Dream Haters: The Best NBA Center in my Students’ Lifetime

abigwreck · Sep 9, 2008

The writer has a dedicated section on why he believes hakeem is < Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, and Duncan. He basis his analysis solely off of win score. Just reading that paragraph makes me not want to read the rest.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/the-best-nba-center-in-my-student’s-life/

The Best NBA Center in my Students’ Lifetime
September 7, 2008 · 67 Comments

My students this semester look to be about twenty years old. This means that they were born in the late-1980s, or sometime around the time when I was a college student (and yes — as I rapidly approach forty — that makes you feel a bit old).

After writing my last post - comparing Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing (the latest Hall-of-Fame centers) - I started to wonder: Who is the best center in the lives of my students?

If start the clock sometimes in the eighties we have a few candidates. But I think two stand above all others.

The first center I am thinking of has the following characteristics:

* More than $250 million in career earnings
* Nine times named to the first team All-NBA team
* One MVP award
* Four times played for the NBA champion

These same characteristics were as follows for the second center:

* About $118 million in career earnings
* Four times named to the first team All-NBA team
* One MVP award
* Twice played for the NBA champion

When we look at salaries, awards, and championships, it’s pretty clear the first center is number one. But when we look at the Wages of Wins metrics. a different story is told.

Admiral vs. Shaq

Table One: Comparing the Career Averages of Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson

Table One compares the career averages - across the box score statistics and Win Score - for Shaquille O’Neal (center #1) and David Robinson (center #2). When we look at the individual stats, we see that Shaq offered more in terms of shooting efficiency from the field, points scored, rebounds, and assists. The Admiral had the advantage in free throw shooting, steals, turnovers, blocked shots, and personal fouls. When we put the whole picture together - via Win Score - we see that Robinson comes out ahead.

How does this difference translate into wins?

Table Two: Comparing the Career Performances of David Robinson and Shaquille O’Neal

Table Two compares each player in terms of Wins Produced and WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]. Through the 2007-08 season, Shaq had played 3,401 more minutes in his career. Consequently, the Wins Produced story is quite similar (each produced a bit more than 250 wins in his career).

When we turn to WP48, though, we see that Robinson has posted the better mark. How much better? Had Shaq’s WP48 been equivalent to the Admiral’s, he would have produced 31.4 additional wins in his career.

And by making one change to his game, Shaq could have achieved this production level. For his career Shaq has hit 52% of his free throws. In contrast, Robinson connected on 74% of his shots from the line. Has Shaq matched Robinson’s efficiency from the line, he would have produced 32.9 additional wins in his career and posted a 0.365 career WP48. Robinson’s career mark was 0.363, so we see that Shaq’s inconsistency at the charity stripe could be considered the one factor that held him back.

Perceptions of Robinson

Although Shaq was less productive, it’s still the case that he has been paid more and received more awards. Part of the difference in pay can be attributed to Shaq playing in more recent years and generally playing in a larger market. The awards, though, are probably a different story.

Table Two not only reports the performance of Robinson and O’Neal, but also the average performance of their teammates (or everyone else on the team not named The Admiral or Shaq). To give some perspective to these numbers, in 2007-08 the average WP48 of the teammates (or non-stars) on an NBA team was 0.076. In Shaq’s first two years - and in Miami in the first part of 2007-08 - his teammates were below average. In every other season, though, O’Neal was able to play with above average teammates. In fact in nine seasons his teammates WP48 surpassed the 0.100 mark.

Above average teammates was also the norm for Robinson, but only after Tim Duncan arrived in 1997. Prior to Duncan’s arrival, Robinson’s teammates posted an average WP48 of 0.076. In other words, unlike Shaq, for much of his career Robinson did not have an exceptional team around him. As a consequence, Robinson’s teams did not win as often as the team’s employing Shaq. And one suspects - like we saw with Kevin Garnett before he arrived in Boston - the failings of Robinson’s teammates dimmed the perceptions of the Admiral’s performance.

As I have noted in the past, the purpose of player statistics is to separate a player from his teammates. In other words, the analysis of player statistics should prevent us from confusing the performance of the team from the performance of the player. And when we look at all the stats - including Shaq’s woeful performance at the line - it appears that despite the edge in championships, awards, and money, Shaq is not quite as productive as The Admiral.

Okay, the Admiral tops Shaq. But across the last twenty years, is Robinson even the best Spur? To answer this question, let’s look back at Table One, where the career statistical averages of Duncan are also reported. As one can see, Robinson offered more in his career. If we turn to Wins Produced we see that Duncan has produced 211.9 wins in 30,610 career minutes. This works out to a WP48 of 0.332. This is about what Shaq has done across his entire career, although we have to remember that Shaq’s career numbers are deflated by his last two seasons. If Duncan insists on playing until the bitter end, his career numbers will also take a hit.

What about The Dream?

