Post by eric on Feb 7, 2022 21:23:11 GMT -5
1913 players have played their entire careers from no earlier than 1997 to no later than 2021.
So what?
Sew buttons.
So the National Basketball Association has been tracking plus minus since 1997, which is just the points your team scores minus the points the other team scores, and since the point of points is to have more points, to put it pointedly,
But what if you're a bum on a great team? Then you might be Russell Westbrook.
No but seriously folks, then you can subtract the team's plus minus when you're not playing from the team's plus minus when you are, and this "on/off" calculation can control for that to some degree, but it turns out that degree is pretty slight because the results are comically noisy, with error bars around ±10(!!!) over a full season. To descend briefly into technical jargon, on/off ain't worth a velvet painting of a whale and dolphin gettin' it on at 95% confidence.
But what about over a full career?
.
The leader in that case is the great Jerrelle Benimon, who took the court against the high flying 2015 Knicks that had already won 12 games by March of that season and sparked an immediate 6-0 run over two minutes, giving the Jazz a lead they wouldn't relinquish after they'd also played the second half. The Jazzers next game came against the three headed Houston monster of James Harden, Corey Brewer, and Josh Smith, and my God was that an intentionally constructed team or was Daryl Morey just kind of using the force? Anyway the magic was gone, as over an eternity of 23 seconds the Jazz did not score a single basket, and Benimon was soon off the team entirely. When confronted on why he never deployed the ultimate weapon again, head coach Jerry Sloan responded "I wasn't the coach of the Jazz then you marzipaning coelacanth!!" When informed those aren't actually curse words he offered only a terse apology and hung up politely.
So we should probably slap a minutes played bar on there (count your blessings Jason Miskiri), let's go with 3000 MP since that's a round number very close to a galactic standard season, and the top five then are
Pretty good list, career on/off. Good effort. It's worth noting that even though LeBron James has been past his prime for years, even through year twelve which is (somehow) where Steph Curry is in his career, the King was only at +12 too, so even though we expect some slippage from Curry it's not like he'll drop all the way to a barely top 10% (not top 10) of all the players in only the last twenty some odd years. It would take one pathetic loser to be at that level, so let's look at current Hall of Famers to play their entire career in this epoch:
.
Now, overall is fun, but we can also look at just offensive on/off. Since we're only looking at half the ball let's bump up the MP requirement to 6000 for a total sample of 602 players. Are you ready for a shock? It's shocking.
Trae Young being an offensive great already is pretty good! Unfortunately he is 602th out of these 602 players in defensive on/off.
Dead last.
"That hater Eric, he probably picked the range just to mess with Trae! What a hater!"
Except Young is also 804th out of the 804 players with 3000+ MP.
And 918th out of the 918 players with 2000+ MP.
And 1,112th out of the 1,112 players with 1000+ MP.
But he's 1,278th out of the 1,284 players with 500+ MP!
By that metric he's among the best 99.5% of defenders of the past thirty years!
Almost!
Anyway let's look at the best defenders.
.
.
So overall is all well and good (and over!!!)
(I said, AND OVER!!!)
Cricket: :crickets:
but what about consistency? Huh? What about showing up year in year out and putting a shift in for the club? How many players have made their team better every single year of their career?
153 did it one season, from the GOAT Jerrelle Benimon to Nigel Williams-Gossy baby of Anaheim.
46 did the double.
15 the treble.
8 quaternians, including Lonzo Ball.
5 by five, including (here's that name again) Joel Embiid.
3 sixers including Ben Simmons HAHAHA YEAH RIGHT
Pennsylvania's Big Ben is a brisk 2 of 4 at having positive on/off when he plays, but to be fair he's at a cool 1 of 1 when he doesn't.
3 more with eight seasons including the currently unemployed Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
Damian Lillard has made his team better all nine years of his career, which sounds better until you remember they've averaged 46 wins a year, been out of the first round three crummy times, and won a total of zero (0) Conference Finals games. But still.
Jimmy "James" Butler has made his team better all ten years of his career, and when you remember he was on four different teams in four years and every single one of those years is still the high water mark of every single one of those teams, that's pretty astonishing.
Blake Griffin has made his team better all eleven years of his career, and I'm gonna be honest folks when I found that out I almost threw the whole article in the trash, but he's at negative this year so let's hope that keeps up.
Nobody at twelve years.
Nobody at thirteen.
Nobody at fourteen.
Not fifteen.
Not sixteen.
Not seventeen.
EIGHTEEN YEARS!
LEBRON JAMES!
And he's doing it again this year!
So what?
Sew buttons.
So the National Basketball Association has been tracking plus minus since 1997, which is just the points your team scores minus the points the other team scores, and since the point of points is to have more points, to put it pointedly,
But what if you're a bum on a great team? Then you might be Russell Westbrook.
