Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 6:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Midge on 4/15/2025 6:13:00 PM (view original):
Dan Issel was a big fish in a small pond. Steph Curry is the best shooter in the history of the ocean.

Which would not mean very much if he played before there were 3 point shots. If he played in the 60s and early 70s he would not even be an all star.

I don't kno2 how many times I have to keep repeating this, but...

ISSEL IS ONLY RANKED HIGHER THAN CURRY NOW BECAUSE ISSEL'S ENTIRE CAREER IS OVER AND CURRY IS STILL IN MID-CAREER. CURRY WILL LIKELY PASS HIM BY AFTER THIS SEASON'S NUMBERS ARE ADDED INTO THE RANKINGS. HE WILL CERTAINLY PASS ISSEL BY BEFORE HE RETIRES FROM PLAYING.

I think if you time-travelled Curry to the past, even without a 3-point line, he’d break the league.

The modern NBA is full of the best players from all over the WORLD, with modern training and strategies. The ABA was the second best league from one COUNTRY without modern anything. It wouldn’t be fair to put a top-5 player of this era back then. He would not only be an all-star but would probably be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

Just because you say something in all caps in big red letters doesn’t make it true.

Posted by dBKC on 4/15/2025 6:06:00 PM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 5:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Midge on 4/15/2025 4:53:00 PM (view original):
Let’s say you take the best 15 teams in the NBA and have them play a season. We will call this League A. At the same time we will have the worst 15 teams in the NBA play a season. We will call it League B. At the end of the two completed seasons both leagues will have the exact same number of win shares. Does this mean League B is just as good as League A? No, League A is still better, but they still have to divvy up the same amount of win shares. This is why it doesn’t make sense to compare Dan Issel’s win shares to Steph Curry’s win shares. The only two people who think Dan Issel is more valuable than Steph Curry are you and Dan Issel’s mother.

Dan Issel created more value than Curry UP UNTIL THE END OF LAST SEASON.

Steph may even be ahead by now. He certainly will be ahead before he retires.

How about this.

Do YOU think that Thomas was more valuable than Chris Paul?

Chris Paul has created TWICE as much value in his still ongoing career than Isiah Thomas did in his entire career.

I don’t know if career win shares is the best way to look at this. I would value a player who was MVP level for 2 seasons and then nothing else (Bill Walton) far more than a guy who was an average starter for 12 years (Thaddeus Young). Just my opinion. Give me the guy who can help me win the whole thing, even if it’s a small window

I guess you did not look at the formula that I posted a couple of times now. I don't just look at career win shares. The formula is:

career win shares + best 7 season win shares, divided by 2. Then I add in the player's Player Efficiency Rating for the playoffs.

This way it's half about career value and half about peak value, same as the JAWS Ratings for baseball. Except since the playoffs are a much bigger part of basketball than they are in baseball, I include them in the rankings. I don't use win shares because that would favor players who are in the playoffs a lot vs. players who are not in the playoffs near as often. So I use the player's PER Rating in the playoffs, which is not helped or hurt by how many playoff games you player. It only measures your level of play when you are playing. Plus the way it is expressed fits in well with the numbers we get from the first part of the calculation.

Naturally these number are not incredibly precise where someone at 120.98 is definitely more valuable than some one at 118.76. But when there is a huge difference as their is between Bird and Malone and between Chris Paul and Isiah Thomas, there can be no doubt who was more valuable.

Karl Malone's score is 193.64 He is the 5th most valuable player all time, behind only the big 4 or Kareem, Wilt, LeBron and Jordan. Jordan would likely still be above LeBron right now if not for the almost 2 full seasons he missed while playing baseball. You can't create value when you are not playing. Similar problem for Larry Bird. He missed lots of time with injuries, and he retired young for a player of his level because of those injuries.

Malone - 193.64
Bird .----- 145.23

With that big of margin there is no logical argument that makes Bird more valuable. It becomes all about emotion. You guys who see Bird as more valuable than Malone or Russell as more valuable than Wilt are just going on emotion. The emotion of championships, and highlight plays, and all the hoopla Bird got from fans and writers. It also helped Bird a lot that he was white, and taking down many great black players in matchups.