What about the subjects of the last post, Olajuwon and Ewing? Ewing - who was still very good - offered less than Olajuwon, Shaq, Duncan, and Robinson. When we look at Olajuwon, though, we see that he produced 272.1 career wins. This mark bests the other four players we considered. But Olajuwon played nearly 10,000 more minutes in his career than Robinson. If we turn to WP48, we see that Robinson’s career mark of 0.363 easily tops Olajuwon’s mark of 0.295.

Of course, some might notice that Robinson didn’t keep playing until his productivity descended into the average range. In other words, had Robinson - like Shaq and Olajuwon - played until he couldn’t play anymore, perhaps the Admiral’s career numbers would be lower. Although this might be true, we should also note that Robinson not only was better across his career, he was better at the peak of his career as well. To see this point consider how many times each of these players surpassed a WP48 of 0.400 or 0.0300:

* Robinson: +0.400 in three season, +0.300 in 11 seasons
* O’Neal: +0.400 in one season, +0.300 in 12 seasons
* Olajuwon: +0.400 in one season, +0.300 in 9 seasons
* Duncan: never surpassed 0.400, +0.300 in 8 seasons
* Ewing: never surpassed 0.300 or 0.400

This list reveals that Robinson, at his peak, surpassed the performance of any of the other centers we considered. And that includes Olajuwon.

Let me close by considering an argument people often offer in evaluating basketball players. Often when considering whether player A is better than player B, people look at how the two players performed against each other. Although this approach might work in a sport like boxing or tennis, it’s not appropriate in basketball. Basketball is a five-on-five sport. What matters is how a player contributes to his team’s success, not how he performs relative to one person on another team. And when we consider each player’s contribution to team success, it looks like The Admiral was the most productive center in the NBA since the 1980s.

- DJ
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tinman · Sep 9, 2008

abigwreck said:

The writer has a dedicated section on why he believes hakeem is < Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, and Duncan. He basis his analysis solely off of win score. Just reading that paragraph makes me not want to read the
Click to expand...

Thanks,
Again proof that the Rockets and our greatest player Dream was hated.
Yes putting Ewing and Robinson as better than Hakeem is nothing more than just an insult, you know everybody knew what happened head-to-head in the biggest stage.

See newbie Rocket fans, how much hate we had? it still lingers years after. So when you see an article about LeBron James free throw shooting and Yao mentioned in a sentence, that's not really disrespect.

saleem · Sep 9, 2008

Complete BS! The Admiral couldn't even beat Malone and Stockton after Dream's decline. He wouldn't have won a Championship without Duncan. He was a role player when Tim arrived.

langal · Sep 9, 2008

Disagree.

While basketball is a team game, there is a huge emphasis on one-on-one matchups.

While comparing Hakeem to Duncan is not really fair (age/position differences), Hakeem pretty much dominated Robinson and Shaq in the playoffs and finals. Those wins trump any regular season wins.

A00man · Sep 9, 2008

"This list reveals that Robinson, at his peak, surpassed the performance of any of the other centers we considered. And that includes Olajuwon."

David's peak, meaning the year he got MVP... Yup this genius list certainly tells us that Robinson was better than Hakeem that year...

SamFisher · Sep 9, 2008

I remeber looking it up once before and while Robinson's regular season PER's were definitley higher than Olajuwons obviously when the playoffs were on and they were matched head to head it was pretty apparent who was the real deal and who wasn't. Such stats are good at separating the good from the bad but when you get to the margins and trying to divide the levels of greatness it's not nearly as useful.

tinman · Sep 9, 2008

This is proof that people who never watch basketball use statistics to make them seem knowledgeable.

As you know, people here do that all the time, and people who do that shouldn't get paid to make articles. People who actually watch and experience the NBA are the more knowledgeable.

This reminds of when we got Juwan Howard and pretty much like 80% was on my case cause I kept telling them he sucked and won't average 17 points a game on this team.

where are you guys hiding now? in a cave in Kandahar?

Also a note, David Robinson was the MVP that year and Rodman averaged 17 rebounds a game. And they still couldn't stop Dream.

Junkyard Dog · Sep 9, 2008

Another thing that I noticed that the writer forgot to put into his equation was team schedules. IMO, schedules have a lot more to do with the win/loss catgories than we tend remember (especially when looking who has a higher win percentage). The Rockets almost every season that i can remember always had the back-to-back games against more +.500 teams than any other team in the NBA. In other words we almost always had the hardest shedule in the league. His formula for figuring out what he figured out might be correct, but the Rockets have almost always recieved the crappiest schedule therefore contributing to negative WP48% for Hakeem Olajuwon.

Hakeem is, in the words of Calvin Murphy, "the Greatest of ALL TIIIIIIME!"

I saw the man, with my own two eyes, disown every center/team in the league. No-one will ever be able to convince me anything different.

~fin~

pmac · Sep 9, 2008

tinman said:

This is proof that people who never watch basketball use statistics to make them seem knowledgeable.

As you know, people here do that all the time, and people who do that shouldn't get paid to make articles. People who actually watch and experience the NBA are the more knowledgeable.

