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lol Billups and Nash over Jason Kidd.
First of all, I know that this article is a bit older (written on July 24th). After recognizing this one today I was digging in the forum's archives, but I coudn't find a thread concerning this topic. The only one I found (same author by the way) was that one about the coaches of the last decade. If there is already a thread about this particular article, I'm sorry and the mods can close it. Otherwise, here it is:
All-Decade Teams: The 2000s
Posted by Justin Kubatko on July 24, 2009
Since we're nearing the end of another decade, I thought it would be interesting to come up with All-Decade teams for the 2000s. I know that technically the decade is not over yet, but the NBA has a split season, and since we've already crowned the 2009 NBA champions it seems to me that the 2008-09 season is a good breaking point.
Rather than choose the teams arbitrarily, I wanted to come up with a method to select the teams. I decided to use a weighting scheme similar to what Doug Drinen of PFR uses. Here's Doug's description of the method:
My opinion is that most people mentally rank players by counting all the players’ seasons, but weighting their best seasons more. In order to mimic that, I’ve defined each player’s approximate career “value” to be:
100% of his best season, plus 95% of his 2nd-best season, plus 90% of his 3rd-best season, plus, ….
So, for two players with the same career [value], the one with the higher peak will be rated a little higher. And junk seasons at the end of a player’s career count for almost nothing.
In order to find each player's "value" for a particular season, I decided to add his regular season Win Shares to his post-season Win Shares. I also tweaked Doug's weights slightly. Since we're dealing with a period of 10 years rather than entire careers, a player's best season gets a weight of 1, his second-best season gets a weight of 0.9, his third-best season gets a weight of 0.8, etc. This will help to prevent players who may have missed a season due to injury or were drafted later in the decade from being penalized too harshly. I also decided to mimic the All-NBA voters and not make fine distinctions at each position, so a particular team might have two power forwards rather than one small forward and one power forward.
OK, that's enough background. Here we go with the first team...
All-Decade First Team
G Kobe Bryant 88.2
G Chauncey Billups 76.1
F Dirk Nowitzki 95.4
F Tim Duncan 91.5
C Shaquille O'Neal 86.1
I have a good feeling what the two most common reactions to these results are going to be, so let me tackle them now:
Reaction #1: How can you have Chauncey Billups over Steve Nash?
Here is a comparison of their per game statistics for the decade:
Player G MP FG FGA 3P 3PA FT FTA ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS FG% 3P% FT%
Billups 712 32.5 4.7 11.2 1.7 4.4 4.4 4.9 0.5 2.6 3.1 5.9 1.0 0.2 2.0 2.1 15.6 .422 .396 .891
Nash 753 33.7 5.8 11.8 1.6 3.7 2.9 3.2 0.6 2.6 3.2 9.1 0.8 0.1 3.0 1.7 16.2 .494 .436 .905
Aside from the big advantage Nash has in assists, their per game statistics are quite similar. However, when you consider that Nash's teams never finished lower than 7th in pace factor, while Billups's teams were usually near the bottom of the league in pace, most of Billups's per game numbers are actually better than Nash's.
There's also the matter of playoff performance. Billups was on seven straight teams that reached the conference finals, a remarkable achievement. What happens if we remove playoff performance from the equation? Nash comes out ahead by the slimmest of margins, 62.0 to 61.9. However, it did not seem right to me to exclude playoff performances because (a) they do matter and (b) it would be silly to tweak the method just to reach a pre-determined result.
Reaction #2: How can you have Dirk Nowitzki over Kevin Garnett?
In my opinion, Nowitzki, although thought of highly by most people, still manages to be underrated. Consider:
* Nowitzki earned a decade-best 137.6 Win Shares during the regular season.
* Nowitzki finished fifth in the decade with 17.4 playoff Win Shares, but while Nowitzki played in only 97 playoff games, no one above him played him in fewer than 133 games.
