2019 Historical: How Does My Team Look Thread

[Somebody]

Totally disagree. I’m standing by the fact that you cant have 5 all time greats in a starting 5 with one ball. You need all time great role players. Basketball is a team game.

You can’t have five ball hogs, but you can certainly pick five HOFers so long as they’re well-rounded.

Absolutely.  (See Dream Team I)

Sure, but you’re still relying heavily on an added amount of speculation. My intention was to make an observable, as much as possible, argument.

I don’t think it’s really any more observable. Perhaps more like a “real” NBA team, but is that the point? You’re just setting up Giannis or Durant to be double-teamed every possession, in my opinion.

You’ll double team off a 44% from the corner 3 point shooter then. This is what I am hoping for.

To be fair teams can run schemes to have Bowen's man cheat off of him and run him off the three point line when he gets the ball without much fear of him doing major damage off the dribble. Don't hate the fit you have though.

So you mean they’ll be in rotation and playing catch up?

In rotation and playing catch up? Not sure what do you mean here.

[Somebody]

T-Mac had his best defensive season in Toronto when he was younger. The Raptors had McGrady (SF), Vince (SG) and Doug Christie (PG). Doug Christie was a top defender already and went on to further establish himself nationwide as one of the top defender's in the league while with the Sacramento Kings. But as good as Doug Christie was, Tracy McGrady was better. T-Mac was the Raptors best man defender and best team defender on the perimeter.

So McGrady certainly had the capacity to play defense at the age selected by the LA Lakers.

But when McGrady became a high usage offensive player, his defensive effort fell off. He couldn't shoulder all the responsibility on offense and still maintain the defense.

The question to me is - does McGrady's defense improve when he doesn't have to shoulder as much as offensively as he was forced to do while in Orlando and in Houston? For me, yes, I believe so.

And do you credit McGrady with that or do you look at the individual season picked and say McGrady was only a mediocre defender that year and that is the level of defense I am crediting him with.

I looked at year selected and look at that. for me at least, having numbers makes it easier to compare teams. Everything else is just personal feelings, opinions of players and assumptions.

If McGrady, and I use McGrady only as an example, put up 30ppg and had league average defense, then that is what you are getting on your super team. otherwise if you assume his defense is better then his offense needs to get worse. Cause when McGrady was a great defender, he didnt score 30ppg, if I remember correctly, he didnt even score 20ppg.

That's perfectly fine, I'm using a similar method with some mental curving, eg. 02-03 McGrady would be a slight positive defensively on LAL, ditto for 07-08 Kobe on SAS (a bit better defensively but similar boost).

[Silky]

T-Mac had his best defensive season in Toronto when he was younger. The Raptors had McGrady (SF), Vince (SG) and Doug Christie (PG). Doug Christie was a top defender already and went on to further establish himself nationwide as one of the top defender's in the league while with the Sacramento Kings. But as good as Doug Christie was, Tracy McGrady was better. T-Mac was the Raptors best man defender and best team defender on the perimeter.

So McGrady certainly had the capacity to play defense at the age selected by the LA Lakers.

But when McGrady became a high usage offensive player, his defensive effort fell off. He couldn't shoulder all the responsibility on offense and still maintain the defense.

The question to me is - does McGrady's defense improve when he doesn't have to shoulder as much as offensively as he was forced to do while in Orlando and in Houston? For me, yes, I believe so.

And do you credit McGrady with that or do you look at the individual season picked and say McGrady was only a mediocre defender that year and that is the level of defense I am crediting him with.

I looked at year selected and look at that. for me at least, having numbers makes it easier to compare teams. Everything else is just personal feelings, opinions of players and assumptions.

If McGrady, and I use McGrady only as an example, put up 30ppg and had league average defense, then that is what you are getting on your super team. otherwise if you assume his defense is better then his offense needs to get worse. Cause when McGrady was a great defender, he didnt score 30ppg, if I remember correctly, he didnt even score 20ppg.