This reminds of when we got Juwan Howard and pretty much like 80% was on my case cause I kept telling them he sucked and won't average 17 points a game on this team.

where are you guys hiding now? in a cave in Kandahar?

Also a note, David Robinson was the MVP that year and Rodman averaged 17 rebounds a game. And they still couldn't stop Dream.
Click to expand...

Music to my ears...or...art to my eyes

Anyway, i've been saying this about basketball for the longest. You can bring up some stats about anyone and make it seem as though they are better/worse than what they really are. Please.

I DON'T WATCH STATS I WATCH THE GAME.

...and Olajuwon won 2 championships w/o Tim Duncan.

Silly posters think i'm worried about a statline, i show more purpose than you're whole post in one line. Victory.

baller4life315 · Sep 9, 2008

I love how this idiot tries to give his own argument merit by acting as if his teaching position gives him some kind of unique authority to make stupid arguments.

Nobody with general basketball knowledge or that actually followed their careers closely would say Ewing or Robinson were better than Dream. It's just not possible.

Not only is this crap an insult to Dream it's also an insult of the two best big men of this generation: Shaq and Duncan.

Try again?

BoomShakalaka · Sep 9, 2008

It doesn't bother me cus I can tell he doesn't have at least 2% of the basketball ball knowledge as an average bball fan.

JayZ750 · Sep 9, 2008

SamFisher said:

I remeber looking it up once before and while Robinson's regular season PER's were definitley higher than Olajuwons obviously when the playoffs were on and they were matched head to head it was pretty apparent who was the real deal and who wasn't. Such stats are good at separating the good from the bad but when you get to the margins and trying to divide the levels of greatness it's not nearly as useful.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Plus, you have to consider that PER and Win-Score both are just one person's/group's interpretation of the stats. Stats like point per game, total rebounds, fouls, whatever, are hard and fast. They actually happened, and won't change. PER and Win-Score take those stats, apply multipliers, formulas, etc. that, while not random, aren't themselves actually representative of something a player specifically did (i.e. - scored 10 points).

There was an article before the draft about trying to predict the success of college players based on win-scores. It went back and looked at how that prediction did in the 07 draft. I think the top 3 predicted players were Nick Fazekas and a couple of other bums who won't amount to anything.

Not trying to downplay Robinson's career. In Spurs' fans defense, he probably is a bit underrated overall by the general basketball public. But he is not in Hakeem and Shaq's class.

Hakeem, Shaq, Kareem, Russell, Wilt - in no particular order, are your top 5 greatest centers of all time.

plutoblue11 · Sep 9, 2008

abigwreck said:

The writer has a dedicated section on why he believes hakeem is < Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, and Duncan. He basis his analysis solely off of win score. Just reading that paragraph makes me not want to read the rest.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/the-best-nba-center-in-my-student’s-life/
Click to expand...

When he tried to prove David Robinson was better than Olajuwon, I stop reading.

H-Town Forever · Sep 9, 2008

you know im so sick and tired of this crap. let people say and write whatever they want. those of us here who witnessed greatness and domination in the mid 90's know EXACTLY what went down. i will never forget those days for the rest of my life.

Desert Scar · Sep 9, 2008

You know if he said "Best Regular Season Center" he would be very accurate. But it was the playoffs where "the Admiral" became "The Little Mermaid".

Whereas just about every key stat for Hakeem is enhanced in the playoffs, the opposite happened with TLM.

durvasa · Sep 9, 2008

The boxscore has always favored Robinson, at least in the regular season. Nothing particularly new or controversial about this article.

kaitanuva · Sep 9, 2008

You do not read it to believe it, you SEE IT to believe it. This douchebag obviously haven't seen The Dream play. He has yet to indulge the greatness of the legendary Dream.

plutoblue11 · Sep 9, 2008

Dream's 2 Finals MVP vs. Robinson's Zero

defeated Ewing, Shaq (who was averaging 29 ppg and was dominant), cheap shot Jazz with Malone & Co, the Mighty Suns, and even Admiral himself.

Somebody should recommend the 93-95 NBA playoffs to him, and maybe 85-86, while you are at it.

Desert Scar · Sep 9, 2008

kaitanuva said:

You do not read it to believe it, you SEE IT to believe it. This douchebag obviously haven't seen The Dream play. He has yet to indulge the greatness of the legendary Dream.
Click to expand...

You guys are missing the point (Durvasa didn't). All these stats are based primarily or entirely on the regular season. If that is what you care about, you can say with a strait face "TLM was the most productive regular season NBA center in the last 25 years".

Now if you happen to include winning championships, the degree one player carried a team far in the playoffs, playoff MVPs, and such, nobody in there right mind thinks TLM was the best. Heck, he isn't even the best center to play on his own team once the 2nd season came around, and TD even at his peak was no Dream either.

OddsOn · Sep 9, 2008

"I don't even know how I can say it with a straight face, but I thought most of the time I defended him pretty well. The man just played as well as I have seen anybody play in a long time."

Signed
David Robinson

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