/32...

a guard playing 39+ min/g at the ages of 31/32 may not sound very impressive by today's standards, but back then he was only the 3rd guard to do it in league history, and he did it on a title winning team...

from 70-71 to 73-74 the bucks with robertson at PG ages 31-35 go 66-16 (won title), 63-19, 60-22, and 59-23. that's 4 of the 7 best regular season W-L records in nba league history at that time. no team those 4 years even approached the bucks average regular season wins (avg W-L 62-20, next best was 56-26). jabbar is all-nba 1st team all 4 seasons. they got to the finals in 73-74 when robertson was the ages of 34/35, but lost to boston 4 games to 3. in both 72-73 and 73-74 in the playoffs robertson at the ages of 33/34 and 34/35 plays 43 min/g...

he is the only guard in league history who in one season played 43+ min/g in 10+ playoff games age 34 or older...

after robertson retires the bucks fall to 38-44, then jabbar gets traded to the lakers, but does not play on a lakers team that even sniffs 59 wins in the regular season until magic johnson shows up in 1979-80, even though jabbar is all-nba 1st team twice (7576/7677) and all-nba 2nd team twice (7778/7879)...

with the possible exception of jordan, i can't imagine in league history a guard better than oscar robertson...

Mike G wrote:

schtevie wrote:...
No actual arguments that Russell might have had something significant to do with all those championships?

Well, that's a radical misreading. Of course he did.
As far as addressing "arguments that Magic or Russell were solely or primarily responsible for many championships.", these guys had so much help that it was almost absurd. While their teams were already pre-eminent, they'd pile on another Jones, a Havlicek or a Howell; a Worthy, McAdoo, Scott, or Thompson.

No radical misreading. I was precisely addressing your point that Russell was primarily or perhaps even solely (depending on the meaning) responsible for many championships. And I even pointed to the lamppost where the lost key is to be found: reconstituted offensive and defensive ratings that very strongly suggest that Russell was the man.

When this is done (note below on the method of reconstitution) I calculate that in 1956, the year before BR joined, the Celtics were a slightly above average team, with an offensive rating 2.1 above league average, and a defensive rating 1.5 below, so net 0.6, nothing special. Then Russell joins mid-year the following year and things change! The offense gets worse (now+1.3) and the defense gets much, much better (now -3.1). Restating, the year on changes are a decrease in offensive efficiency of 0.8 and an increase in defensive efficiency of 4.6 for a net swing of +3.9.

But wait, it gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective)! If you then consider the entire Russell tenure, the average ORtg was -0.1 (and for the 11 championship years the offense was a bit worse still, -0.5). The DRtg by contrast was -5.3 (and -5.6, respectively). But is there a story within the dynasty that the averages might obscure? Only one which clarifies the point. Over the 13 years, the ORtg bobbed around rather randomly (and never positively exceptional). The defense however shows a pronounced "team" aging curve, with the peak DRtg being -9.6 in 1964. Hmmm, BR was 29 years old that year. Interesting...

Finally, the bookend, in 1970 when Russell had left the stage, the offense compared to his final year deteriorated 1.8 and the defense 4.4, for an overall change of 6.2.

So, other players came, other players left, some rewarded for their association with high honors, others not, but the story stayed the same. If Russell had so much help, where exactly does it show up? The answer is: it doesn't. In the year Russell came on board, so did two future HOFers, Tom Heinsohn and Frank Ramsey. On what is their reputation based, offense of defense? And what happened to the offense? And so on, and so forth. Help is as help does.

Then finally a bonus trivia question: only two other champions in NBA history (I think) have had (single) years of below average ORtg, who were they? Answer: the first Houston and the last Detroit teams. And the parallels here I think are revealing.