That's perfectly fine, I'm using a similar method with some mental curving, eg. 02-03 McGrady would be a slight positive defensively on LAL, ditto for 07-08 Kobe on SAS (a bit better defensively but similar boost).

Much better defensively.

103.9 with a defensive winshare of .130

Closer to twice the impact on winshares defensively than being a "bit better"

You really hate on Kobe and his defense. That season he was top 10 among all guards playing in 40 games minimum and at least 30 minutes in Defensive rating

He was 6th in defensive win shares among all guards with the same parameters.

And he guarded the TOUGHEST assignments nightly, and was the leading scorer nightly, not just a specialist.

Kobe was a beast defensively.

[Roy H.]

You really hate on Kobe and his defense. That season he was top 10 among all guards playing in 40 games minimum and at least 30 minutes in Defensive rating

Two problems with Defensive Rating:

1. It’s an estimate, rather than a measurement; and

2. It’s wildly dependent upon teammates

That’s why you see Ray Allen and Tony Parker in the top five in DRtg for guards, both above Kobe.

[nickagneta]

Turning it into a numbers game is a big mistake, IMO.

Yeah, I could write an algorithm and do some mathematical modeling to plug numbers into to get a result, but I would have zero confidence in that model because you lose all the nuance that is team building, getting players to buy in, personality, chemistry, having enough types of weapons to use off the bench for situational basketball.

And, of course, there would need to be a ton of number smoothing based on era, rule changes, culture changes and game strategy changes. 40% FG% in 1965=/= 40% FG% in 2019 is an example.

Now, this is a completely subjective exercise, so there is no way of coming to a wrong decision(unless you are trying to game the system to your advantage by ranking teams you feel are your competition lower to get their overall score lower, thereby helping you). I just think the numbers should be used to enhance your opinion, not to rule your decision.

[Somebody]

T-Mac had his best defensive season in Toronto when he was younger. The Raptors had McGrady (SF), Vince (SG) and Doug Christie (PG). Doug Christie was a top defender already and went on to further establish himself nationwide as one of the top defender's in the league while with the Sacramento Kings. But as good as Doug Christie was, Tracy McGrady was better. T-Mac was the Raptors best man defender and best team defender on the perimeter.

So McGrady certainly had the capacity to play defense at the age selected by the LA Lakers.

But when McGrady became a high usage offensive player, his defensive effort fell off. He couldn't shoulder all the responsibility on offense and still maintain the defense.

The question to me is - does McGrady's defense improve when he doesn't have to shoulder as much as offensively as he was forced to do while in Orlando and in Houston? For me, yes, I believe so.

And do you credit McGrady with that or do you look at the individual season picked and say McGrady was only a mediocre defender that year and that is the level of defense I am crediting him with.

I looked at year selected and look at that. for me at least, having numbers makes it easier to compare teams. Everything else is just personal feelings, opinions of players and assumptions.

If McGrady, and I use McGrady only as an example, put up 30ppg and had league average defense, then that is what you are getting on your super team. otherwise if you assume his defense is better then his offense needs to get worse. Cause when McGrady was a great defender, he didnt score 30ppg, if I remember correctly, he didnt even score 20ppg.

That's perfectly fine, I'm using a similar method with some mental curving, eg. 02-03 McGrady would be a slight positive defensively on LAL, ditto for 07-08 Kobe on SAS (a bit better defensively but similar boost).

Much better defensively.

103.9 with a defensive winshare of .130

Closer to twice the impact on winshares defensively than being a "bit better"

You really hate on Kobe and his defense. That season he was top 10 among all guards playing in 40 games minimum and at least 30 minutes in Defensive rating

He was 6th in defensive win shares among all guards with the same parameters.

And he guarded the TOUGHEST assignments nightly, and was the leading scorer nightly, not just a specialist.

Kobe was a beast defensively.