* Nowitzki is an almost perfect blend of productivity and efficiency. Among players with at least 400 games played during the decade, he had the 15th-highest usage percentage, the 8th-lowest turnover percentage, and the 6th-highest offensive rating.
* The Mavericks have won 50 or more games nine consecutive seasons, including seasons of 60 and 67 wins after losing two-time MVP Steve Nash. The one constant during this streak? Nowitzki.
None of this is meant to slight Garnett, who I think is a great player. I just think — and this system happens to agree — that Nowitzki was a little bit greater.
Moving on to the second team...
All-Decade Second Team
G Steve Nash 70.0
G Ray Allen 66.3
F Kevin Garnett 86.8
F LeBron James 76.9
C Ben Wallace 60.8
The only surprise here might be Ray Allen, but he was named to the All-Star team nine times during the decade and he was/is a phenomenally efficient scorer, not to mention that he has also been a clutch playoff performer.
Finally, the third team...
All-Decade Third Team
G Tracy McGrady 63.4
G Jason Kidd 59.9
F Shawn Marion 72.4
F Paul Pierce 69.1
C Amare Stoudemire 54.1
Again, no big surprises, although I had to make a bit of a judgment call at center. Pau Gasol finished ahead of Stoudemire, but I think most people view Gasol as a power forward, not a center. Since Stoudemire was named to three All-NBA teams at center, I decided to go with him. Actually, Stoudemire ended up being the lowest-ranked player to make the team. Here are the players who finished ahead of Stoudemire in the rankings but were squeezed out due to positional quotas:
+------+---------------------+-------+--------+
| Rank | Player | Years | Rating |
+------+---------------------+-------+--------+
| 14 | Elton Brand | 10 | 60.7 |
| 16 | Vince Carter | 10 | 58.5 |
| 17 | Peja Stojakovic | 10 | 58.2 |
| 18 | Pau Gasol | 8 | 58.2 |
| 19 | Allen Iverson | 10 | 57.5 |
| 20 | Dwyane Wade | 6 | 54.6 |
| 21 | Manu Ginobili | 7 | 54.3 |
+------+---------------------+-------+--------+
Some people might be surprised that Dwyane Wade does not rank higher, but keep in mind that Wade only played six seasons, and in two different seasons Wade missed 31 games due to injury.
Just to recap, once again here are the All-Decade teams for the 2000s:
First Team Second Team Third Team
G Kobe Bryant 88.2 Steve Nash 70.0 Tracy McGrady 63.4
G Chauncey Billups 76.1 Ray Allen 66.3 Jason Kidd 59.9
F Dirk Nowitzki 95.4 Kevin Garnett 86.8 Shawn Marion 72.4
F Tim Duncan 91.5 LeBron James 76.9 Paul Pierce 69.1
C Shaquille O'Neal 86.1 Ben Wallace 60.8 Amare Stoudemire 54.1
In the coming weeks I'll try to do the same thing for the 1990s and 1980s. Stay tuned...
-----
Well, I personally that's a quite interesting article and of course debatable. Due to the fact of being in a Spurs-Forum I wouldn't be surprised to see some heavy Dirk bashing soon... but I'm also interested in serious discussion without blatant homerism.
Last edited by Sportstudi; 09-07-2009 at 08:48 PM.
lol Billups and Nash over Jason Kidd.
G Chris Paul
G Kobe Bryant
F LeBron James
F Tim Duncan
C Shaquille O'Neal
Nah...it's the right choice. KG only managed to get out of the first round once in his first 12 years as a pro player.Due to the fact of being in a Spurs-Forum I wouldn't be surprised to see some heavy Dirk bashing soon
I like you BB....but let's be serious.
Kidd
Kobe
James
Duncan
Shaq
I like Dirk being 1st team, but forcing him on there as a SF is kinda dumb. Just put him as 2nd team PF and push Garnett to 3rd team.