* Note on reconstituting ORtgs and DRtgs. The missing data are possessions. These can be estimated precisely enough using 1973-74 ratios for (TO - OR) to total possessions. I say precisely enough because the net of TO minus OR is very small relative to total possessions. In my fake data, I assume the ratio to be 0.05 for the NBA average and 0.03 for the Celtics, assuming that Russell was relatively proficient at offensive rebounding (and that the Cs being good didn't turn the ball over much, what I am not sure about, given their crazy fast pace of play). If this ratio is higher than the truth, it biases the ORtg down (and the DRtg up). But it cannot by much because the possible range is so small.

Mike G wrote:but we're here in a stats forum, and player stats are available. We've seen no actual arguments that Magic or Russell were solely or primarily responsible for many championships. They were primary members of teams that had multiple star players. Let's get quantitative in the next round.

There is an added difficulty in evaluating pre-1970s players using individual stats because the information we have is so limited. I made a post earlier that I think demonstrated the significance of Russell's impact by showing the HUGE defensive leap the Celtics made in 1957 despite having generally the same players besides Russell. Those Celtics continued to get better defensively, reaching historically great levels as Russell entered his prime and began do decline as he started to exit his prime, then took a huge hit in 1970, after he retired.

But if you want individual stats, ok. Bill Russell rates as having the 8th best career rating (which takes rs, playoffs, and longevity into account) and the 10th highest impact (per 100 possessions) according to my box score rating. And that's not even accounting for blocks and steals (which weren't recorded yet). Thus, I'm nearly certain that Russell is very underrated defensively by the metric (and should be closer, perhaps to +1 better). In that case, he'd be a top 5 per 100 poss and very likely a top 3-4 career rating.

Re: Magic - did he have that much more help than the other guys we have in our top 5?

I think as a group we may be overrating Kareem. And this goes back to the reasons bchaikin illustrated in his post: his teams only made the playoffs once in the bridge between Oscar and Magic, a somewhat shocking revelation considering a) of the people we have voted for here, only Wilt (once), Oscar (twice), Iverson (twice), and Kareem (twice) failed to make the playoffs in injury-free seasons during their prime, and b) could you imagine a scenario where Lebron or Jordan fail to make the playoffs in their mid-20s?? Additionally, Kareem was unstoppable on offense yes, but is there evidence he had the defensive impact of other great centers? He was also a relatively poor rebounder and wasn't really willing to bang down low.

What's more, you simply can't overlook that Magic played with Kareem when Kareem was past his prime. The youngest version Magic got to play with was 32. He was still a terrific big, but 1980 (magic's rookie year) may have been the only year Kareem was the best big in the league in the Magic era and the Lakers didn't really miss a beat after Kareem's retirement in 1989.

Additionally, Magic is one of two players in league history that, in his prime, would have been a top 5 player in the league at four positions. He has the sixth highest ast% of all time (4 of the top 5 haven't retired yet, btw and could move down), he's one of the best rebounding guards of all time, and he had a sky high ts%, averaged over 20 multiple times and though his primary skill was creating scoring opportunities for his teammates, he proved time and again that he could take over games scoring when he needed to.

His effect was also seen at a team level. In '79 the Lakers were a +2.9 (and +2.3 of offense). Their starting lineup was Nixon-Hudson-Dantley-Wilkes-Kareem. In 1980, they replaced a young Dantley, aging-star Hudson, and Jim Price off the bench with rookie Magic, servicable big Jim Chones, and aging-star Spencer Haywood off the bench. And voila - the team is a +5.6 (and +4.2 on offense). But Magic wasn't near his prime yet. Luckily for us, and luckily for AIDS awareness, but not luckily for Lakers fans or the league, Magic abruptly left his team during his prime and thus we get to see the effect: in 1991 the Lakers, whose starting lineup was Magic-Scott-Worthy-Perkins-Divac, were a +7.1. In 1992, the Lakers' starting lineup was Threatt-Scott-Worthy-Perkins-Campbell (yes Divac missed substantial time, but Elden Campbell was a very good center, specifically on defense), and before Worthy went down with a late season injury, they were a -1.5. Spin that how you want but Magic's success to the Lakers was HUGELY important.