Yeah he didn't guard the toughest assignments nightly in 07-08 lol. It's not Kobe hate, it's just realism about how romanticised he is. Pumping your DWS and DBPM because you get to hide on the weakest offensive player and have 4 guys on your team covering for you doesn't scream all time great defensively. You might be watching too many Frobe clips, now he was a great defender who took the toughest assignments on a nightly basis and did well.

Btw when is 2.9 times 2 close to 4.3? Those are their DWS in the seasons they were picked from basketball reference.

[Somebody]

Turning it into a numbers game is a big mistake, IMO.

Yeah, I could write an algorithm and do some mathematical modeling to plug numbers into to get a result, but I would have zero confidence in that model because you lose all the nuance that is team building, getting players to buy in, personality, chemistry, having enough types of weapons to use off the bench for situational basketball.

And, of course, there would need to be a ton of number smoothing based on era, rule changes, culture changes and game strategy changes. 40% FG% in 1965=/= 40% FG% in 2019 is an example.

Now, this is a completely subjective exercise, so there is no way of coming to a wrong decision(unless you are trying to game the system to your advantage by ranking teams you feel are your competition lower to get their overall score lower, thereby helping you). I just think the numbers should be used to enhance your opinion, not to rule your decision.

Definitely not the case here. I've been down on Kobe since he was drafted (not before because of the no talking rule about undrafted players), not because Silky drafted him and built a very good team.

Also agreed about the numbers game. I'm trying to curve some of the numbers based on the clips I've seen on the players, and also looking up on more conventional articles for opinions of players I haven't watched.

[Silky]

You really hate on Kobe and his defense. That season he was top 10 among all guards playing in 40 games minimum and at least 30 minutes in Defensive rating

Two problems with Defensive Rating:

1. It’s an estimate, rather than a measurement; and

2. It’s wildly dependent upon teammates

agreed, but using defensive rating and defensive winshares is alot closer to determining a players actual impact on offenses than nothing at all.

We KNOW that Kobe won all nba defensive 1, we KNOW kobe posted an above average defensive rating, we KNOW Kobe posted a borderline elite defensive win share, we KNOW Kobe defended opposing teams most dominate wing therefore we can assume that Kobe is a great defender.

IE:
Lets look at Kobe's teammates on the wing that season.
Ariza - solid defender, but only played 24 games as a laker


Crittendon
Evans
Farmar
Fisher
Carl
Newble
Vucacic
Walton

All trash

Gasol - good defender
Bynum - good ish
Mihm - bad
Odom - below average



Compare that to McGrady who had Grant Hill, Darrell Armstrong, Horrace Grant, Gooden, Kemp.

[Silky]

T-Mac had his best defensive season in Toronto when he was younger. The Raptors had McGrady (SF), Vince (SG) and Doug Christie (PG). Doug Christie was a top defender already and went on to further establish himself nationwide as one of the top defender's in the league while with the Sacramento Kings. But as good as Doug Christie was, Tracy McGrady was better. T-Mac was the Raptors best man defender and best team defender on the perimeter.

So McGrady certainly had the capacity to play defense at the age selected by the LA Lakers.

But when McGrady became a high usage offensive player, his defensive effort fell off. He couldn't shoulder all the responsibility on offense and still maintain the defense.

The question to me is - does McGrady's defense improve when he doesn't have to shoulder as much as offensively as he was forced to do while in Orlando and in Houston? For me, yes, I believe so.

And do you credit McGrady with that or do you look at the individual season picked and say McGrady was only a mediocre defender that year and that is the level of defense I am crediting him with.

I looked at year selected and look at that. for me at least, having numbers makes it easier to compare teams. Everything else is just personal feelings, opinions of players and assumptions.

If McGrady, and I use McGrady only as an example, put up 30ppg and had league average defense, then that is what you are getting on your super team. otherwise if you assume his defense is better then his offense needs to get worse. Cause when McGrady was a great defender, he didnt score 30ppg, if I remember correctly, he didnt even score 20ppg.