No but seriously folks, then you can subtract the team's plus minus when you're not playing from the team's plus minus when you are, and this "on/off" calculation can control for that to some degree, but it turns out that degree is pretty slight because the results are comically noisy, with error bars around ±10(!!!) over a full season. To descend briefly into technical jargon, on/off ain't worth a velvet painting of a whale and dolphin gettin' it on at 95% confidence.
But what about over a full career?
.
The leader in that case is the great Jerrelle Benimon, who took the court against the high flying 2015 Knicks that had already won 12 games by March of that season and sparked an immediate 6-0 run over two minutes, giving the Jazz a lead they wouldn't relinquish after they'd also played the second half. The Jazzers next game came against the three headed Houston monster of James Harden, Corey Brewer, and Josh Smith, and my God was that an intentionally constructed team or was Daryl Morey just kind of using the force? Anyway the magic was gone, as over an eternity of 23 seconds the Jazz did not score a single basket, and Benimon was soon off the team entirely. When confronted on why he never deployed the ultimate weapon again, head coach Jerry Sloan responded "I wasn't the coach of the Jazz then you marzipaning coelacanth!!" When informed those aren't actually curse words he offered only a terse apology and hung up politely.
So we should probably slap a minutes played bar on there (count your blessings Jason Miskiri), let's go with 3000 MP since that's a round number very close to a galactic standard season, and the top five then are
on/off name
12 Stephen Curry
11 LeBron James
10 Joel Embiid
10 Chris Paul
10 Draymond GreenPretty good list, career on/off. Good effort. It's worth noting that even though LeBron James has been past his prime for years, even through year twelve which is (somehow) where Steph Curry is in his career, the King was only at +12 too, so even though we expect some slippage from Curry it's not like he'll drop all the way to a barely top 10% (not top 10) of all the players in only the last twenty some odd years. It would take one pathetic loser to be at that level, so let's look at current Hall of Famers to play their entire career in this epoch:
rank on/off name
8 8 Tim Duncan
19 7 Steve Nash
25 7 Paul Pierce
40 6 Chris Bosh
49 5 Tracy McGrady
63 5 Ray Allen
68 5 Ben Wallace
74 5 Kobe Bryant
134 3 Yao Ming
136 3 Allen Iverson.
Now, overall is fun, but we can also look at just offensive on/off. Since we're only looking at half the ball let's bump up the MP requirement to 6000 for a total sample of 602 players. Are you ready for a shock? It's shocking.
off on off name
11 Stephen Curry
11 Trae Young
10 LeBron James
10 Chris Paul
9 Karl-Anthony TownsTrae Young being an offensive great already is pretty good! Unfortunately he is 602th out of these 602 players in defensive on/off.
Dead last.
"That hater Eric, he probably picked the range just to mess with Trae! What a hater!"
Except Young is also 804th out of the 804 players with 3000+ MP.
And 918th out of the 918 players with 2000+ MP.
And 1,112th out of the 1,112 players with 1000+ MP.
But he's 1,278th out of the 1,284 players with 500+ MP!
By that metric he's among the best 99.5% of defenders of the past thirty years!
Almost!
Anyway let's look at the best defenders.
def on off name
-7 Rudy Gobert
-6 Jason Collins
-5 Ryan Bowen
-5 Andre Roberson
-5 Joel Embiid.
.
So overall is all well and good (and over!!!)
(I said, AND OVER!!!)
Cricket: :crickets:
but what about consistency? Huh? What about showing up year in year out and putting a shift in for the club? How many players have made their team better every single year of their career?
153 did it one season, from the GOAT Jerrelle Benimon to Nigel Williams-Gossy baby of Anaheim.
46 did the double.
15 the treble.
8 quaternians, including Lonzo Ball.
5 by five, including (here's that name again) Joel Embiid.
3 sixers including Ben Simmons HAHAHA YEAH RIGHT
Pennsylvania's Big Ben is a brisk 2 of 4 at having positive on/off when he plays, but to be fair he's at a cool 1 of 1 when he doesn't.
3 more with eight seasons including the currently unemployed Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
Damian Lillard has made his team better all nine years of his career, which sounds better until you remember they've averaged 46 wins a year, been out of the first round three crummy times, and won a total of zero (0) Conference Finals games. But still.
Jimmy "James" Butler has made his team better all ten years of his career, and when you remember he was on four different teams in four years and every single one of those years is still the high water mark of every single one of those teams, that's pretty astonishing.
Blake Griffin has made his team better all eleven years of his career, and I'm gonna be honest folks when I found that out I almost threw the whole article in the trash, but he's at negative this year so let's hope that keeps up.
Nobody at twelve years.
Nobody at thirteen.
Nobody at fourteen.
Not fifteen.
Not sixteen.
Not seventeen.
EIGHTEEN YEARS!
LEBRON JAMES!
And he's doing it again this year!