Kidd
Kobe
Pierce
Timmy
Shaq
The author wrote:
"I also decided to mimic the All-NBA voters and not make fine distinctions at each position, so a particular team might have two power forwards rather than one small forward and one power forward."
I'd take Paul over Kidd in a second. And Paul over Nash is a complete no-brainer.
Lol when I read that this guy was a Mavericks fan I knew that Nowitzki was going to make the team. Mavs fans are predictable.
PG-Kidd
SG-Bryant
SF-James
PF-Duncan
SF-O'neal
You could also make a case for Garnett instead of Lebron and Wade instead of Kidd.
I'd also take Paul over Kidd and Nash right now, but he has had a short career in the NBA. You can't put him in an "All-decade" team yet.
All-decade to me means the best player at the position at a reasonably long interval of time in the decade, not the best player over the entire span. I'd take Paul now over both Nash and Kidd in their primes... in a second.
God, how I hate those teams. It's the same with the all-star teams where players are forced in different positions than they really play. Trying to fit Dirk as SF just for the sake of him being on the team is wrong.
I'm sure if you wrote this article, you'd find a way to put Manu on the team cu he won some minor league les.
Oberto the best passing big man.
+1
a 7 Foot SF?
never seen that before!
I like the Billups pick, but Kidd is the PG of the decade.
That's the problem with all the players playing interchangeable positions. Teams list them just as Guards, Forwards or Centers and do not specify the position they really play. If by miracle a SF would join the league who would surpass LeBron on this position he would still be a starter in the Allstar Game at the second Forward spot.
This procedure prohibits that players like Dirk, Duncan, Kobe, LeBron, Wade and other superstars are left out of the ASG and All NBA teams.
first team:
G Chauncey Billups
G Kobe Bryant
F Kevin Garnett
F Tim Duncan
C Shaquille O'Neal
Second Team:
G Jason Kidd
G Dwyane Wade
F LeBron James
F Dirk Nowitzki
C Amare Stoudemire
third team:
Steve Nash
Tracy McGrady
Paul Pierce
Pau Gasol
Ben Wallace
fourth team:
Tony Parker
Manu Ginóbili
Carmelo Anthony
Rasheed Wallace
Dwight Howard
fifth team:
Chris Paul
Ray Allen
Vince Carter
Jermaine O'Neal
Yao Ming
Last edited by kobyz; 09-08-2009 at 07:13 AM.
Sorry, but either you are not able to read carefully or you didn't even read the whole article. I just found the article on basketball-reference and put it here. Can you tell me where I stated that I put Nowitzki in there??? Can you tell me where the author stated that he's a Mavericks-fan? Probably you just saw my favourite team and thought "well, typical choice of a Mavs-fan, let's bash him". That's nothing but stupid. Try to read it more carefully before writing crap again. Thanks.
Additionally, the author stated this: "I also decided to mimic the All-NBA voters and not make fine distinctions at each position, so a particular team might have two power forwards rather than one small forward and one power forward." That is why you can have two PF's in one team instead of one PF and one SF.
Last edited by Sportstudi; 09-08-2009 at 06:53 AM.
i take billups over kidd also, dude is fkn overrated....i dont give a if you post triple doubles if you dont get the win...
Same for you what I tried to explain to Mono as well as to DAF86. The guy who wrote that article (and it wasn't me) already explained that he decided to pick for instance two PF's instead of the the normal allocation of PF and SF.
Seriously, it seems that some people here are thinking that I'm the author and I put Dirk there only because he's a Mav. Sorry, but that's bull . I just put that article here, because I didn't find it on the board.
Yeah I didn't read the whole thing, my apologies to you.
Now the guy that wrote that article is either a Mavs fan, German or stupid, no way Nowitzki makes the All-NBA team of the 2000 decade.
lol MavsI'm sure if you wrote this article, you'd find a way to put Manu on the team cu he won some minor league les.
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