That's perfectly fine, I'm using a similar method with some mental curving, eg. 02-03 McGrady would be a slight positive defensively on LAL, ditto for 07-08 Kobe on SAS (a bit better defensively but similar boost).

Much better defensively.

103.9 with a defensive winshare of .130

Closer to twice the impact on winshares defensively than being a "bit better"

You really hate on Kobe and his defense. That season he was top 10 among all guards playing in 40 games minimum and at least 30 minutes in Defensive rating

He was 6th in defensive win shares among all guards with the same parameters.

And he guarded the TOUGHEST assignments nightly, and was the leading scorer nightly, not just a specialist.

Kobe was a beast defensively.

Yeah he didn't guard the toughest assignments nightly in 07-08 lol. It's not Kobe hate, it's just realism about how romanticised he is. Pumping your DWS and DBPM because you get to hide on the weakest offensive player and have 4 guys on your team covering for you doesn't scream all time great defensively. You might be watching too many Frobe clips, now he was a great defender who took the toughest assignments on a nightly basis and did well.

Btw when is 2.9 times 2 close to 4.3? Those are their DWS in the seasons they were picked from basketball reference.

Kobe did defend the best perimeter player.
Kobe didnt have greats covering for him defensively on that team
And I use NBA.com stats numbers, not bball reference. I posted the DWS already, McGrady .075 and Kobe .13

I stated that his defensive winshare is closer to double tracys than it is to being a "bit better: A bit better would be a .080 defensive rating. its 1.75 times higher.

[Roy H.]

One of the cool things about this game is that it gives you insight into guys you don’t know a lot about.

One such guy is Jerry Lucas. He was apparently only the third guy ever to average 20 / 20 for a season. More impressively, he was one of the original stretch bigs, routinely hitting from 20 to 25 feet. Then, he led NY to a championship by playing as an undersized center.  He was also apparently one of the forward-thinking businessmen in the league.

Before this game I couldn’t have talked with any specificity at all about him.

[nickagneta]

All-NBA and All-Defense teams can get to be popularity contests and there are bunches of examples of players that should have been on teams that didn't and bunches of examples of players who got voted on based on reputation than actual play.

Kobe does fall into the latter category. He was on a whole lot of All-Defense teams based on popularity and reputation. For much of his later All-Defense team selections, he was hidden by guarding the worst of the opponents' offensive players playing at the PG/SG/SF position. Ariza, Artest, Fisher and Farmar we're usually guarding the best of the offensive players playing at the PG/SG/SF positions during those 2008-2011 seasons where Kobe was getting All-Defense awards he did not deserve.

[Somebody]

T-Mac had his best defensive season in Toronto when he was younger. The Raptors had McGrady (SF), Vince (SG) and Doug Christie (PG). Doug Christie was a top defender already and went on to further establish himself nationwide as one of the top defender's in the league while with the Sacramento Kings. But as good as Doug Christie was, Tracy McGrady was better. T-Mac was the Raptors best man defender and best team defender on the perimeter.

So McGrady certainly had the capacity to play defense at the age selected by the LA Lakers.

But when McGrady became a high usage offensive player, his defensive effort fell off. He couldn't shoulder all the responsibility on offense and still maintain the defense.

The question to me is - does McGrady's defense improve when he doesn't have to shoulder as much as offensively as he was forced to do while in Orlando and in Houston? For me, yes, I believe so.

And do you credit McGrady with that or do you look at the individual season picked and say McGrady was only a mediocre defender that year and that is the level of defense I am crediting him with.

I looked at year selected and look at that. for me at least, having numbers makes it easier to compare teams. Everything else is just personal feelings, opinions of players and assumptions.

If McGrady, and I use McGrady only as an example, put up 30ppg and had league average defense, then that is what you are getting on your super team. otherwise if you assume his defense is better then his offense needs to get worse. Cause when McGrady was a great defender, he didnt score 30ppg, if I remember correctly, he didnt even score 20ppg.