Th top 3 point guards in the rankings are all virtually tied. Oscar, CP3 and Stockton. Magic is not up there with them because he missed prime seasons when he (as he said) "attained" the HIV virus. On a per minute basis Magic and CP3 are virtually tied as the best ever.

Win Shares/48

7.	Chris Paul	.2264
8.	Magic Johnson*	.2249

But Magic is way behind in career minutes essentially because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants. He famously would have sex with a woman or women in some room at the Forum BEFORE most games. If Magic had not contracted HIV he would likely be right up there as the most valuable PG. But, YOU CAN'T CREATE VALUE WHEN YOU ARE NOT PLAYING.

“With that big of margin there is no logical argument that makes Bird more valuable (than Karl)”

Except for on-court success? If your model says Karl is SIGNIFICANTLY better than Bird, maybe it’s your model that’s wrong.

Posted by dBKC on 4/15/2025 7:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 6:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Midge on 4/15/2025 6:13:00 PM (view original):
Dan Issel was a big fish in a small pond. Steph Curry is the best shooter in the history of the ocean.

Which would not mean very much if he played before there were 3 point shots. If he played in the 60s and early 70s he would not even be an all star.

I don't kno2 how many times I have to keep repeating this, but...

ISSEL IS ONLY RANKED HIGHER THAN CURRY NOW BECAUSE ISSEL'S ENTIRE CAREER IS OVER AND CURRY IS STILL IN MID-CAREER. CURRY WILL LIKELY PASS HIM BY AFTER THIS SEASON'S NUMBERS ARE ADDED INTO THE RANKINGS. HE WILL CERTAINLY PASS ISSEL BY BEFORE HE RETIRES FROM PLAYING.

I think if you time-travelled Curry to the past, even without a 3-point line, he’d break the league.

The modern NBA is full of the best players from all over the WORLD, with modern training and strategies. The ABA was the second best league from one COUNTRY without modern anything. It wouldn’t be fair to put a top-5 player of this era back then. He would not only be an all-star but would probably be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

Just because you say something in all caps in big red letters doesn’t make it true.

Almost all of Curry's value comes in being able to make 3 pointers at an over 40% clip and to keep that clip up even when taking a real lot of 3 point shots.

If he played in the 60s he would hardly ever be taking long distance shots, because 42% on 2 pointers is no big help to his team. When you shoot 42% on 3 pointers it's the same as shooting 63% on 2 pointers. He's not big and strong enough to constantly rive to the basket thru traffic and dunk. He's not a great defender. He's not a great passer. Mo coach back then would allow a guy t shoot 12 or 15 times from like 25 feet or more when he is shooting like 42% from out there.

Even the drives to the bask he can do now would be greatly curtailed if there were no 3 pointers, as nobody is gonna worry about guarding him real close when he's 25 feet from the basket. If he grew up in the 50s and 60s with no 3 point shots at any level, he would not have practiced 3 point shots all the time as a kid, like he did when he grew up.

Posted by dBKC on 4/15/2025 7:14:00 PM (view original):
“With that big of margin there is no logical argument that makes Bird more valuable (than Karl)”

Except for on-court success? If your model says Karl is SIGNIFICANTLY better than Bird, maybe it’s your model that’s wrong.

He's not significant better then Bird PER MINUTE. They are almost dead even per minute. But Malone is SIGNIFICANTLY MORE DURABLE and was able to play at that level for MUCH MUCH Longer than Bird was.

Bird played at an all time great level for 7 seasons. 82-88. His WS/48 was over .200 in each of those 7 seasons.
Malone played at a all time great level for 13 seasons. 89-01. His WS/48 was over .200 in 12 of those 13 seasons, and the 13th season it was .191.

When most people use "The Eye Test" or just their personal opinion to rank players, they are ranking them based on when they were at their peak. They don't take into account how long that peak was, or how they played were they were not at their peak.

Hank Aaron was not as great at his peak than a bunch of other players were, but his peak lasted for like 20 seasons while most guys peak is significantly shorter than that. Mantle's peak was 11-12 seasons. At his best he was clearly better than Hank was at his best, but he could not sustain playing at his best for near as long as Hank could.