Alright, a total of 90 votes were cast by 18 participants. Thanks all, especially to those who made cogent arguments.There's not much point in leaving LeBron and Magic to the next round, as they'll surely lead in votes. Maybe we'll do a tiebreaker; or just assume that if they're tied now, LeBron will have to be ahead after this season.

EDIT - The poll has been refreshed, with 6 players replacing the top 6 in the list above.
Please vote for 9 more players to round out the Top 15.

Top 15

Jordan - Already Chosen
Chamberlain - Already Chosen
Iverson - Voted
Magic - Already Chosen
Bird - Voted
-----------------------
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Already Chosen
Bill Russell - Already Chosen
Dr. J - Voted
Shaquille O'neal - Voted
Oscar Robertson - Voted
Hakeem Olajuwon - Voted
David Robinson -Voted
Charles Barkley - Voted
Jerry West - Voted
Karl Malone - Could Not vote because of James
------------------------
Lebron James - Already Chosen

permaximum wrote: Karl Malone - Could Not vote because of James

What does this mean?

In my top15, Karl Malone takes the 15th spot but since the first 6 had been chosen I could only vote for 9 players and unfortunately Malone is the 10th because I didn't include LeBron in my top 15. Lebron along with Duncan, Garnett and perhaps Kobe belong somewhere between 16-25.

BTW, I pointed out Shaq said Iverson belongs to top 5 ever, recently I read LeBron, Larry Brown, Dwyane Wade and more from the basketball community thinks he is pound for pound the best player ever. LeBron even says Iverson is his idol along with Jordan. Do these comments make him top 5 ever? I don't know but surely these comments make my argument stronger when there are votes for Wade and Paul.

bchaikin wrote: at any time in any 10 year stretch in nba league history can you name another guard who was both the league's best SG and best PG? the best scoring, best shooting, and best passing guard?...

this guard who absolutely dominated the league for a decade ...

with the possible exception of jordan, i can't imagine in league history a guard better than oscar robertson...

Agreed that he dominated the league's guards for a decade. But he never reached the Finals, much less won there, in that first decade in the league.

He was all-NBA 1st team every year thru 1969, top 5 in MVP votes thru '68. But just the one MVP, and he never led the league in scoring. His era, and his prime, were dominated by Wilt and Russell. Pettit and Baylor were roughly his equal, in his first few years.

Oscar really was at a whole 'nuther level when he came to the NBA. With few exceptions, guards were set-up men who didn't score or rebound much.
In the meantime, however, things have changed. Frazier had much of what Oscar had brought. Magic did pretty much everything as well, except score in huge bunches. Later, he did that, too.

Oscar's exact contemporary Jerry West eclipsed him at the end. He also enjoyed more regular playoff success. This was partly just due to being in the west -- away from the Celtics, until the Finals.

When they finally met in the playoffs (1972), West averaged 22 ppg as the Lakers dispatched the Bucks in 6 games. Oscar averaged 9 points in this series.
Their teams also met in '71 and '74, Bucks winning both times. But West did not play in either series.

jbrocato23 wrote: There is an added difficulty in evaluating pre-1970s players using individual stats because the information we have is so limited.

Agreed. I've seen Russell ranked out of the top 20 by some 'advanced stats', so I have felt OK with him ~ top 10 by my numbers.

But that same limited information makes us guess as to what his personal impact is on a team. The Celtics weren't like other teams. The '69 version was a shadow of their early '60s juggernaut.

In a given year, OReb% and TO% may vary by 20% among teams. Turnover differential -- I don't know how to search for this -- would have an even greater range.
The early-60s Celts were so dominant, even with their subpar FG%, that it's possible or likely they stretched those limits by quite a bit. Russell may have been the great O-Rebounder of his day, but the TO disparity might have been as great or greater an advantage, and mostly others' doing.

Whether one assigns to other Celtics more offensive or defensive credit, they were apparently highly skilled, relative to their contemporaries: They got all-league and all-star berths. Ball handling is a pretty basic skill through which to gain an advantage.