That's perfectly fine, I'm using a similar method with some mental curving, eg. 02-03 McGrady would be a slight positive defensively on LAL, ditto for 07-08 Kobe on SAS (a bit better defensively but similar boost).

Much better defensively.

103.9 with a defensive winshare of .130

Closer to twice the impact on winshares defensively than being a "bit better"

You really hate on Kobe and his defense. That season he was top 10 among all guards playing in 40 games minimum and at least 30 minutes in Defensive rating

He was 6th in defensive win shares among all guards with the same parameters.

And he guarded the TOUGHEST assignments nightly, and was the leading scorer nightly, not just a specialist.

Kobe was a beast defensively.

Yeah he didn't guard the toughest assignments nightly in 07-08 lol. It's not Kobe hate, it's just realism about how romanticised he is. Pumping your DWS and DBPM because you get to hide on the weakest offensive player and have 4 guys on your team covering for you doesn't scream all time great defensively. You might be watching too many Frobe clips, now he was a great defender who took the toughest assignments on a nightly basis and did well.

Btw when is 2.9 times 2 close to 4.3? Those are their DWS in the seasons they were picked from basketball reference.

Kobe did defend the best perimeter player.
Kobe didnt have greats covering for him defensively on that team
And I use NBA.com stats numbers, not bball reference. I posted the DWS already, McGrady .075 and Kobe .13

I stated that his defensive winshare is closer to double tracys than it is to being a "bit better: A bit better would be a .080 defensive rating. its 1.75 times higher.

He really didn't unless it was a big game, and even in such games he was inconsistent. And you don't need to have greats to cover for him defensively to have a great defensive system around you, he had guys like Lamar Odom guarding the toughest assignments as well as a bunch of role players whose job was to defend and shoot open shots.

And I use basketball reference numbers so sure I guess, I explained why I think the difference between Kobe and McGrady defensively isn't huge in my earlier posts.

[Somebody]

One of the cool things about this game is that it gives you insight into guys you don’t know a lot about.

One such guy is Jerry Lucas. He was apparently only the third guy ever to average 20 / 20 for a season. More impressively, he was one of the original stretch bigs, routinely hitting from 20 to 25 feet. Then, he led NY to a championship by playing as an undersized center.  He was also apparently one of the forward-thinking businessmen in the league.

Before this game I couldn’t have talked with any specificity at all about him.

Absolutely. This game had me reading up on quite a number of greats.

[gouki88]

One of the cool things about this game is that it gives you insight into guys you don’t know a lot about.

One such guy is Jerry Lucas. He was apparently only the third guy ever to average 20 / 20 for a season. More impressively, he was one of the original stretch bigs, routinely hitting from 20 to 25 feet. Then, he led NY to a championship by playing as an undersized center.  He was also apparently one of the forward-thinking businessmen in the league.

Before this game I couldn’t have talked with any specificity at all about him.

Yeah, his career was really strong. I never knew just how good his peaks actually were. Feel like he'd be one guy to absolutely thrive in today's game. Might have been the first jump-shooting big man!

Reading up on old players is always fun for me

[Silky]

All-NBA and All-Defense teams can get to be popularity contests and there are bunches of examples of players that should have been on teams that didn't and bunches of examples of players who got voted on based on reputation than actual play.

Kobe does fall into the latter category. He was on a whole lot of All-Defense teams based on popularity and reputation. For much of his later All-Defense team selections, he was hidden by guarding the worst of the opponents' offensive players playing at the PG/SG/SF position. Ariza, Artest, Fisher and Farmar we're usually guarding the best of the offensive players playing at the PG/SG/SF positions during those 2008-2011 seasons where Kobe was getting All-Defense awards he did not deserve.

2010 onwards yes.

07-08 he earned it. Look at the statistics.