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I sent my rankings to Basketball-Reference, suggesting that they add something like that to the site like they have JAWS rankings for Baseball. Got a nice email back just now.
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for sharing your formula and rankings for those players, and sorry for the delay in responding to your message. We'll bear this in mind should we think about creating a JAWS-like stat for basketball in the future. Any stat with Kareem, Wilt, Jordan and LeBron towards the top is probably doing something right!
Best,
Aidan
Aidan Jackson-Evans
Customer Success Coordinator
Sports Reference, LLC.
Hi Bruce,
Thank you for sharing your formula and rankings for those players, and sorry for the delay in responding to your post. I'll bear in mind, that at any time I look at a stat like this and any stat that does not have Olajuwon within the top 15 players in NBA history is probably doing something wrong.
Best,
Eric
Eric Michael Malone
Customer
What If Sports
No, Eric, your presumption that Olajuwon is in the top 15 is what's wrong. He only reached 12 or more win shares 3 times, and his career was not consistent. He had 4 years in a row of 10+ win shares, and then fell to 8.6 and 9.8 at age 28 and 29, (missing some games) then back to have his best 2 seasons in 1993 and 1994. He was not great anymore after 1997 when he turned 35 the next season.
He only had a win shares/48 of .200 or higher 3 times with a career of .177. Not good enough to be top 15 all time.
His career WS/48 is only 50th of all time. He's below Kevin Johnson, Sharman, Bailey Howell, Sam Jones, Ginobli, Dantley, Moncrief, Butler and Ming. His playoffs WS/48 is much better where he's 20th of all time, but still nowhere near the top 15 players ever. Sorry.
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He only had 2 regular seasons where he was as good as a top 15 player would have to be. Early on he was very foul prone, averaging over 4 fouls per game in the 1980s.
You can't be top 15 all time if your career regular season level of play (WS/48) is only 50th best. David Robinson was a far better player, second all time in WS/48 after Jordan.
You have to consider more than just the numbers and analytics when ranking players all time. Hakeem 100% is higher up on the all time list then the Admiral. Hakeem is 100% on the top 15 while Robinson is more in the top 25 if you ask me for one simple reason. Playoffs, the games that matter most.
Is the Admiral better than the regular season advanced based sim? For sure! BUT
David Robinson's regular season average WS per 48 is .250 but during the playoffs for his career that number dropped to to .199.
Now Hakeem, according to the WS per 48 stat got better during the post season going from .177 during the regular season to .189 during the playoffs.
Now I am not personally a fan of win shares as a stat to show how good a player was. I much prefer the PER and VORP stat which gives you, I think, I much better idea of how good a player was at all things on the floor.
Looking at career numbers again.
Robinson's PER for his career is 26.2
Hakeems PER for his career is 23.6
Admiral feasted during the regular season but struggled during the post season because during the playoffs you are playing the best teams against the best 90s centers.
So you see his PER drop off from that 26.2 for his career to 23 during the post season
The opposite is true for Hakeem. His PER against the best didn't just stay the same it improved from that 23.6 number to 25.7.
Your logic is insane. Robinson played better than Olajuwon in the playoffs. They each won twice. But you want Olajuwon to rank higher because he played better in the playoffs then in the regular season, while Robinson played better in the regular season than in the playoffs?
So even though Robinson played at a higher level than Olajuwon for his playoff career, .199 WS/48 to .189 WS/48, you still want Olajuwon to rank higher. We don't grade on a curve. This is not bowling or gold where players get to use their handicap to beat a better real score.
Olajuwon also played a higher percentage of his career playoff games during hi s prime, while Robinson player a higher percentage of his playoff games when he was past his prime, and the team was better.
Robinson is far better in the sim, and there's a reason for that. He was a better player than Olajuwon. We don't grade players on a curve. And it's not that Olajuwon "raised his game" in the playoffs. A, he played a larger percentage of his playoff games during his prime, and B, his religious fasting probably caused him to not be at full strength a lot during the regular season.
Robinson was not only better, but significantly better. And the sim captures that.
1. Just because you don't agree with my logic doesn't mean its "insane"
2. Robinson won twice with Duncan who was the number 1 on that team while Robinson was a number 2. So using those two title to argue his greatness directly compared to Hakeem doesn't work, at least for me
-I will concede that I think that because Duncan could take the offensive load off Robinson's shoulders allowing him to focus on his defensive dominance which is probably a big reason they won those two times.
3. "So even though Robinson played at a higher level than Olajuwon for his playoff career, .199 WS/48 to .189 WS/48, you still want Olajuwon to rank higher. We don't grade on a curve. This is not bowling or gold where players get to use their handicap to beat a better real sc"
I am not grading anyone on a curve. IF you judge a players greatness only on Win Shares then yes Robinson is the better player. But Win shares isn't the only metric out there.
4. Taking advanced metrics out AND taking them INTO account it is MY OPINION the Hakeem is the better player when compared to Robinson.
But I do not think this was even an argument to be made, I didn't want to bring up the Robinson debate kryptonite but I gotta bring up the 1995 Western Conference semifinals. It was a 6 game series. Hakeem and Robinson both in their primes. It was Robinson's MVP season and they played each other 6 games in a row. And look I'll be honest I was not old enough to remember these games when they were played so I will admit that my opinion could be taken with a grain of salt, BUT I have watched replays of the series and a couple of the games in its entirety and in the eye test Hakeem came out on top. But you can't trust your eyes so lets look at the numbers.
David Robinson
23.8 PPG
11.3 RPG
2.2 BPG
BUT shot only 44.9% from the field with Hakeem guarding him
On the other hand..
Hakeem Olajuwon
35.3 PPG
12.5 RPG
4.2 BPG
And shot 56% from the floor with Robinson guarding him
Look I am actually higher on Robinson than most. My Center power rankings are
Kareem
Wilt
Shaq
Hakeem
Robinson
And that Hakeem and Robinson is closer than my debating would make you think. But the fact is I weigh playoffs more than regular season and Hakeem raised his game in his prime while Robinson did not.
Now IF I was only comparing regular seasons numbers I will concede Robinson was the better regular season player. His number were better then AND Robinson beat Hakeem in the regular season 30 times while Hakeem won only 12 times (interesting fact I learned looking up stats for this post.)