Posted by dBKC on 4/15/2025 7:14:00 PM (view original):
“With that big of margin there is no logical argument that makes Bird more valuable (than Karl)”

Except for on-court success? If your model says Karl is SIGNIFICANTLY better than Bird, maybe it’s your model that’s wrong.

Karl Malone has 11 seasons in the sim with a salary of $9M or higher.
Larry Bird has just 3 seasons in the sim with a salary of $9M or higher.

If my model is wrong as you suggest, than the sim's model must really be wrong, correct?

The thing is, my model and the sim's model are each devoid of any emotion. Nothing but numbers in each case. You guys who see Bird as more valuable than Malone are packed with emotion. The emotion of seeing Bird in all those playoff games during his peak, as his team got to the finals 5 times and won them 3 times. Much of that was due to him being on a team with several other great players. Malone had one other great player. Those two were SO GREAT that Utah won 55-60 games every year for a long time, despite never having another near hall of fame level player. There is also the emotion of Bird drilling shots right in the face of a defender. But his 17 foot shots were no more valuable than the ton of times that Malone overpowered his man in the post and scored from just a few feet away or even closer. It just wasn't as pretty.

You’re the only person who ranks Issel better than Curry.

JEFF HORNACEK IS THE GREATEST NBA PLAYER OF ALL TIME!

Hey, that feels pretty good.

THE WORLD IS FLAT!

So Midge, tell us. When did Curry pass by Issel and become more valuable?

How many seasons did Curry have to play before he became more valuable than Issel?

BTW, Issel has 3 seasons in the sim with a salary of $8M or more. Curry has one.

Why don't you start mocking the sim for that? Obviously you must think that the sim is dead wrong saying that between Issel and Curry that Issel has 3 of the 4 best seasons that either of them had.

Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 8:27:00 PM (view original):
BTW, David Robinson has 6 seasons in the sim with a salary of $9M or more, Olajuwon has 4.

The sim seems to agree with my rankings more than it agrees with you guys's eye tests!

Kareem just got drafted in the second round of the ODL.

Your point is moot.

Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 8:22:00 PM (view original):
So Midge, tell us. When did Curry pass by Issel and become more valuable?

How many seasons did Curry have to play before he became more valuable than Issel?

BTW, Issel has 3 seasons in the sim with a salary of $8M or more. Curry has one.

Why don't you start mocking the sim for that? Obviously you must think that the sim is dead wrong saying that between Issel and Curry that Issel has 3 of the 4 best seasons that either of them had.

Cool, you draft a team around Issel, and I’ll draft one around Curry and we’ll see what happens.

Posted by dBKC on 4/15/2025 8:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 8:22:00 PM (view original):
So Midge, tell us. When did Curry pass by Issel and become more valuable?

How many seasons did Curry have to play before he became more valuable than Issel?

BTW, Issel has 3 seasons in the sim with a salary of $8M or more. Curry has one.

Why don't you start mocking the sim for that? Obviously you must think that the sim is dead wrong saying that between Issel and Curry that Issel has 3 of the 4 best seasons that either of them had.

Cool, you draft a team around Issel, and I’ll draft one around Curry and we’ll see what happens.

Okay, but it will be a league with no 3 point shots.

Posted by dBKC on 4/15/2025 8:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 8:22:00 PM (view original):
So Midge, tell us. When did Curry pass by Issel and become more valuable?

How many seasons did Curry have to play before he became more valuable than Issel?

BTW, Issel has 3 seasons in the sim with a salary of $8M or more. Curry has one.

Why don't you start mocking the sim for that? Obviously you must think that the sim is dead wrong saying that between Issel and Curry that Issel has 3 of the 4 best seasons that either of them had.

Cool, you draft a team around Issel, and I’ll draft one around Curry and we’ll see what happens.

You must really think this sim sucks with it rating Issel above Curry. right?

Posted by PBandJ on 4/15/2025 8:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by savoybg on 4/15/2025 8:27:00 PM (view original):
BTW, David Robinson has 6 seasons in the sim with a salary of $9M or more, Olajuwon has 4.

The sim seems to agree with my rankings more than it agrees with you guys's eye tests!

Kareem just got drafted in the second round of the ODL.

Your point is moot.

How do you figure that?

There's a salary cap. If there was no salary cap Kareem would always be a top 10 pick.